Daily Reflection 5.07.21
May. 7th, 2021 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readoldthings Sun Tzu tells us of the failings of the general:
A few principles underlie all of these.
Flight occurs when a general sends his army against another without adequately assessing the enemy's strength. Disorganization occurs when a general fails to give clear orders and organize clear divisions in his ranks. These two both result, then, from inadequate preparation. Rout is an extreme form of flight.
Insubordination occurs when a general fails to be sufficiently firm with his subordinates; collapse occurs when he is too harsh with them. Ruin occurs when he is so harsh that his various officers rebel and do their own thing.
Sun Tzu tells us that these are the six ways of courting defeat, and they apply to life as well as to war. In life as in war, the basic principle is to determine what your goals are, determine how they may be accomplished, and keep a unified focus on them.
It is easy to see how one can bring ruin upon oneself by any of these means.
Let's have an example from my personal history, shall we?
When I was 24 I took an AmeriCorps job in Oregon. I was living in Pittsburgh at the time, 50 miles from where I grew up in Western Pennsylvania; I had never been further west than Chicago, and that only once. I had, on the other hand, worked for AmeriCorps before, in Pittsburgh. I enjoyed my first AmeriCorps year, which I spent teaching English as a Second Language to visitors from East Asia, and I thought that this would be similar. My knowledge of Oregon came from meeting a group of anarchist tree-sitters from Eugene several 5 years previously-- from what they told me, I figured the whole state would be a hippie Mecca.
As it turns out, I was 100% wrong about everything. Where my first AmeriCorps job was fun and exciting, this one was to consist of sitting in an office in a homeless shelter writing grant proposals all day. That would be bad enough, but it was made even harder by the fact that I did not know then (and do not know how) to write a grant proposal.
The town that I was sent to, meanwhile, was exactly the opposite of what I expected. I assumed that since it was about an inch away from Eugene on a large map, it would be similar to Eugene in culture. Nope. The town turned out to be a burned out, meth-addled ruin, as most towns outside of the few bigger cities are. (Call it White Privilege in Action.)
Oregon in the winter is also the gloomiest place in the entire world, and I arrived in mid-January. The town I was living in is in a valley. During the day, the cloud would raise up to the top of the surrounding mountains; at night it would settle back down again and become a blanket of fog, but never did it part and let the sun's raise through.
So I found myself with no friends, nothing to do, and a job I hated, in a town I hated, under a perpetual black cloud. Within two months I was suicidally depressed within 2 months. The job was a failure and remains a black mark on my work history and my life history, 14 years later. That is what comes from inadequate preparation.
Why was I there? What did I want? I didn't know. When I found out how different it was from my expectations, why didn't I leave? Well, I didn't want to offend anybody. But I offended them anyway by being a shit employee. That's how you bring ruin on your army.
Now an army is exposed to several calamities, not arising from natural causes, but from faults for which the general is responsible. These are:
1. Flight;
2. Insubordination;
3. Collapse;
4. Ruin;
5. Disorganization;
6. Rout.
1. Flight;
2. Insubordination;
3. Collapse;
4. Ruin;
5. Disorganization;
6. Rout.
A few principles underlie all of these.
Flight occurs when a general sends his army against another without adequately assessing the enemy's strength. Disorganization occurs when a general fails to give clear orders and organize clear divisions in his ranks. These two both result, then, from inadequate preparation. Rout is an extreme form of flight.
Insubordination occurs when a general fails to be sufficiently firm with his subordinates; collapse occurs when he is too harsh with them. Ruin occurs when he is so harsh that his various officers rebel and do their own thing.
Sun Tzu tells us that these are the six ways of courting defeat, and they apply to life as well as to war. In life as in war, the basic principle is to determine what your goals are, determine how they may be accomplished, and keep a unified focus on them.
It is easy to see how one can bring ruin upon oneself by any of these means.
Let's have an example from my personal history, shall we?
When I was 24 I took an AmeriCorps job in Oregon. I was living in Pittsburgh at the time, 50 miles from where I grew up in Western Pennsylvania; I had never been further west than Chicago, and that only once. I had, on the other hand, worked for AmeriCorps before, in Pittsburgh. I enjoyed my first AmeriCorps year, which I spent teaching English as a Second Language to visitors from East Asia, and I thought that this would be similar. My knowledge of Oregon came from meeting a group of anarchist tree-sitters from Eugene several 5 years previously-- from what they told me, I figured the whole state would be a hippie Mecca.
As it turns out, I was 100% wrong about everything. Where my first AmeriCorps job was fun and exciting, this one was to consist of sitting in an office in a homeless shelter writing grant proposals all day. That would be bad enough, but it was made even harder by the fact that I did not know then (and do not know how) to write a grant proposal.
The town that I was sent to, meanwhile, was exactly the opposite of what I expected. I assumed that since it was about an inch away from Eugene on a large map, it would be similar to Eugene in culture. Nope. The town turned out to be a burned out, meth-addled ruin, as most towns outside of the few bigger cities are. (Call it White Privilege in Action.)
Oregon in the winter is also the gloomiest place in the entire world, and I arrived in mid-January. The town I was living in is in a valley. During the day, the cloud would raise up to the top of the surrounding mountains; at night it would settle back down again and become a blanket of fog, but never did it part and let the sun's raise through.
So I found myself with no friends, nothing to do, and a job I hated, in a town I hated, under a perpetual black cloud. Within two months I was suicidally depressed within 2 months. The job was a failure and remains a black mark on my work history and my life history, 14 years later. That is what comes from inadequate preparation.
Why was I there? What did I want? I didn't know. When I found out how different it was from my expectations, why didn't I leave? Well, I didn't want to offend anybody. But I offended them anyway by being a shit employee. That's how you bring ruin on your army.
