Tag: life

Posted in History & Literature

Thirty-Six Stratagems: Chapter 1 – Winning Stratagems

Posted on by Jinavie

(For all 36 stratagems, click here: https://jineralknowledge.com/tag/thirtysix/?order=asc)

The Thirty-Six Stratagems is a book from ancient China that outlines 36 stratagems (a ruse to change the flow of battle or aide a victory). The author and the time of writing are unclear, but it incorporates much wisdom from The Art of War and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Regardless of who wrote it, the Thirty-Six Stratagems is a must-read text as it outlines tactics that are very useful in war (especially the harsh battlefield of life) in a way that is easy for anyone to understand and learn. The thirty-six stratagems are divided into six categories: Winning Stratagems, Enemy Dealing Stratagems, Attacking Stratagems, Chaos Stratagems, Proximate Stratagems and Desperate Stratagems. Let’s learn them chapter by chapter.

Winning Stratagems are tactics that you can employ when you have all the conditions for a victory. They are tactics that utilise meticulous planning and deception to confuse the enemy and make victory certain.

Stratagem 1: Deceive the heavens to cross the ocean
People are not suspicious of things they have seen repeatedly. This is a perfect opportunity to seize. Give the enemy false reassurance through repeating a common act and strike when they are off guard.

Stratagem 2: Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao
Instead of facing the enemy head on, detour around them to strike their main base. It is a tactic where you capture something the enemy holds dear and using it to control the enemy as you wish.

Stratagem 3: Kill with a borrowed knife
Hide yourself while using a third party to bring harm to the enemy.

Stratagem 4: Leisurely await for the laboured
If you camp and rest at a strategic spot and strike the enemy after they have tired from a long march, you can raise the chance of winning. Also, laying siege to the enemy when they are short of food and tiring them out is another way to bring victory.

Stratagem 5: Loot a burning house
This means that you should strike when the enemy is in chaos when their base is on fire. In other words, take the opportunity when the enemy is in a tough spot and attack.

Stratagem 6: Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west
Distract the enemy’s attention to a different place and attack from a completely unpredicted location so that the enemy is unprepared.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Clap

Posted on by Jinavie

It takes two hands to clap. No matter how great a plan you have, you cannot achieve anything by yourself. That is why we search so desperately for someone to slap our hand palm-to-palm. But this idiom has many meanings. Just as we cannot clap with one hand, when two hands miss or move away from each other, there is no clap. If two people want to achieve something then they must co-operate to produce synergy. But does that mean we can just carelessly clash our palms together?

If you clap with each hand as stiff as a board, it only hurts both people’s hands and produces a dull, bad sound. But if you loosen your hands a little and slap with a smooth motion, you get a clear, awesome sound. When two people act stubbornly and only stick to each other’s opinions and pride, they will achieve nothing and instead hurt their friendship, possibly even resulting in utter failure. To bend a little and give way to the other person – that is how two people can produce co-operation, understanding and connection. That is the secret to grasping the philosophy of 1 + 1 = 3.

1 + 1 = 3

(NB: The picture is from the basketball manga Slam Dunk where the two protagonists pull off one of the most epic high fives in fictional history. If you recognise it, you are awesome.)

Posted in Science & Nature

Grandmother Hypothesis

Posted on by Jinavie

There are many physiological events that puzzle scientists. Menopause is one of these as it is very uncommon in other mammals. Why do human females stop having periods after aging? From an evolutionary point of view, an organism that has lost reproductive function cannot aid evolution and thus it is a mystery how a trait like menopause survived natural selection. The leading theory in how such a phenomenon happened is the grandmother hypothesis.

