The world today moves so fast that it is impossible to catch up with all the changes. Technology and communication are rushing, burying us under a never-ending wave of self-consuming indulgence. We have an abundance of options in every possible direction that our ancestors could not even dream of. The luxuries have become necessities, and we are swimming in opportunities we can’t even appreciate. But why, in a world where everything feels possible, does so little feel meaningful? All of this is a recent development, the result of trying to make life easier and go down the path of least resistance. It does make sense, because for the most part of human history, life was incredibly hard, and in some parts of the world it still needs to get a little easier, but in the West it has definitely come to a point where the lack of real hardship has made people weak.
The unhinged consumerism spills into every aspect of our lives. There is Tinder for relationships, Amazon delivers you any kind of product you might possibly want, and there is YouTube where you can find any information about any topic. For the first time in history, we have such an abundance of information that we actually need to learn to say no to things, and develop the capacity to stop the stream of data in order to actually make sense of anything at all.
When everything is available, it feels disposable, but at the same time there is a prevalent sense of FOMO: fear of missing out. How can you stay with the same partner if there might be someone better out there? How can you stick to a practice if there is something more interesting that you haven’t yet tried? How can you stick to a teacher if there are so many options? In a world overfilled with noise, making a choice and sticking to it becomes almost impossible. But it is the only way to go deep, and the only way to reach wisdom.
If you are unable to choose and follow through, it means that you are governed by the lowest parts of yourself. Momentary desires and whims pull you in every direction except for the one you would like to go. This overabundance of choice brings emptiness because having an infinite amount of possibilities is actually very detrimental to our psyche. American psychologist Barry Schwartz talks about a concept that he calls the “Paradox of Choice,” where having more options can lead to less satisfaction with life and higher anxiety. He has noticed that when presented with too many choices, the mind stalls and is unable to make any decision at all, fearing the cost of making a wrong one. This leads to existential doubts, and people become paralyzed by all the options, so they end up going nowhere or simply end up going so wide that any depth becomes impossible, which might feel exciting at the moment, but leaves you empty in the long run. When everything is possible, nothing is meaningful. It leads to nihilism, and complete immersion in a hedonistic lifestyle.
Depth, on the other hand, requires focus and commitment. But in order to go deep, you have to take firm decisions and limit yourself. It is not easy in this ocean of choice, but definitely possible. The good news is – this is how things were done since the dawn of time, so you are probably capable of doing it, too. In the current environment it becomes much harder, but on the other hand, it makes it so much more rare, thus so much more valuable.
All the innovation and creative work is fueled by constraints. Limitations force you to see unexplored potential inside things, leading to originality. When you are given a riddle and you are able to find a solution by yourself, even if it was already found before you, this discovery will be forever yours and it will enrich your life as compared to something that is copy-pasted. This invites a very different type of learning – not when someone gives you an end result, but when you went through the process of getting there yourself which means you had a chance to evolve through it. At the end of the day, all the greatest creatives find their best work within the limitations: musicians are improvising within a specific key, writers develop a style by committing to a theme, and painters create incredible work by restricting colour palettes. In the case of movement practice, the work of art is yourself.
With this abundance of choices, we have forgotten one simple thing – in order to achieve excellence, you have to repeat the same thing over and over again, and you have to do it with enthusiasm. When you constantly hop from one thing to another, you will never go far. This mode of living has created a misconception around movement practice as well, where the generalist approach is misunderstood as jumping from discipline to discipline and it becomes a watered-down, never-ending race to try yet another thing. It is a shallow view on something that has a potential for incredible depth.
In the name of ‘freedom,’ many escape the hard, repetitive work that real development demands. But without constraints, generalism becomes just another form of avoidance. It becomes an act of collecting drills and different teachers, taking workshop after workshop, jumping from one concept to another every single day. But this is not learning, nor is it true development: this is entertainment. Basing your studies on YouTube tutorials will not take you very far. You can learn a trick here and there, but without a process it becomes meaningless. One reason for that is that you won’t be getting any feedback or structure, and another is that you will try to fit into someone else’s way of moving instead of understanding your own body with its strengths and limitations. The technical approach to training has its place and time, but when it is misplaced and does not follow any coherent process, it is not going to create a profound change, which is what a movement practice is supposed to do.
Another downside of this collector’s approach is certain arrogance in assuming that you can understand years of someone’s work in just one exposure, and also the delusion that everything is equally valid. Most people in social networks are just regurgitating information they have seen somewhere else, without really working on it or understanding it. It is just a meaningless repetition of the words and actions you had no chance to test for yourself. How can you know that something works, or how it can be applied, if you have never actually tried it? Most of the things that are put out there for free access, as Ido Portal says, are “rumours of the rumours of the rumours”. Informational field is the children’s game of broken phone.
Today’s technological landscape makes it very easy to deceive the audience: perfectly curated clips can make you believe that someone has a skill, scripted speeches can make you believe that there is understanding, and of course, ChatGPT can write very philosophical reflections that are easily mistaken for wisdom. But there are few people who truly speak from the depth of their experience and share genuine knowledge. In real life, everyone recognizes the difference, but we have not been able to catch up with this phenomenon online. When you do find someone like this in person, it becomes obvious they have built their understanding by years of practice, refining their ideas and processes. So how can you assume that a single exposure makes you understand any of it? The setting of a workshop is a nice experience, but they are not meant to be repeated the next day, they are meant to show you an example of what is possible so you can apply it in your own practice. It is like reading a summary of a book by someone who has written his thoughts on the thoughts of the analysis of someone’s work, instead of just reading the original.
