Any project—artistic or professional or scientific—is like fighting a war.
There is a certain strategic logic to the way you attack a problem, shape your work, deal with friction and the discrepancy between what you want and what you get. Directors or artists often start out with great ideas but in the planning create such a straitjacket for themselves, such a rigid script to follow and form to fit in, that the process loses all joy; there’s nothing left to explore in the creation itself, and the end result seems lifeless and disappointing. On the other side, artists may start with a loose idea that seems promising, but they are too lazy or undisciplined to give it shape and form. They create so much space and confusion that in the end nothing coheres. The solution is to plan, to have a clear idea what you want, then put yourself in open space and give yourself options to work with. This means not burdening yourself with commitments that will limit your options. It means not taking stances that leave you nowhere to go. The need for space is psychological as well as physical: you must have an unfettered mind to create anything worthwhile.
Daily Law: You always want open space, never dead positions. Direct the situation but leave room for unexpected opportunities and random events.
The 33 Strategies of War, Strategy 20: Maneuver Them into Weakness—The Ripening-forthe- Sickle Strategy
Strategy is an art that requires not only a different way of thinking but an entirely different approach to life itself. Too often there is a chasm between our ideas and knowledge on the one hand and our actual experience on the other. We absorb trivia and information that take up mental space but get us nowhere. We read books that divert us but have little relevance to our daily lives. We have lofty ideas that we do not put into practice. We also have many rich experiences that we do not analyze enough, that do not inspire us with ideas, whose lessons we ignore. Strategy requires a constant contact between the two realms. It is practical knowledge of the highest form. Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way, and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it. In strategy all of life is a game that you are playing. This game is exciting but also requires deep and serious attention. The stakes are so high. What you know must translate into action, and action must translate into knowledge. In this way strategy becomes a lifelong challenge and the source of constant pleasure in surmounting difficulties and solving problems. The month of September aims to transform you into a strategic warrior in daily life.
In my book The 33 Strategies of War, I make the point that most of us exist in a realm that I call tactical hell. This hell consists of all the people around us who are vying for power or some kind of control, and whose actions intersect our lives in a thousand different directions. We are constantly having to react to what this person does or says, getting emotional in the process. Once you sink into this hell, it is very difficult to raise your mind above it. You are dealing with one battle after another, and none of them end with any resolution. It is very hard for you to see the hell for what it is; you are too close to it, too mired in it to think of it any other way. Because there are so many people now vying for power in this world, and our attentions are so distracted in many different directions, this dynamic only gets worse and worse.
Strategy is the only answer. This is not some dry academic point of contention. It is actually a matter of grave importance, the difference between a life of misery and one of balance and success. Strategy is a mental process in which your mind elevates itself above the battlefield. You have a sense of a larger purpose for your life, where you want to be down the road, what you were destined to accomplish. This makes it easier to decide what is truly important, what battles to avoid. You are able to control your emotions, to view the world with a degree of detachment.
If a person tries to suck you into their battles or problems, you have the necessary distance and perspective to keep away or help them without losing your balance. You see everything as a strategic concern, including how the group you lead is structured—for mobility, for morale. Once you are on this track, everything becomes easier. A defeat or setback is a lesson to be learned, not a personal affront. Success does not go to your head, make you overreach.
There are false strategists in this world who are nothing more than master tacticians. They look like strategists because they are able to manage immediate problems with a degree of aplomb. They know how to fix problems. They get ahead, or rather, they are able to just raise their heads above the water. But they inevitably slip up. I consider President Bill Clinton to be an example of this, as compared to an Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who were true strategists.
There are others who also seem to have a vision, to have a large plan in life. They look like strategists as well, but their plans have no relation to reality. Their plans and goals are really reflections of their desires. And in the execution we can see this. Everything turns into friction. President Bush’s “grand strategy” to remold the Middle East is an example of this. It looks large and encompassing, on paper it makes some sense, but in practice it is a massive failure, because it has no relation to the reality on the ground.
Strategists are realists if nothing else—they can look at the world and themselves with a higher degree of objectivity than others.
My books have been described as evil and immoral, and me as someone who is creating more harm in this world by writing them. I don’t take this personally, but the truth as I see it is that the books are not evil at all. I believe far more bad things occur in this world because people do not know how to operate effectively, or strategically. They launch wars without knowing where they are headed; they start businesses that are on shaky ground and get nowhere; they direct political campaigns that are badly thought out and fail; they waste valuable time and energy on things that do not matter. It is tempting for people to talk about good and evil from their armchairs. Nothing is easier. But to translate those ideas into reality requires strategic thinking. Even Gandhi knew that.
To the ancient Greeks, far more harm is caused in this world by stupidity and incompetence than outright evil. Those who are overtly evil can be combated, because they are easy to recognize and fight against. The incompetent and stupid are far more dangerous because we are never quite sure where they are leading us, until it is too late. The greatest military disasters in history have more often than not originated from leaders who lack strategic wisdom.
It is almost a religious matter: Will you convert to the light side, to strategy? Or will you keep yourself in tactical hell? The mental commitment to being more of a strategist in life is half of the battle. It is all that I ask of my readers.