Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford, #SunTzu 7: 32 "A general can be robbed of his presence of mind."

Leadership can be a hellacious burden. You can lose your sense of way, of The Way. You can get pulled by urgent forces outside of the inner temple zone where your power resides. You can be robbed of your presence of mind.

This chapter, especially verses 6 - 28, has been in many ways an extended meditation upon just exactly how the general can be robbed of his presence of mind. In a word, seek false gain and pay the price.

We've analyzed many times how our nation and its institutions sought the false gains of socialism and we paid the price as a people. Our generals lost their presence of mind, and we followed them.

Yet this verse feels particularly personal to me. You are a leader, if nowhere else than in your own personal life. You are the general commanding orders of the army of yourself, if no one else. And if you have a family, or any position of leadership, you are a general there.

Have you ever noticed that your sense of where you are can grow thin, sparse, weak? From a psychological perspective, we often get trapped in the past or the future, and there are names for each. Reachback and Afterburn.

Reachback is when we know (or even merely fear) that something will occur in the future and we dread it. The power of fear to reach back from some future event, known or merely possible, is vast. When you lose the present for fear of the future, you're suffering reachback.

Such palpitations and contortions of mind are normal, we all suffer them. But when something in the future destroys your presence of mind, your mind's ability to focus in the present, then its power has become too great.

So also, with the past. When you were embarrassed or hurt, wounded and can't let go, the afterburn of that past event can penetrate into the present, destroying your presence of mind. It can overwhelm your emotions and make you lose track of where you are, now.

One of the greatest ways we suffer from afterburn is by way of projection. That is, the suffering we still carry from the past can virtually force us to interpret - often misinterpret - things in the present as if they were repeats when they may not be.

Like everyone, I carry unhealed wounds from my past, for instance, at the hands of my parents. Often, my children remind me of my parents. If I project that onto them, I lose all presence of mind. And I am ALWAYS wrong when I let that happen!

Then, there are those people in the present who really do have the power to get under your skin, and deprive all sense of self-direction from you. They make you crazy! They often laugh as a result, and they have every right to do so.

In fact, as a contender on the battlefield of life, I often pride myself on my ability to break my opponents' brains for them. They never see my tactics coming and lose all presence of mind when I strike.

Those of you who are reading or have studied Alinsky can immediately see the connection, here. Every one of his 13 rules leads to the loss of presence of mind in his opponents. They lose their grip, their mental grip.

It's so obvious, I'm almost embarrassed to mention how @realDonaldTrump does this to his opponents every single day. It is part of his basic method of draining the swamp. Those whose heads explode often depart. What's Paul Ryan up to nowadays?

@realDonaldTrump On another personal note, my first political campaign was of a local candidate, attempting to primary Paul Ryan out. I took special joy watching Ryan lose his presence of mind again and again, until it came time for him to go. So sad, by which I mean glad.

@realDonaldTrump Admit it, like me, you too have a vindictive streak. You LOVED hearing about HRC the night Trump won. You have LOVED every time she shows up for 15 minutes, again, discombobulated, and no presence of mind left, meanders back off stage again until next time. Delicious.

@realDonaldTrump Zhang Yu tells us: "The mind is the general's chief asset. It enables him to create order out of disorder, to replace fear with courage. The Skillful Warrior disturbs and disorders the enemy, harasses and perplexes him, harries him with fear.

@realDonaldTrump "He robs him of his presence of mind, his ability to think strategically.... Duke Li said, 'Attack is not restricted to attacking cities and military formations. We master the art of attacking the mind.'

@realDonaldTrump "Attacking the mind involves nurturing our own mind, our own sense of ease and order, and then robbing the enemy of his."

@realDonaldTrump I think Master Sun would want us to snag one more perspective. No matter how great the general you face may be, you can rob him of his presence of mind. Most especially, if you learn how to keep your own!

@realDonaldTrump 185 verses completed, 237 to go.

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