Charlatans always existed, it is not a new phenomenon, but in modern times, the propagation of opinions of people who have no skin in the game is much more simple. The “market of ideas” becomes a literal place of selling everything to anyone with a bidding price. However, those who realize how real understanding and mastery come about will still follow the old-school process. They will stick to a teacher, and a practice, and through commitment will build themselves up in a way that has been done for centuries. As the saying goes: “You can trick the fans, but not the players,” and those who are deep into this process will recognize each other from afar, regardless of the specifics of their craft.
The overabundance of information makes it harder and harder to find real wisdom, but it is out there, and it can be attained. All traditional cultures understood the importance of apprenticeship and there are people who still work in the “old ways”. Japan is a good example. It is a country that still retains the traditional way of passing knowledge in many fields. In order to become a sushi master, for instance, you can look at at least 10 years of study ahead. At the beginning, an apprentice focuses on mundane tasks like cleaning, dishwashing, etc. The next step is learning how to cook sushi rice, which is considered a foundation skill in this profession. As they get proficient, they will start participating in more complex tasks like preparing other cooking ingredients and handling fish, but getting to this point will take 5 to 8 years at least. Only after about a decade might they receive recognition from their master and be allowed to do sushi and later on open their own shop. There is no certification process, the title is earned through experience and reputation, and the masters of sushi are constantly continuing their education and improving their skills. And here we are talking about fish on rice, why do we assume that anything can be done in a different way?
This is the way most professions have been learned for the entire course of human civilization, but somehow this is something that was lost on us. We think we are better just because we have access to information. But information is not knowledge. Having knowledge means you understand how to apply it. The monetization of certification courses for literally everything makes people believe that if they pay for a diploma, they are already fit to do the job. The commodification of knowledge has confused payment with competence. But mastery cannot be bought, it must be developed through experience.
When it comes to physicality, collecting exercises and disciplines does not make you understand human movement. It makes you memorize certain techniques that likely will not even fit your own frame. And, as I mentioned before, there is nothing wrong with the techniques, but only relying on technical approach will not make you a master of movement. True change will only come through applying a different learning process, where self-knowledge is promoted, and where you are constantly challenged and tested. An important element of it, as I mentioned before, is putting constraints. It will serve as a scaffolding with which you can build yourself up. The right process combines both technical and open approaches, and a good teacher needs to understand the dosages and the applications. It is also about bringing the student’s attention to the right place at the right time. When you are truly in the practice, the chase is not after another new and exciting thing, but about finding curiosity in every little detail of what you are already doing. It is about observing what is there through being deliberate with your attention.
It is hard to imagine anyone who is dedicated to a craft constantly jumping from one thing to another: they stick to what they need to do and improve it every day. We understand the necessity of long-term commitment to learning in other fields, but for whatever reason we do not apply it to human movement and development. There is a clear understanding that you need to study at least 10 years to become a doctor, but for some reason we do not treat it the same in the context of physical practice, which makes little sense.
In the constant bombardment of options, making a choice is not easy, but as soon as it is done, life reveals itself in a different way. It invites depth and meaning. It is true in every aspect of our lives: it is one of those universal truths that everyone recognizes, but doesn’t say out loud, at least not in their actions. People prefer to lie to themselves and replace commitment with hopping through endless choices, without realizing that past a certain point all of them become the same. I remember meeting someone who was a big womanizer, he confessed to me that after sleeping with hundreds of women he wasn’t able to remember their names or faces, and he could not even enjoy it any more, but he could not stop either because of the momentum these fleeting pleasures gain when you pursue them. He convinced himself he was free, but paradoxically he was also able to see his own misery, which made him extremely conflicted inside.
There is only an illusion of freedom in chasing every single option that presents itself: true freedom is in having a choice and in ability to stick to it. Because this way you will be moving in a direction that you want to go, and not that circumstances dictate. I do not believe that someone sweeping through Tinder profiles endlessly is happier than someone who is in a committed relationship. It is impossible to have meaningful friendships if everyone is your friend, and it is impossible to get real support from a teacher if you do not develop a long-lasting and profound connection through which they also get to know you.
I wish for people to be fulfilled in life, this is why I push this message. And I feel like in today’s world it is needed more than ever. Chasing happiness for the sake of it is not a good orientation, you cannot “feel good” all the time; it becomes meaningless. True happiness is not an emotion: it is a state of being when you know that you are in the right place and you are bringing something of value to the world. Not for the sake of external recognition, but because you are in the process of becoming. We forgot that freedom without commitment is empty. In the chase for liberation, we put ourselves in an even worse prison, where the illusion of choice makes us lose our essence. When you choose to stay and do one thing, you open yourself to the possibility of glimpsing the whole universe. “As above, so below.” But understanding this only comes through commitment to a different way of being. You don’t need more options, you need to learn to appreciate the choices you have already made.