Daily Advice 1.07.21

[readoldthings]

Let's shift gears a bit. 

Some time back, I began working on an occult version of Sun Tzu's Art of War. What I'd like to do now is basically that, except I want to explore the book from a broader perspective, not just from within the small subculture of people who practice magic. 

The translation I'm using is by Lionel Giles and can be found on Google Books here. I like this one in part because it's straightfoward and readable, but mainly because of the author's hilarious footnotes, which include constant bitchy swipes at a previous English translator, a Captain Calthrop. After a brief introduction, Sun Tzu tells us that:

The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.

These are: 1. The Moral Law; 2. Heaven; 3. Earth; 4. The Commander; 5. Method and Discipline.

For the next few days, I want to go through these one by one, starting with the first. Sun Tzu writes:

The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

Now, readers with any background in Chinese philosophy will already have guessed that the word being translated by Giles as "Moral Law" is, in fact, 道-- that is, Tao. At the time of the translation, Taoism and Chinese philosophy generally were, I think, far less known in the west than they are today. 

Sun Tzu tells us that having the Tao "causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler."

Now, for most of us, in most cases, when we set out to achieve something, we do so by ourselves. Sometimes we have a group or a team. Most of us won't be governing any kingdoms any time soon. But the advice that Sun Tzu gives applies even when we are acting alone. 

Whenever we set out to achieve something, we need to know exactly what it is. We need to know that we really do want to achieve it, and that it is in alignment with our higher values-- whether we're Taoists or not. 

That might sound obvious, but consider how often people publicly do things that are entirely contrary to their stated goals. Do you want to be a writer? Okay, great. Why are you spending your time reading books about writing, or hanging out with other writers, or drinking at-- God help us-- "writers bars"? Do any of those things accomplish your supposed goal, the writing of books for the enjoyment of readers? 

Or consider the freakshow of our national politics. What goal were the protesters who stormed the Capitol building yesterday trying to achieve? Do you know? Whatever it was, was storming the Capitol going to achieve it? For that matter, what could storming the Capitol possibly achieve? In dumb TV shows (lookin' at you, Game of Thrones Season 6), if you kill the other guy's king, you automatically become the king. In real life, the king's followers get mad and fight  you. Or ban you from social media. 

So that's today's advice. Whenever you set out to achieve something, make sure it's what you really want; make sure it's in alignment with your values; and make sure that what you're doing can actually help you to achieve it. And if you do happen to have a team, this is where you make sure you're all on the same page-- whether your team consists of incarnate people, spirits of one sort or another, or a mixture of both!

Tomorrow: Heaven and Earth.

Comments

[violetcabra]

Thanks for this! As someone who writes quite a bit, I find it astounding how many workarounds people who want to be "a writer" flail about to avoid writing! Really it's rather absurd, especially given how unglamorous writing really is! With tongue in cheek I like to imagine switching out "writer" with "tree climber" and asking my imagined opposite, "when was the last time you climbed a tree?" That said, I would raise a glass of hard cider at the Tree-Climber's Bar!

As for the events of 1/06, I've not yet heard a coherent description of what people wanted to achieve with the dramatic acts of the day. Personally, I found it appalling in the sense that I have strong populist sympathies which I now find much more difficult to express. In fact, the events mirror the BLM movement from my perspective eerily: I have strong sympathies for urban brown people who struggle under a clearly rigged system. I've lived in New Orleans and everyone there knows about Angola State Prison where black inmates pick cotton under the lash to this day. And yet with enough incoherent violence I no longer could express my sympathies, and it seems that at least some segment of populism is taking the same sort of nosedive.

In a certain sense though these political problems are a blessing for me: my own unified will could never find expression in either political camp and to see them degrade so quickly has convinced me more than anything else that spiritual priorities and political actualities simply don't mix well.

[readoldthings]

The stuff about writing really is the funniest thing in the world.

One of the things that I did this year-- have I mentioned how much I loved 2020?-- was learn to bake bread. These days I make all of our bread at home, with the result that we have very high quality bread every day that's much cheaper than the bread you get at the store.

I said to Jenn the other day that if I had learned to bake bread the way that people learn to write, I would have done it all differently. First, of course, I never would have set out to "bake bread" in the first place. I would have set out to "become a baker," with an elaborate and ludicrous vision in my head of what "bakers" are like. I would have started dressing like a baker, reading books by bakers, and talking like I think bakers talk. And maybe started drinking and smoking cigarettes to excess, because, um. That's what bakers do?

Finally, after a year or two of posturing, reading, and agonizing, I might have gotten around to pulling my first loaf of bread out of the oven. It would have spent hours agonizing over how to get it exactly perfect-- more yeast! more salt! add milk! some herbs? how about sugar? Maybe some honey and some rosemary, yes, that's it, the book said that great bakers use rosemary.

Of course, the result would have been completely inedible. Which fact I would discover when, full of fear and trepidation, I took the thing to my Aspiring Bakers group and desperately begged everyone to try a piece. After that I would slink home, emotionally devastated that none of my friends liked my blackened honey-egg-lemon-rosemary bread.

Instead, of course, I read just enough to know that I needed flour, yeast, salt, water and a cast-iron pan, mixed the fucking thing up and put it in the oven. Now we eat bread every day.

Regarding politics, thank you for this. I don't have much to add, because I'm pretty much on the same page. The only thing that seems to have come from it is that populism is dead for another generation.