Daily Reflection 2.8.21
Feb. 8th, 2021 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readoldthingsSun Tzu's fifth and final essential is as follows:
For our purposes, there are three points we can derive from this.
1. First, we have repeatedly emphasized the need for both training and goal-setting. Training is all of our regular preparation; it results in "military capacity." Goal-setting allows us to orient all of our faculties toward a particular end, so that one part of us is not interfering with another. The will divided against itself achieves nothing.
2. Second, get out of your own way. One of the ways people fail at any number of things is by criticizing their actions at the same time they're doing them. This is a common experience for writers, or people who want to write-- and as far as I can tell, most "writing programs" are designed to induce this sort of paralysis. But you see it in many different areas of life. I knew a guy whose dream was to become a landscaper. Finally, he was given the task of designing a waterfall area at the homeless shelter where he was living. He knew how to do it and had the skills to do it. What did he do instead? Panicked, got drunk, and got kicked out of the shelter.
As much as possible, avoid self-criticism or worrying about others' opinions until the job is done. For any given task, this is much easier if you practice regularly-- that is, build your military capacity.
3. Third, "interference by the sovereign" is known, in magical terminology, as "lust for results." If you do a working of any kind, and then spend all day and all night fretting over whether it's going to work, imagining what you're going to do when it works, dreading whether it might not fail, and so on, it is going to fail. All of the energy that could be out there achieving your goal is instead being pulled into the vortex of your own psyche and grounded out in your own daydreams. In this case, your general is the god, spirit, angel, saint or other power you've invoked to accomplish your particular end, and you are the sovereign. Do the working and shut up about it.
Tomorrow I'm going to wrap up the third chapter of the Art of War. See you then!
He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign
For our purposes, there are three points we can derive from this.
1. First, we have repeatedly emphasized the need for both training and goal-setting. Training is all of our regular preparation; it results in "military capacity." Goal-setting allows us to orient all of our faculties toward a particular end, so that one part of us is not interfering with another. The will divided against itself achieves nothing.
2. Second, get out of your own way. One of the ways people fail at any number of things is by criticizing their actions at the same time they're doing them. This is a common experience for writers, or people who want to write-- and as far as I can tell, most "writing programs" are designed to induce this sort of paralysis. But you see it in many different areas of life. I knew a guy whose dream was to become a landscaper. Finally, he was given the task of designing a waterfall area at the homeless shelter where he was living. He knew how to do it and had the skills to do it. What did he do instead? Panicked, got drunk, and got kicked out of the shelter.
As much as possible, avoid self-criticism or worrying about others' opinions until the job is done. For any given task, this is much easier if you practice regularly-- that is, build your military capacity.
3. Third, "interference by the sovereign" is known, in magical terminology, as "lust for results." If you do a working of any kind, and then spend all day and all night fretting over whether it's going to work, imagining what you're going to do when it works, dreading whether it might not fail, and so on, it is going to fail. All of the energy that could be out there achieving your goal is instead being pulled into the vortex of your own psyche and grounded out in your own daydreams. In this case, your general is the god, spirit, angel, saint or other power you've invoked to accomplish your particular end, and you are the sovereign. Do the working and shut up about it.
Tomorrow I'm going to wrap up the third chapter of the Art of War. See you then!
