The Platonic View

It's interesting to sit back and watch yourself, to be aware of how you do the things you do. The Taoist way of looking at these things is very different to the Western Plato derived way of seeing things. The Platonic view is that things should be done according to intellectual theory, hence the celebrated difference between theory and practice. Taoists tend to base things on observed reality, correcting our methods and theories as we go, in order to get closer to the Tao.

My own experience involves the Japanese Kaizen method, which has always struck me as quite Taoist. This is also based on changing your methods based on real world feedback, it was applied to excellent effect by the Japanese motor industry! I've been trying to apply these methods to myself of late, I'm finding them to give good results and coming to the conclusion that our Western platonic mindset might just be ripe for a change!