Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Teacher:
The old saying goes, “Knowledge is power.” Feelings are not power.
Feelings are those tender little things that get hurt and cause people
to act in ways that a rational person would not.
For me, I would take this line a step further. Instead of “Do not, under
any circumstances depend on a partial feeling,” I would go with, “Do
not, under any circumstances depend on feelings.”
The argument could be made that this would cause people to ignore
wiser instincts. But if I were to give this advice in modern times, then
I would scrap Musashi’s line in favor of the one I just offered.
Feelings are something that come and go. They change, often quite
rapidly. Feelings tie to emotions, and emotion-based decision
making is the first step to making a mistake.
I see the Musashi line as being bad advice because of the way that
people in our time seem to spend most of their time in a highly
charged emotional state. This is evidenced in the all too true joke

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about “every action having an equal and opposite reaction, and a
social media overreaction.” People will take a bus to a different city
and loot and kill over baseless lies told on the internet. None of them
are acting on a partial feeling; they are acting on complete feeling…
without one bit of rational thinking being done. If this precept from
Musashi were to be taught today, it would be a disaster in the
justification people would find in some of their asinine behavior.
Looking into context, there is a need for certainty when taking action
in a life-or-death situation. You have to be sure what you are reacting
to and you had better have the right information. But again, this is
not going to be something based on emotion so much as instinct. It
is something that takes place in the survival centers of the brain. In
the self-defense industry we call this part of the brain the lizard brain.
Have you ever known a lizard to get emotional?
Me neither.
Hence the term…
The survival centers of the brain act with the knowledge and
experience they have. Make no mistake, the lizard brain can and
does get it wrong and people can and do die from these mistakes.
But this part of the brain is without emotion. The monkey is the part
of the brain that acts on the impulse of emotion, not the lizard.
Emotion and feelings cloud judgment, and that is bad in a life-or-
death situation. It isn’t even good in lesser circumstances. How
many times have you watched a friend throw away their reputation,
career, or family because of a decision based purely on emotion?
In short, I disagree with this advice in favor of urging people,
whenever circumstances allow, to think before taking any action or
making any big decisions. Humans survived because of our brain
and it is a shame to our species that we do not make better use of
this wonderful gift. If you have time, think things through… Set
emotion aside and think. You will be better off for it.

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