Daily Reflection 6.07.21
Jun. 7th, 2021 06:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readoldthings Why should we be concerned about restraining our passions? Sun Tzu tells us:
I have a bad temper. Astrologically, it makes sense; my Mars is in Cancer afflicted by a square to Saturn. My natural response to events not going my way is to lash out in fury. It very rarely works out for me.
I think I've told this story before, but let's have it again, because it illustrates the point.
A few years ago I took my cell phone to a Verizon store to have it looked at, because it wasn't working. The salesman I talked to quickly got past my defenses and got me to buy a phone I didn't want. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I'm pretty sure he had learned some basic magic tricks-- the second he approached me I became discombobulated, confused and clumsy, repeatedly dropping things and having items fall out of my pockets. I left in a state of mental confusion with a phone that cost several hundred dollars that I didn't want to spend.
Two days later, the pone broke. Oh, and my old phone started working just fine again. Of course.
At this point I was furious. I'd been tricked by this little weasel shithead, screwed out of money I never wanted to spend, and made to look like an idiot in the process. And I'll be goddamned if I was going to allow it.
So I did the thing anyone would do. I ritually invoked the Celtic thunder-god Taranis, made sure that my look said something like "violent guinea bastard," and drove over there in a wild red fury.
Well, I never got my money back, but on the plus side, I'm no longer allowed in the Verizon Store on State Street in Santa Barbara.
Learn a lesson from me, kids: If you're angry, it doesn't mean you should act, it means that there is a fire in your camp and your soldiers are burning. Figure out what you actually want to accomplish, and don't do it until you calm down.
Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.
But a kingdom that has been destroyed can never come into being again; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.
But a kingdom that has been destroyed can never come into being again; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.
I have a bad temper. Astrologically, it makes sense; my Mars is in Cancer afflicted by a square to Saturn. My natural response to events not going my way is to lash out in fury. It very rarely works out for me.
I think I've told this story before, but let's have it again, because it illustrates the point.
A few years ago I took my cell phone to a Verizon store to have it looked at, because it wasn't working. The salesman I talked to quickly got past my defenses and got me to buy a phone I didn't want. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I'm pretty sure he had learned some basic magic tricks-- the second he approached me I became discombobulated, confused and clumsy, repeatedly dropping things and having items fall out of my pockets. I left in a state of mental confusion with a phone that cost several hundred dollars that I didn't want to spend.
Two days later, the pone broke. Oh, and my old phone started working just fine again. Of course.
At this point I was furious. I'd been tricked by this little weasel shithead, screwed out of money I never wanted to spend, and made to look like an idiot in the process. And I'll be goddamned if I was going to allow it.
So I did the thing anyone would do. I ritually invoked the Celtic thunder-god Taranis, made sure that my look said something like "violent guinea bastard," and drove over there in a wild red fury.
Well, I never got my money back, but on the plus side, I'm no longer allowed in the Verizon Store on State Street in Santa Barbara.
Learn a lesson from me, kids: If you're angry, it doesn't mean you should act, it means that there is a fire in your camp and your soldiers are burning. Figure out what you actually want to accomplish, and don't do it until you calm down.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-08 03:14 am (UTC)On a personal not I was trying to explain the cycle we are in, the one that is every 84 years and kept getting shouted down as a hippie that couldn’t tell Astrology from Astronomy.
Tried to find your posts on it but it’s like they vanished.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-08 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-08 11:43 pm (UTC)Thank you