Soulful Sundays: Completion

“To hold and fill to overflowing is not as good as to stop in time.” -Lao Tzu

Miyamoto Musashi, Japan’s most celebrated swordsman, spent his youth chasing victory. He showed an early talent for the sword and an unparalleled mastery of his craft. Duel after duel, he sought out rivals across the land, carving his name into history. He fought over sixty contests, often wielding nothing more than a wooden bokken, and won them all. But it was not in his successes that he found the deeper meaning of his life. It was in a cave.

After the prime of his fighting career, Musashi, who was terminally ill with cancer, retreated to live as a hermit in the Reigandō cave outside Kumamoto. There he composed The Book of Five Rings and The Way of Walking Alone—his accumulated teachings on the nature of battle and the nature of life. His first lesson, “The Way is in training,” became his mantra until his last day. He is said to have died seated in meditation, fully clad in his samurai armor. Although his martial record was flawless and his writings complete, his internal journey remained unfinished.

The Ovsiankina effect describes an observable phenomenon in psychology: when a task is interrupted, the urge to complete it grows disproportionately stronger. This explains that gnawing feeling when we can’t recall a name or when work is cut short. The mind pulls us back again and again, restless until the circle is closed.

Our psyche also carries a primal aversion to uncertainty. The brain is a prediction machine, fine-tuned to recognizing patterns that lead to reward. Our dopamine system evolved for this very purpose. Rituals and religions, in many ways, were born from this drive. We feel safe, secure, and in control when we can predict how the world will behave. Completion seems to bring resolution. But does it?

Life, by its nature, resists certainty. No matter how good our models or theories are, they are still only guesses. Disaster can strike without warning. We may stumble into opportunity we never earned, or do everything right and still fall short. The security of completion, then, is one of life's great myths. Resolution is never final. Where one thing ends, another begins.

The completion of goals is necessary for growth, but the spirit with which we pursue them is even more essential. Musashi did not become a master because he was undefeated. He became who he was because he cared more about the art of training than the illusion of achievement. Each morning he rose with single-minded focus to hone his body and mind, knowing distraction could mean death in the arena. Our lives may not hang in the balance as his did, but we can still learn from him: to live each day as if it were our last, not in fear, but in practice.

As Zhuangzi taught, “When the shoe fits, you forget the foot.” When training itself becomes life, there is nothing left to prove, nothing left undone.