Be Like Grass
For a long time, martial arts were central to my life. I trained throughout the week, and studied multiple styles at once. Of my favorites was Wing Chun, made famous in America by the Ip Man movies, which I studied for five years. In Wing Chun there is a saying, “accept what comes, follow what goes, and attack without hesitation.” This saying can be accompanied by the image of a blade of grass that, should it stand erect against the wind, will snap, but if it blows with the wind, will remain strong.
Instead of forcing your will onto a situation, you accept it as it is, go along to the extent you can, and when you find an opening, then you attack. When watching a skilled student of Wing Chun, he will look like a martial arts vampire, feeding off his opponent’s energy, and redirecting it to serve his own purposes. In typical Chinese fashion, this Wing Chun saying applies very well to daily life. We are not God, and thus we must accept the state of affairs, and only by accepting it, going with what happens, and then seeing how we can use it to our advantage, can we succeed. You move to a new town, and the job you moved for does not work out. An opening at a local restaurant is available, however. So, accepting what comes, you take the serving job, and in the course of that time you make friends at the restaurant, and, following what goes, you talk to the customers, and genuinely listen to what they have to say. By being like grass, bending with the wind, you find out from a customer that there is another company, offering the same job you moved for a year earlier, only ten minutes from the restaurant, and so you attack without hesitation, and get your desired job.
AI comes onto the scene, and instead of opposing it, you learn its ways the best you can, and after careful study, use it to your advantage.
It becomes apparent that politicians are easily bought, and so, instead of becoming an anarchist, or trying to cross “democracy” out of the dictionary, you acquire the capital to start buying politicians.
Cultural products begin to take a nosedive, so you use the barren field to put your own art out there, or support those capable of making art, quickly monopolizing the once dead cultural scene.
There is a leadership shortage in your parish, and you step into that role.
While a favorite trope of mine is the final stand, especially in its iteration in the battle outside Mordor in Return of the King, and in the movie 300, final stands almost always end in the heroes being slain. “Holding the line”, while brave, and admirable, is less effective as accepting what comes, following what goes, and attacking without hesitation. Students of Wing Chun, in applying this saying, do not surrender to their opponents, but accept their opponent’s will for a time, and only so that they can exploit their opponents will for their own benefit. Since you are not setting the tempo, and do not even have one, as it were, it is impossible for your opponent to disrupt your tempo. You may lose the fight, of course, and if you do it is because either you a) stiffened up, and became to attached to your own will, or b) you missed a vulnerability, and did not attack immediately.
Be like grass.