The parallels are very stark, in regards to metaphysicists vs. empiricists, with regards to ERE and ping pong. The empiricist in the ERE world is the individual who is content being a basement king at WL5 optimizing solutions away in the cave. In ping pong, this strategy is employed by those who are "anti-evolutionary" as the author observes and have one tool (bashing the ball over the net as hard as they can), neglecting to pursue any higher artistic forms of the sport (ie spin). This is not unlike the WL5 individual who bashes away at FI by only accumulating a large number of monetary assets then organizing his life not unlike the rest of society, just more optimized. The empiricist/WL5 has not completely left the cave, but has moved away from the shadows and chains and closer to the world beyond. The following snippet illustrates the author's view on this a little further:
I’ve watched very advanced players and marveled at certain strokes of theirs. At a professional level, what impresses one the most is the players’ control and the constantly changing parabolas of their loops. They’re competitive, of course; that’s the nature of the beast. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. When world-class competitors play a perfect game, they live, for its whole duration, in the Platonic realm of true and perfect form.
Whenever I play with Pedro, on the other hand, we leave such heights behind and tumble down into the cave. Before and during my furious matches with him, I tease him, “¡No tengas miedo!”—“Have no fear!” He and everyone around laugh. He gives it his all, running around and back to return my loops. I’ve been told that it’s a spectacular display, particularly for newcomers, since beginners assume that whenever one smashes he scores a point; but Pedro will return five, six, seven loop drives of mine in a row. Some of his “gets” are hard to believe. Does he win? If I don’t concentrate fully, yes, he does. All the more, then, one regrets that he hasn’t striven to probe the secrets of true table tennis, because he has developed a style of his own, but he has to work much harder to score a point. Often what seems a shortcut, both in table tennis and in life, is in fact a longcut. Pedro has been at it for years. In the meantime, a humbler and dedicated player with a modicum of talent has begun to savor some of TT’s secrets, has taken the hard way out of the cave into spin and true form, and by now can probably defeat him.
The TT cave dwellers, the empiricists, must be animated by a strong anti-evolutionary impulse. I confess that, as a fellow human being, I fail to understand it. When writing about Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley said: “The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable . . . but susceptible of being directly experienced and realized by the human being.” And that’s the point: we can, in our limited way, experience this absolute, pure form. Humble and yet humbling table tennis accords us this opportunity, suggesting implicitly that we can try the same in other aspects of our existence.
And yet there are people who play table tennis for decades and still reject such a transcendental possibility. If only they realized that once a player finds true form, victory comes with it as a mere corollary. . . . I suppose the cave must feel very snug and cozy.
Such anti-table tennis I just fail to understand. The words that come to mind to describe it are uninventive, destructive, parasitic, and just plain boring. Above all, the empiricist will never gain an insight into the World of Forms. Between living in prison and living free, I’ll always pick the latter—but shouldn’t we all?
Metaphysics of Ping Pong Chapter 9 page 89 digital edition
The book made me realize that ERE is essentially The Metaphysics of Life. ERE is an art form in itself when pursued in the pure (non-FI focused) form. Like in ping pong, the art itself and how it is expressed becomes more captivating as you reach higher and higher levels which can lead to a corresponding increase in skill (ie how Jacob's expenses continue to decrease each year while he continues to do more things). As mentioned previously, to the non artist, the higher levels aren't apparent and are dismissed away by luck, better equipment or outright cheating (ie "You can only retire because you eat lentils and live in an RV" "Ya but your wife still works." etc)
The book also often reminded me of this quote:
The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.
For those interested, the book covers many of the themes that are often discussed here like flow, Plato's cave, Jung/shadow work, interpersonal dynamics and skill pursuit among other things.
I really enjoyed it, thanks for the recommendation.