According to this hypothesis, as humans are social animals menopause can still be an evolutionary advantage despite not being able to produce offspring. This is because older women can invest the massive amount of energy and time required to upkeep childbearing in other places. For example, they can help their family and society grow by working or taking care of children instead. Furthermore, as the probability of miscarriages and congenital defects rise with aging (generally after a woman hits the age of 30, the chances of a healthy pregnancy decreases), menopause has the function of protecting the gene pool of the species. These facts combined lead to the conclusion that after an individual has reached a certain age, taking care of their children or grandchildren instead of birthing more offspring is more effective in propagating their own genes. Also, there is no one that can propagate massive amounts of wisdom and information to the next generation like the elderly.

In modern society, menopause has more significance than at any point in the history of human beings. As our average life span has surpassed 80 and heading towards 90, almost half of a woman’s life is post-menopause. In some ways, the grandmother hypothesis contains within it a certain philosophy regarding life. As we age, we give birth to children and raise them until they become independent, at which point we escape our basic biological duty of reproducing to lead our “own” lives. Senescence is like a second spring after one’s “biological” life. It is the start to a new life – a more “human” life of your own where you can focus on seeking pure happiness.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Possimpible

Posted on by Jinavie

Have you ever had a moment when something so unbelievable, so improbable that you never would have imagined it would happen, happened? When something you could only dream of actually happened in real life? When something so impossible that you must have stepped into a parallel universe for that thing to happen? The feeling that such a moment brings is indescribable.

Success is not about money and power. Success is not a product of luck. To become successful, one must change their state of mind first. The most crucial thing to understand is that the only limit is that there are no limits. Only when you dare to go past what is possible will you attain anything worthwhile. “To the impossible?” you may ask. No, true success lies beyond the impossible. A place where the possible and the impossible meet to become: the possimpible. Only when you have become the master of the possimpible will you be able to confidently say that you have succeeded in life.

Nothing, and everything is possimpible. 


Posted in Life & Happiness

What Cannot Be Seen

Posted on by Jinavie

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

“Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is important is invisible to the eye.”

(from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry)

In The Little Prince there is a story that goes like this. At the age of six the protagonist, after seeing a picture of a boa constrictor swallowing an animal in a book, draws “Drawing Number One”:

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He showed it to adults and asked if the drawing frightened them. They replied: “Why should any one be frightened by a hat?”

Drawing Number One was not a drawing of a hat, but a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. However, adults could not understand the true meaning of the drawing. So the protagonist drew Drawing Number Two which showed the elephant inside the boa constrictor. The adults advised him to put aside drawings of things like boa constrictors and elephants that could not be seen and instead take interest in geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why he gave up his dream of becoming an artist.

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Even after growing up and becoming a pilot, he sometimes showed people Drawing Number One and asked what they saw. But they only saw the hat, never the elephant or the boa constrictor. Unlike when he was young, he did not try to explain the true meaning of the drawing and instead brought up “adult topics” like golf and politics.

Money, status, beauty… Things that can be seen can fool you just as an optical illusion does. Things that are invisible such as the mind, creativity, understanding and love are the only things that can truly bring you satisfaction. So how can we look for things that we cannot see? We can infer that the wind blows from the rustling of leaves. If the leaves are not rustling, it means the wind is not blowing. To find like-minded people, a “password” needs to be used, just as we used leaves to find wind.

The Encyclopaedia of Absolute and Relative Knowledge is like a “password” to me, just like Drawing Number One was for the protagonist of The Little Prince. It is something that can be used to see if the other person shares my way of thinking and beliefs. Whether it be a book, a picture or a quote, such a password that represents you as a whole can be very useful in finding a true companion. If they ask you why you write such a thing, what the meaning of the picture is or why you respect the quote, then they are not the one you were looking for. The person you are desperately looking for will never ask “why” but instead respond with honest curiosity. Yes, the correct answer to the password is an expression of childlike curiosity. Upon seeing that person’s pure smile, you will know: that that person can decode your password, that they understand you, that they will accept your everything. That person is the one you have been looking for to accompany you for the rest of your life.

