Reading the Book oF Five Rings: Masters of Strategy
Yesterday I spoke about the craft of the warrior, and carrying one with the broad strokes, today I am going to speak about the Masters of the longsword, the virtue of the long sword, and the potential of one man. Miyamoto Musashi spends some of his time in writing this book stating things that are quite provocative, which will leave anybody in a state of excitement. For my third installment on this book I present one of those such statements.
Masters of the long sword are called strategists
When describing this he compares archers, marksmen, spearmen , and halberters to the strategist. Stating that all of these weapons are warrior's equipment, furthermore later on in the book he says that no warrior should have a favourite weapon. This is setting us up for a very distinct path, as highlighted in the way of the pen as adequate attention is given to the bow, the spear, the gun, the halbert, and the long sword. This kind of thinking will mature as you and I walk through the Book of Five Rings, and it is meant to give you a sense of how I am going to proceed in my own training and what I am going to be suggesting as things move forward.
In making it even more accessible, and appropriate for my efforts, there is no discrimination between the different faculties that I have and unlike the young scientist who has his education solely in the cold and rational faculty of natural and physical science, I will be building an education in visual arts as well as natural and physical science and everything in between. Because the long sword in this case is the twofold way of pen and sword, and just because I am not going to swing a 30 inch piece of cold steel around does not mean I cannot embody the spirit that this art demands. If I carry exposing this specific point I am going to spoil a surprise down the line, so onwards!
The principle is"strategy by means of the long sword". To master the virtue of the long sword is to govern the world and oneself, thus the long sword is the basis of strategy.
In Shinto it is said that everything has a spirit, and this is why the katana has become a powerful symbol to the world. It a sword with a soul, and if it is your sword it has a portion of your spirit invested in it. This has made some really cool mangas over the years, and it serves us well here too. It ties back to something I spoke about yesterday, progress in this school is not found in the dojo, but in actual battle. Another cool thing we are going to discuss later on is learning all arts with no teachers. I may just tie it back around to build up these common themes up in an even stronger expression.
Nevertheless, we see that the principle is strategy by means of the longsword. what is meant by this is that strategy is most apparent when wielding the long sword, so it can be said that in mastering the virtue of the longsword you are mastering the virtue of strategy. This is why mastering the long sword is to govern yourself and the world. Thus the basis of strategy is the long sword. What this means in practical terms is that no matter how much knowledge and skills you acquire, the virtue remains in their application. This is cold hard common sense, where you can see that experience in something is chosen over knowledge of something. This distinction is made as to indicate to the student that his education is not complete. If you cannot perform in a competitive context you have not completed your education, and this specific point is the reason why many people have no confidence in their skills, simply because they do not practice enough to reach the point that they can hold their own in the market it fits into, and they cannot govern themselves or their world. - they lack the substance required for negotiating power
If a man attains the virtue of the longsword, one man can beat ten men. Just as one man can beat ten, so a hundred men can beat a thousand, and a thousand can beat ten thousand. In my strategy, one man is the same as ten thousand, so this strategy is the complete warrior's craft.
This is the bomb that I have been preparing to drop on you this whole time, what I am exploring here is something complete, without blinds and holds. In mastering the virtue of strategy and the long sword you will come to be able to defeat ten men in battle. In our world the competition is mostly in the corporate world, and defeating men is mostly about dampening their voices out of the decision making process. So it is possible for you to come to a point where what you think takes president over what other people think based on the fact that you have mastered these virtues. But even better than being the pair of lips that whisper into the king's ear is that as you develop and refine your skill set, and become better at it than everybody else men will rally under your banner.
While there is much to say about the sneak ways one can attain power and influence, the most powerful way to gain these positions is to actually deserve them. This is something coming up quite frequently, the way is found in training, and it is this that many people do not like to do, I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fear of failure and the fact that learning is a process of gradually decreasing amounts of failure. This is why if you can master this complete craft your spirit will be more powerful than the spirit of normal men, because all of us are fear the path that must be walked in order to assure success. Your fortune must be planned for, take great care in loading the dice through exact training and eventually your skills and your spirit will be too pure to be ignored. Even if people have a burning hatred in their souls towards you, there is something to say about reputation, and if yours is imbued with mastery that hatred will pale and become respect.
Piano
I am getting a bit frustrated with my progress, so I decided to go look for a solution. I am formalising my practice around two ideas. The first is spaced repetition and the second is Interleaved practice. Where the later aids me in learning the different pieces of a song and the former helps me to remember what I have learned.
the idea of interleaved practice is that by breaking the whole song up into small pieces and then practicing those small bits, until I eventually eliminate what I know already and then only practice that which I do not know I can speed up how long it takes to learn a song. while with spaced repetition you allow yourself to forget some details and then reinforce those details by practicing in a specific algorithm, this leverages one of the important things about learning. Learning is news of difference, and the easiest way to create news of difference is to keep the material fresh by leaving it alone for a while and then looking at it again. The algorithm I am following is the fibonacci sequence. I am hoping that by this time tomorrow I can tell you at which point I am specifically, because at the moment I have not been able to marry the chords and the harmony yet.
some announcements
I have fallen behind on the two lecture series that I want to watch, and it is because I am not yet used to producing content every day. both yesterday and today I have been able to pin down producing the main feature of this account early in the morning, today I started at 07:36 am, and now coming towards the end of it, which includes eating breakfast and a break it is now 11:30 am.
Last night I went to my second drawing class, it happens every tuesday night. when I have drawn something I am particularly proud of I will show it off here.
There will be a second post today, about my steemit office, so if you are interested in how I am planning to keep this machine going you can come back at around 20H00 UTC to see what I am up to.
If you like this kind of content please stick around, and interact with me down in the comments. Having people to talk to about these things is a great inspiration, the most important part of my content is how it affects you. While for the moment I may simply be tracking my progress through the various learning projects I have going on at any time, this is supposed to be an inspiration to you
Quote I am pondering:
The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.