Daily Reflection 3.02.21

Sun Tzu tells us that, 

Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.

In order to achieve this, we need to know something about our own will and our own capabilities, and something about the enemy's. Remember Sun Tzu's most famous saying, that we encountered in Chapter 3:

If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

The difficulty is that our enemy, be it the rebellious parts of our own soul; our rivals in work or war or love; our Great Spiritual Enemy, must always remain, to a certain extent, unknown to us. 

So how do you plan for the unknowable? 

Well, by definition, you don't. Above all else, though, flexibility is the key to dealing with unknown situations. 

Imagine two nations go to war with one another. Call them Phlogistonia and Etherland, for some reason. Phlogistonia is one large, open steppe. The Phlogistonians have the best cavalry in the whole world, and their horse simply can't be beaten either by another cavalry force or by infantry in the field. Etherland, on the other hand, is a pathwork land of open fields, lakes, and forested mountains in the east. Etherland have a solid cavalry force, usually sufficient for the border wars they fight with their neighbors, but no match for the Phlogistonians. When the Phlogistonians invade Etherland, the Ethermen don't engage them directly. Instead they evacuate their villages in the lowlands, burn their crops, and head for forested hills in the east. In that country the Phlogistonians are unable to mass their cavalry for an open battle. They're worn down by relentless attacks by Etherland hill tribes. After months of guerrilla warfare, they withdraw their depleted forces to the Ether lowlands, where the Ethermen are able to engage them in a decisive battle.

In this example, the Etherland folk were able to win and win completely because they were able to engage in more than one type of warfare, while the Phlogistonians were not. They may not have known the Phlogistonians were going to invade, and they may not have known how effective Phlogistonian cavalry are, but their flexibility allowed them to adapt to the situation, and impose their will on the enemy.

In our lives, the area where this is most relevant is probably our careers. Having both a range of skill-sets and a range of income streams allows you to adapt to circumstances where being locked into a single field does not. Of course, I'm speaking from experience: the fact that my partner and I both had rather varied work histories is what has allowed us to survive, and really to thrive, even when we both lost our jobs due to the pandemic. 

There is another issue I want to discuss in regard to control of the battlefield, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. See you then!