Dudeism isn’t a new religion, man, it’s kinda’ an old one that changed clothes. I wonder if the wardrobe came from the Dude’s own closet?
Lotsa’ ins and out, man.
The whole durned thing got written down about twenty-five hundred years ago in China, in roughly five thousand words – which is pretty succinct by most standards, but we dude’s tend to not blather about “too much” – by a guy who was simply trying to leave town at the time. That book is called the the Tao Te Ching, which is what the Taoist philosophy is predicated on.
It’s some kind of Eastern thing, apparently.
Dudeism has never once pretended to be an original idea. It says right out front that it’s basically Taoism, recovered by people who found it in a movie theater instead of a monastery. A little Buddhism and Epicureanism mixed in to tie the whole thing together. But that’s a conversation for another time.
Same rug. Different room. Here’s how it ties it all together.
‘Course, I’m talking about Dudeism here.
The un-carved block wore a bathrobe
I’m a woodworker and I love to just stare at a piece of wood and imagine what it could be. I take comfort in that. In Taoism there’s this idea known as p’u, which essentially means the un-carved block. A plain chunk of wood nobody has turned into a chair yet, which is exactly why it could still become anything. Simplicity as an asset instead of an issue or something that was supposed to be.
Nobody looks at a guy with no job, no ambition and one excellent rug and calls him a finished product. That’s the point. Ambition carves you down to one shape, and then you’re a chair for the rest of your life. The Dude stayed the block.
Even if you don’t have it “all figured out”, there is always more that could be. Don’t stress about it. Like the Dude, be the block and let the world do its thing.
Ziran, or: you’re already the thing
The other big one is ziran, or “self-so.” Being what you naturally are, without the sanding and varnishing. Taoism has no self-improvement plan. There’s no better version of you scheduled for next quarter.
Which is a strange thing to read in a culture where every philosophy comes with homework. The Dude doesn’t grow as a person over the course of the story. He doesn’t learn a valuable lesson. He ends the thing exactly as he started it, and the movie treats that as the win, because it is one.
The Dude never tried to be anything other than the thing he was. It’s one of the qualities most people should strive for.
Fuck conformity.
Look what that did for those assholes in Metallica.
Strikes and gutters is a Taoist parable
There’s an old Taoist story that goes like this. A farmer’s horse runs off. The neighbors say, “terrible news”. Farmer replies, “maybe”. The horse comes back and brings other horses with it. Neighbors say, “wonderful news”. Farmer again responds, “maybe:. His son breaks a leg trying to ride one of them. Neighbors: “terrible”. Farmer: “maybe”. Then the army comes through conscripting every young man who can walk, and walks right past the kid with the busted leg.
Strikes and gutters, ups and downs. Same idea, just a different lane to bowl in.
The lesson isn’t that everything works out fine. Sometimes it doesn’t. The lesson is that you don’t yet know what kind of day you’re living in, so grading it at two in the afternoon just burns a perfectly good afternoon.
Hell, grading a day at the end of the day is not worth the time.
It’s just a day.
Fuck it Dude, have an oat soda…smoke a jay…just go bowling.
Walter is the control group
Taoism spends a lot of its five thousand words on the guy who won’t yield. Rigid things break, soft things last, and the man hollering about the rules is usually the man about to have a bad evening.
That’s Walter. His entire existence is the rules, the doctrine, the lines in the sand, a whole framework for what people are and aren’t entering into. He isn’t the villain of the story, he’s simply the comparison that makes the Dude …well…the Dude. Every philosophy needs somebody in the next lane doing it the hard way.
And we love the man anyway. That’s Dudeist too. Taoism doesn’t ask you to fix your friends.
But it does help you from entering a world of pain…hopefully.
Something small to try
Next time something pushes on you, ask one question before you push back: is the push actually load-bearing? Is it something that will impact you? Most of it isn’t. Most of it is just the reflex of a guy who thinks the mountain won’t erode unless he’s personally leaning on it.
Then don’t grade the day until it’s over, if at all. Maybe. We’ll see.
Take it easy
Welp, that about wraps ‘er up.
Got a situation you’re overthinking? Ask the Dude and see what he’d do about it – it’s usually less than you had planned. If it lands, see the whole durned rack and wear the wisdom.
A parody and fan project inspired by Dudeism. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the rights holders of “The Big Lebowski.” The Dude is a state of mind, man.