Sorry I've Been Away

Cover of The 33 Strategies of War

     It's been a long week of helping to take care of my friend with the brain tumor, on top of all the work I've been doing. A friend of mine gave me a book called "the 33 Strategies of War" by Robert Greene. It's part of Robert Greene's trilogy of book of strategies & rules; this one about war, one about power, & the last one concerning seduction (political & social, not sexual).

     These books are of the self help variety but are not your typical Tony Robbins psycho mumbo jumbo about inner peace & stuff. These books are more a kick in the ass & more reality based. So far, it's a great book & one where I find myself reading every paragraph 2 or 3 times in order to digest it all. That would explain why it's taking me forever to read it.
     My favorite passage so far (I'm only on strategy 5) is this one: "It can be valuable to analyze what went wrong in the past, but it is far more important to develop the capacity to think in the moment. In that way you will make far fewer mistakes to analyze.
     Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present & responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself & the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or successes), & preconcieved notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling & hardening there & damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendancy in the mind.
     The first step is simply to be aware of the process & of the need to fight it. The second is to adopt a few tactics that might help you to restore the mind's flow."
     There's something to digest to a little while. Of course, I would've put it another way: JUST DO IT.