Popular modern interpretation of wuwei (無為) calls it a state of non-doing. While it's not wrong, but I want to offer something more interesting. It's also potentially contentious to rationalists.

For what it's worth, the complete use of the term comes in the line 無為而無不為 (from Tao De Ching 道德經). If interpreted in the context of doing, that can be read as "in not-doing, we achieve everything."

But wuwei is also a rejection of motives. 為 as a word encompasses both action and motive, perhaps because most human actions are motivated.

Lao Zi however aimed high. Wuwei demands us to discard motives in our actions yet still execute them. It's almost as if he's saying "if you need to ask why, this move of yours is unpure."

Here's where it gets tough. In rejecting whys, it demands us to reject reasons (of the rational kind).

Not in the sense of not using reasons to operate or making tactical moves. But he is referring to motivations of the higher order. To him, questions like "why be wise" or "why be honorable" are all not worth answering, because the asking it is not-even-wrong.

Let's examine how this came about. Everything Chinese traces back to I-Ching. This app works by giving the user an assessment, then it's up to the user to find the rationale and make sense of the assessment.

Reasoning comes last.

Certainly this won't sit well with modern thinking. But armed with enough radical honesty, you'll see that most things work this way.

People around you make decisions first, then invent reasons after they've decided.

Markets fluctuates inexplicably; then people make up explanations to make sense of it. Very rarely do these explanations provide front-running opportunities in the future.

In doing so, making up explanations turned humans into storytelling creatures.

Side note to that: perhaps gambling is looked down upon because there is no storytelling value. Unlike trading, gambling is explanation-free. Losses don't stand a chance of translating into a how-to memoir.

Back to wuwei. Taken as no-motive, this is not for kids.

For many, this sounds like inaction without motivation. In practice though, inaction is hardly the worry.

It is zombie-fied actions that Lao Zi is talking about. Being motivated by your hunger for brains alone doesn't make you alive.

The answer is in cultivating authentic inner desires that drives your actions. By then, "because I feel like it" would be all you need to answer why.