Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford #SunTzu 6: 19-23 "By reinforcing his vanguard, he weakens his rear; by reinforcing his rear, he weakens his vanguard. By reinforcing his right flank, he weakens his left; by reinforcing his left, he weakens his right. By reinforcing every part, he weakens every part.

Today's focus is #SunTzu 6: 23 By reinforcing every part, he weakens every part.

As we proceed through his teachings, Master Sun gives us the wisdom of the inner ways of victory, as well as of defeat. In war, unless we win without fighting, one side must lose for the other to win. To know victory IS to know how to cause defeat.

Today's verse is an extraordinary lesson in defeat. I don't know if 2,500 years ago Master Sun was prophesying the rise of America and the American mindset, but there may possibly be no greater weakness endemic to our battle planning and strategic inclinations than this.

We are a hurrying, scurrying, get it done yesterday or else, if not to say worrying lot. It's the worrying that is most concerning, even worrisome. Somewhere along the way, we went from the most can-do place in human history to, well, something other than that now.

I won't say we've become a can't-do place, but we face a serious, maybe even severe risk here. It's as if we've grown a fear muscle in our collective and individual psyches. I'll come back to the devastating impact of fear shortly. How does this tie to today's verse?

When fear triggers reaction, the instinct - and it obviously can't be exclusive to today's America - it initiates is the need to reinforce all protections, everywhere. Suddenly any risk is too great to bear, so we instantly scurry and hurry toward an imaginary place of no risk.

We attempt to reinforce every part of our formation. Take from the rear to reinforce the front. Take men from the left flank and send them to the right. Whoops, left is now weak, better send others from the right on over. Oh wait, what if we're attacked from the rear?

Let's make this personal, about our money. Our job is our vanguard, debt is our rear. Left is spending money, right is saving it. If you put all your effort into your job, never racking up any debt, spending little and saving much, your vanguard and right flank are mighty.

But, never having risked on such a thing as a mortgage - that's debt - you don't own a home, and you have no credit, either. You have cash assets, or maybe you've invested, but you don't know how to spend money are not much fun to live with. You don't throw great parties.

On the other hand, if you build a mountain of debt it will always catch up with you, and if you put fun over work, parties and partying more important than self or career development, you'll be broke in no time flat, and likely out of work. What's the answer?

Remember, Master Sun has prohibited us from reinforcing everything at once. And we don’t want to flop around sending our men from the right to left and from the left to the right. The real answer was back in verse 15. Let’s look again, now.

#SunTzu 6: 15 "His form is visible, but I am formless; I am concentrated, he is divided." Attempting to reinforce every part, we weaken every part, and the reason is, the form in our mind, our mental formation. We end up dividing ourselves against ourselves.

Formless, you can say, I work too much and spend too little. More and more and more saving will only take me too far to the right. I have to spend a bit more. I need to learn how to take vacations. Without forming up a spendthrift life, I will concentrate some effort on this.

Before you do anything, you must start spending time in the temple. In this case, online price compare one vacation against another. Play with time frames. Have you ever dreamed of taking an entire month off? What would you do if you did? Where might you go?

I have to go the other direction. Formed to massive credit card debt at extreme interest rates, it's always almost impossible to believe it isn't too late to start saving. We're wrongly taught that you save to get rich. No, no! You save to have play room, at little slack.

Do you know the command to pay yourself first, before you pay anyone else? Meaning, in old school finance training, you take a minimum of 10% of your income and save it, first. The ultimate benefit is that you only spend 90% and NOT 110% of your income.

Look at the formation. As a pledged, committed and seriously well-practiced over-spender, you're equally dedicated to never saving a penny. Formless, start there. Start saving pennies. Slowly, gently, move up to dollars. Learn how, then, to save percentages of your income.

Work with that. Play with the forms and formations that trap you. Work through the formlessness that empowers you to concentrate your force fluidly, adaptively, without hardening into just another form. Now we have to return to the fear that causes reinforcement of every part.

When can-do startles into can't-do, the first instinct is to freeze in place. And in can't-do mode, you are at risk of completely losing your fight instinct, and surrender to pure flight. If you are the boss, and can't actually run away, you instantly want to fix everything.

It feels like you're being proactive, fixing everything, but you're not. You're reacting to the fear, and in the imagination of an everything fixed place, you've run away from the real challenge. Fear doesn't paralyze the body, first. It paralyzes the mind, then the body.

Again, it is the form that is the ultimate problem. You couldn't possibly spend time in the temple analyzing and planning, finding the winning concentration of force. You MUST react right now, everywhere. It is hardened forms that give fear its devastating power.

Finally for today, consider the two forms of adrenaline, fight or flight. Fight adrenaline overcomes fear with action, yet if that action is in a hardened form, you get nowhere and lose. Flight adrenaline causes you to surrender and leave the field of fight.

Courage suppresses the adrenaline reaction, while benefiting from the surge of strength it gives. It suppresses it with a formless power of mind and soul. Everything slows down. There is all the time in the world to formlessly observe, think, choose and only then act.

Practiced enough, even the slowing down and thinking part goes away, and it's all just real time. Thought and practiced, disciplined instinct occur simultaneously, both real, neither formed and hardened, flowing. Don't forget, though, that time in the temple planning never ends.

In coming verses over the next few days, we’ll apply all of this to our mission in the #MAGA movement quite directly. Your takeaway today should send you deep within yourself and be about yourself. Yes? Good!

133 verses completed, 289 to go.

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