The Art of Dying ► Explained With Dark Souls

Have you ever wanted to do something really bad, but it seemed like the harder you tried and the more you wanted it, the harder it became to reach? Like trying to force open a jar of pickles when your hands are already sweaty. Or trying not to think about naked ladies, but then naked ladies is all you can think about. I used to think like, why am I so stupid that when I try harder to do something, I end up

Screwing it up or making it worse? But then I learned about the art of dying through the game Dark Souls, and it made me realize why trying harder seemed to give me opposite results. The art of dying means letting go of the ego, attachments, and fear of loss so that you can live each moment with complete freedom and authenticity. When you stop trying to force outcomes, you create space for things to flow naturally and come to you more easily. Now, this might

Sound great, like, “Oh, thanks a lot. Yeah, okay, I should let go of my ego and stuff.” Great. Thanks. Thanks a lot. But how do you actually use this information in real life? I want to explain how you can master the art of dying, but I need to explain it through the game Dark Souls. >> Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win, >> but never to accept the way to lose. >> To accept defeat, to learn to die is to

Be liberated from it. >> So when tomorrow comes, you must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying. dying. In Dark Souls, when you fight a boss and you’re really just struggling and like you’re not even able to get one single hit on him, what do you do? Do you keep doing the exact same thing every single attempt? How do you proceed beating the boss? The way to win in Dark Souls is the exact same as the way to lose.

When you die, you learn. And that is the point of the game, I would argue, to learn the way to win through dying. It can’t be avoided. And it shouldn’t be. If you’re like me, sometimes when you’re fighting a boss and you mess up too many times near the beginning, you’re just like, “Kill me so I can restart.” You start over so you can do the boss again, but right this time. To me, this is exactly

What it means to learn the art of dying. Instead of being so attached to this run or attached to using the same moves you used on the last boss, but clearly isn’t working on this boss. you are fluid and have adaptability and willingness to forget everything you learn from the last boss and learn everything new again. I think Souls players are really good at this already, but now I want to translate this idea back into real life

Because dying in Dark Souls is one thing. Like we can just come back, but dying in real life means actually like getting sent back to the lobby. How is it possible to learn the art of dying in real life? In real life, it’s not about actually dying, but it’s about failing. The art of dying is a metaphor and describes the Zen idea of letting our ego die. The ego is the whole set of experiences, accumulations, and memories

That make up our view of ourselves and the world. The ego holds our prejudices and distortions. Death of the ego means we are open to criticism. We are embracing the process of learning to develop our abilities. By dying to ambition and the constant need to win, you can become more fluid and present, which is how you can truly be free and achieve a higher level of self-mastery. Bruce Lee saw it as a way to overcome self-imposed limits. As

Explained in his quote, “If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there. You must go beyond them. You’re less likely to get in your own way when you no longer fear failure. Once you accept death or the worst case scenario, you’re no longer worried about what could happen. When you’re no longer worried about what

Could happen, the anxiety of death no longer inhibits you. Your own mind will no longer get in your own way. So, this might be making sense to you now, but like how do you actually apply this in your real life? Right now, this sounds kind of like a warrior mindset, right? But like what does this mean for us like 2025 guy who maybe has a job and like goes to the gym? Like how does it relate? You can practice the art of

Dying in real life by trying to stop forcing things. If things don’t go your way, is that a loss or is that a learning moment and a step forward just like a death in Dark Souls? The more you cling to a perfect outcome, the harder it becomes to achieve that thing. And if it ends up not happening at all, you’ll be all the more devastated. Instead, just chill out. I know that sounds like such an easy thing

To say to like brush off all your problems. But what if you just chilled out and tried your best, but saw everything clearly as it is and just match the energy of what it is rather than whatever should have been? Letting go means trusting the process, allowing mistakes, and being okay with uncertainty. When you fail a test, get rejected, or embarrass yourself. That’s your death. Most people let their ego take control, saying things to themselves like, “I’m stupid,”

Or, “I’ll never be good enough.” But if you can treat those moments like a Dark Souls death, where you analyze, learn, and try again, you’re practicing the art of dying. You’ve let your old self die, and each retry is a rebirth with more knowledge. People cling to identities like, “I’m the funny one. I’m the hard worker. I’m the nice guy.” But when life challenges that identity, like losing a job or a breakup or failing at a goal,

It feels like death. Practicing the art of dying means being okay with evolving, not needing to stay the same person that you were yesterday, just like how what might have worked on the last boss might not work the same on this boss. You might need to change up your moves and your tactics and your strategies for this one. But that doesn’t mean that you lose. It’s okay to change it up. That’s how you win in Dark Souls. That’s how

You learn. I think everyone, like even athletes or musicians or writers or just people trying to write a test, they all hit the same wall. When they try too hard or get too self-conscious, they perform worse for some reason. The art of dying is what allows flow state. When you stop thinking and just are. You’re not trying to control everything. You’re moving with it. So, allow yourself to get into a flow state and just enjoy doing the thing for what it is. And like

I said before, try not to get too attached to the outcome. The art of dying is knowing even if this fails, I’ll still be okay. Once you accept that you stop hesitating and you just do the thing that you know you should do. You speak up, take the shot, ask the person out, start doing the thing. The fear of failure dies and that’s when you finally start to live. This might sound like a lot of rules that you need to follow.

But all I’m really saying is that learning the art of dying is not actually about dying. It’s about learning to release control, ego, and fear so you can live, create, love, and act without hesitation. Bruce Lee used dying as a metaphor for letting go of the past, limitations, and ego to achieve freedom and live fully in the present moment. We do the same thing in Dark Souls gladly already. When we die, we don’t get embarrassed. Why would we?

We just learned a little bit more about how to deal with this boss, and we’re going to go further than we did last time. The point of the game Dark Souls is to fail and learn and try again. So don’t shy away from failure. Free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying. If you like Dark Souls and self-improvement, I actually have a new free community that you can join. It’s the link in the description. I hope this

Video helps, guys. Take care and don’t go hollow. Okay.