Posted in History & Literature

Economics

Posted on by Jinavie

Early economists believed that a growing economy was a sound economy. Growth was used as a ruler to measure the health of the nation, corporations, markets and all social constructs. But it is impossible to always move forwards. In reality, a growing economy goes through cycles of growth and depression, showing a waveform on a graph. An economy without depression forms a bubble that will burst in the future, bringing a greater economic crisis. Simply put, “sound economic growth” is only achieved by the concept of two steps forward, one step back.

We have reached a point where we cannot grow despite having the potential to. Perhaps there will be no further economic growth. Only a continuous state of balancing powers will remain. A sound society, a sound nation, a sound worker… those are things that do not damage the surrounding environment or become damaged by it. We should no longer try to conquer nature and space. Instead, we must integrate with nature and the universe. Our only slogan is harmony. There should be an entwining of the external and internal world and we must live with modesty not violence. Human beings will become one with the universe. Mankind will meet an age of stability where we do not strive for the future or reach for faraway goals. Mankind will live a simple life in the present. Only then will mankind finally attain happiness.

1 + 1 = 3

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(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)

Posted in Philosophy

Town Musicians Of Bremen

Posted on by Jinavie

Once upon a time, a donkey who had worked hard for his master all his life on a farm was about to be sold off simply because he was old. The donkey fled to Bremen where he hoped to be a travelling musician. On his way to Bremen, he met a cat, a dog and a rooster who were all placed in a similar predicament. The four animals decide to form a band of animal musicians. While travelling together, they came across a house full of delicious food and a warm fire. 

However, they soon found out the house was inhabited by robbers. The animals decided they should somehow chase away the robbers and ultimately came up with the plan of the rooster jumping on the cat’s back, who was on the dog’s back who was on the donkey’s back. The quartet began singing at the top of their voice. The robbers were startled by the strange sound and terrifying figure and ran for their lives, thinking the house was haunted. The musicians then feast on the food and spend a warm night in the house.

Later that night, the robbers returned and sent one of their members to scout the house. In the dimly lit room, he sees the cat’s eyes but believes it to be candlelight. At that moment, the cat scratched his face, the dog bit his leg, the donkey kicked the robber and the rooster chased him out the door. The robber then told his companions about how he was scratched by the long nails of a witch (cat), stabbed by an ogre’s blade (dog), hit by the club of a giant (donkey) and worst of all, chased away by the shrieks of a dragon (rooster). The robbers gave up on the house and the animals spent the rest of their lives in that house happily ever after.

The moral of this story is that even after being thrown away, if you stay optimistic and work through the troubles you can still live a happy life. A similar lesson is found in a quote by General Douglas MacArthur: “Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.”. If you have passion, dreams and a friend who has the same mindset, nothing is impossible.

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Posted in Life & Happiness

For Them

Posted on by Jinavie

Eat, for those who are starving.
Run, for those who cannot walk.
Breathe, for those who are suffocating.
Dream, for those who have lost hope.

See, for those who are blind.
Listen, for those who are deaf.
Feel, for those who are numb.
Speak, for those who are voiceless.

Laugh, for those who are crying.
Love, for those who are heartbroken.
Live, for those who are dying.
Be happy, for those who are miserable.

There is no excuse for not doing what you can. 
There is no excuse for trapping yourself in a box.
If it does not harm you or others, then do whatever the hell makes you happy.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Baggage

Posted on by Jinavie

Dear young one. The journey of life is a long and tedious one, so take a look inside your bag.

Greed will weigh you down while hope will make your footsteps lighter.

If you do not throw out the wants and desires from your bag while you are young, not keeping only a bag full of hope, then you will surely fall before climbing even one hill.

(from Ha-ak Ha-ak by Oi-soo Lee)

Posted in Philosophy

Clown

Posted on by Jinavie

Excerpt from Rorschach’s journal, October 16th, 1985

“…Heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.

Doctor says “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.”

Man bursts into tears. Says “But, doctor…I am Pagliacci.”

Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains. Fade to black.”

(from Watchmen by Alan Moore)

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