Sometimes, the answers we seek are right in front of us, yet we fail to see them. I recall reading in a book that answers are always within reach, but we must remove the blindfold that covers our eyes to recognize them.
Taking a recent experience as an example, I find myself outside my country and my daily routine—what many would call outside my comfort zone. This doesn't bother me at all; sometimes it's just necessary to break the routine and step out of comfort. A little uncertainty is not a bad thing.
When I ook a course taught by writer Guillaume Lamarre, I gained a new perspective on life and a valuable tool for my toolbox. Lamarre taught that a creative person should always see every aspect of life as a story waiting to be told; it's merely a matter of finding the correct narrative to shape it.
Outside my comfort zone, with a wealth of stories to tell thanks to the various places and new people I encountered during my journey, I told myself, "I've got Sunday's write-up secured!" Why this thought? Although Satoricha is a space where we all learn and its tone is more relaxed, aimed at sharing a bit of what I know with others and vice versa, I have set a goal of publishing every Sunday. While many say it's best to publish daily, at Satoricha, I prioritize quality over quantity. However, this freedom does not equate to recklessness, so publishing once a week remains my weekly goal.
But what happens when I have no stories, am creatively blocked, or simply lack the time? In this case, despite having stories all around, I couldn't find one that truly filled my creative tank. Could Lamarre be wrong? Am I lacking the necessary skills?
This often happens: we imagine, plan, act, and do everything possible to make things turn out the way we want, only for Murphy's Law to take over and thwart our plans. What can go wrong goes wrong.
It was then that I remembered the self-directed war as I struggled to find the "perfect" story or the "perfect" author; I was stripping away my own narratives.
This occurs when we allow everything else to overshadow ourselves and our essence. In today's societies, it is normal and even necessary for a person to focus on goals and meet them, but the human factor is often overlooked. If there are technical failures in electronic devices, why should we be perfect? Think about it: We often demand perfection. But who is perfect to claim that we are not?
This does not mean we should lower our living standards and let everything drift without value; we would not be authentic but rather fall into something worse than the pretense of perfection.
The best way to understand this is by combining the insights of Sun Tzu and Rainer Maria Rilke, supported by interpretations from Robert Greene and Guillaume Lamarre.
Greene (2019) posits that when your survival depends on acting swiftly, or else you perish, you find yourself on the battlefield. You must corner your enemies where there is no escape; they will die without the possibility of fleeing. If they must die there, what wouldn't they be capable of doing? Warriors would give all their strength. When they find themselves in extreme danger, they fear nothing. When they have nowhere to go, they stand firm; when they fix their attention on something, they achieve their goals. If there is no other option, they will fight.
Lamarre (2018) states, "Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our most precious treasure." No person, as such, does anything. Only "action" or "doing" exists. Personal thought individualizes the task, involving the ego. When we have an idea to put into practice, a job to execute, or a mission to fulfill, our thoughts kick into gear. However, they often adopt a much more disturbing and destructive bias: "You've never done that," "You don't know enough about this," "The deadline is too short; you won't make it," and so on. The forms these reflections can take are endless.
Your mind dances a duet between the past and the future. These thoughts have but one objective: to kill your work before it is born, forcing you to leave the task for tomorrow. These little voices behave like a small Cerberus guarding a precious treasure. Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and The War of Art, named that Dragon: resistance.
With both contexts, we fulfill what Sun Tzu commands: "Thus, I say to you: Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. If you are ignorant of your enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are the same. If you are ignorant of both your enemy and yourself, you can surely be defeated in every battle."
Let us shape our battle:
Imagine standing on a battlefield, not one of swords and shields but of internal decisions and challenges. You face two formidable enemies: a cliff (the relentless pursuit of perfection) and a fearsome three-headed dragon (Fear). Despite knowledge and mastery of katas, you are a mere warrior who only thinks of your imperfection. This thought has prevented you from knowing your true essence as a warrior. Unlike other times, you find yourself fighting for your life. Before you, the battlefield is divided into two: the rear, where rises a cliff called "Lack of Optimism & Dreams," which could be defined as living death, and the forefront, where lurks the dragon Fear with its three heads: Failure, Mistake, and Clumsiness.
Only you decide whether to throw yourself off the cliff, which offers a lack of optimism and dreams due to not being perfect and clinging to the idea of perfection that others expect from you, or to confront Fear, regardless of how determined it is to devour you.
Whatever your decision, let me tell you that you will never know if your imperfection can help you defeat or even tame the Dragon. At the end of the day, in this chaotic game of existence, imperfection is our mark of authenticity.
Let's stop being tempted by the cliff and face the Dragon, remembering that ""𝖎𝖑 𝖒𝖊𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖔 𝖊 𝖑'𝖎𝖓𝖎𝖒𝖎𝖈𝖔 𝖉𝖊𝖑 𝖇𝖊𝖓𝖊 - the best is the enemy of the good."
Let's not seek perfection; let's strive to be better in what we consider good so that each Failure, Mistake, and Clumsiness brings us one step closer to improvement, turning Fear into motivation.
It's up to us to label our Dragon; it can be your worst enemy or best friend.
~ Satoricha
References
Greene, R. (2019). Las 33 estrategias de la guerra. Océano.
Klosse, P. (2013). The Essence of Gastronomy: Understanding the Flavor of Foods and Beverages. CRC Press.
Lamarre, G. (2018). La vía del creativo: Guía para reinventar nuestra práctica y nuestra mirada (Á. Marcos Lantero, Trans.). Editorial GG, SL.
Amnistiacatalunya. (n.d.). Comentario de textos. Comentario de textos. Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://www.amnistiacatalunya.org/edu/2/txt/guerra-sun.tzu.html
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