Slipping away

We forget. I have forgotten how I have slipped away from my craft. My craft of viscerally tearing away at the surface of assumptions and surface-level thoughts and feelings. Too wound up in living the "real" life, I have been. Finding a home, working, fighting. All this has taken their precedence over the hunger. Yet it still bites and claws at me, reminding me of the nibbling and eager promises that I have failed upon myself.

Happiness also drains away. Contentment satiates. I am feeling like the full man. But this is good in a sense. I can't imagine it any other way.

Maybe all I need to remind myself once in awhile and not neglect the project is through the mediums which most enthrall and represent me. I have to write music and write again. I have to bend and create. I will do so. I will find the time for what is time if not an instrument of my disposal?

Plato- The cave

3. Fight philosophy- Wisdom From the "Five Rings" (Musashi)

No man is invincible and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible.

It is doubtful that anyone truly understands the 'real' way of strategy, much less truly lives it. Yet military leaders must have some understanding of strategy and they must pass it on to their warriors, regardless of the limitations of their own understanding. Strategy demands that you know the difference between yourself and others.

Do not mistake that it is sufficient to finish one section of a job without having planned its continuation. Masters plan for contingency even when it appears that they are only improvising.

The warrior is quiet and strong and seem to be doing nothing. They do not appear to be tense and do not appear to be in disarray. They simple appear.

Perception relies on intuition and is developed through practice. Sight is purely the physical ability to use the eyes. One must be prepared for the possibility of losing one's sight in combat.

The warrior must be loose and tight at the same time. He must be firm and resolute, yet pliable.

Regardless of combat circumstances, you must remain calm. Calmness is attained through meditation and belief in your own skills.

The warrior must be flexible enough to change the entire structure of his attack at any moment.

To become one with the attack, you must strike as quickly and directly as possible without giving the enemy any room should he retreat and not give him the time to regain and regather himself. You must stick to him like glue without worrying whether you will be hit in return. When you go into the attack, you are essentially telling the enemy that you don't think much of his spirit. Plus there is always the possibility of missing the block, if you approach the enemy with resolve, you will be in a better position to finish him off.

There is no need for the enemy to start combat, you go into the attack and if the enemy decides to go in at the same time then you must be quicker, more focused and resolute.

You must learn different combinations till they become part of you and come without thinking.

Falling on the enemy is attacking without preconceived ideas as to how to conclude the battle.

You must continuously strike and counterstrike until you break the will of the enemy.

Use everything to your advantage at all times. When outdoors, keep the sun behind you. When indoors, keep a door or avenue of escape behind you.

By constantly creating difficulties for him, you will force him to deal with more than one thing, giving you the advantage.

If perfection were attainable, it would have no value and there would be no reason to pursue it.

Feint prior to attacking strongly in order to open up the enemy.

There are weak spots in all armor. Chip away at the weak spots and he will eventually weaken. At times it may be difficult for you to continue the attack when the enemy is not beaten in body and spirit, this is when you must reach into the abyss and bring yourself to totally destroy the enemy.

Speed is relative, it is dependent upon the speed of the enemy. You must adjust yourself accordingly, if you move too slow or fast, you may give him the advantage. So you should instead strive always for quickness.

2. Fight Philosophy- Combat sports and Honor

In this post, I will be exploring the relation between fighting and honor and link it to modern sanctioned combat sports. First, I shall define "Honor" which is the evaluation of a person's trustworthiness and social status based on that individual's espousals and actions. Honor is the external expression of a person's character: whether or not the person reflects honesty, respect, integrity, or fairness. Accordingly, individuals are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions, code of honor, and that of the society at large in our concerned arena of Fighting.

Next, I trace the roots of modern fight sports which are derived from hand-to-hand complements to shield bearing and weapon slashing combat systems. This is because in ancient war (and even now), empty-handed combat has its relevance in keeping the individual alive. All modern combat sports are watered-down versions of such fighting systems and have come to be through the implementation of rules so as to limit fatalities and make it more culturally acceptable and in turn economically viable in a the modern world context. Also modern sanctioned combat sports are means of outlawing legally and culturally deviant forms of dueling in a world of state sanctioned violence. But ironically and perhaps intelligently, modern sanctioned sports borrowed many rules from the various sets of Code duello that existed. A code duello is a set of rules for a one-on-one combat, or duel. As we can see, Codes duello laid the foundation for modern sanctioned combat sports in their role of regulating dueling and assuring that non-violent means of reaching agreement be exhausted and that harm be reduced, both by limiting the terms of engagement and by providing medical care. Very importantly, they also ensured that the duels be witnessed. The witnesses would allay doubts of foul play to grieving members of factions and help provide testimony if legal authorities become involved. This would be the pre-modern equivalent of referees and medical doctors who could call decisions and for the fight to stop.

Moving away from Dueling and refocusing on warring, we find that it is precisely in the context of warring that honor came about as a linked concept. For one of the main purposes of fighting was the assertion or testing of one's masculinity since warring was predominantly a male occupation. The secondary implication was also that success in fighting and winning one's enemy meant that one could increase his economic resources which would indirectly add onto one's social status within his group and confer somatic and reproductive advantages. This still holds relevance in the world of modern combat sports.

Honor has to be validated by an audience. This was why private challenges often occurred in ancient warfare and was viewed and cheered on by their brethren on both sides. Successes and failures alike would be recorded down into folk cultures in the form of stories and songs and be re-consumed and passed on down to future generations. Thus "Pain was temporary while Honor and Glory was forever" but many fail to recognize that this phrase would not hold through without audience validation. Losing could mean the infliction of a negative social response upon the loser whereby others would take him to be weak and exploit him in the future. Thus honor was a very valuable social commodity that would be guarded to great lengths. We see the modern recognition and conferring of honor upon combatants in the form of medals. In modern combat sports, marks of martial excellence are enabled by the keeping of fight statistics and in turn can be constantly assessed and reassessed by fight audiences.

Honor is also dependant on one's enemy. The more skilled one's opponent is and the more spirit that one's opponent displays adds to the overall difficulty and value of the fight and confers upon the winner more honor for the act of subduing such a worthy opponent. Thus the modern conception of weight and skill classes which pit "equals" against each other. No or little honor is to be gained by defeating a minor.

1. Fight Philosophy: Krav Maga

In this post, I will be comparing the main tenets of Krav Maga's fight philosophy against the political realist philosophy.

Pre-emptive attack: This rests on the assumption that the defender is weaker and needs the element of surprise. Another assumption is that the attacker is indeed aggressive enough to take action. But then again on the other hand, no action may mean harm to the defender.

From another angle of analysis, a pre-emptive attack is one method of power maximization, the quinessential asset to a realist player in order to ensure his survival.

“Fast in and out”: The amount of damage dealt to the attacker stops once attacker is unable to attack anymore. In essence, this is a ethical use of strength and power with limits.

Multiple assailants: Humans, being pack animals, can and will gang up on the Krav Maga defender. By being aggressive against one of the multiple assailants first, the Krav Maga defender is creating an tactical opening and is also striking at the unity of their collective will, Their collective unity would have to be tested against the individual “fight of flight” and it would make them question if it is worth it to attack such a pugnacious defender.

“Borrowing from the best”: Everything works so long as it works. The over-arching philosophy behind Krav Maga's choice of style and combatives is efficiency, not ideology.

“A creature of its environment”: Having been born out of the aftermath of the WW2 and Yom Kippur war, the original creators of Krav Maga would find that reality is harsh and so too the combat system must be. When transferred to the anarchic reality of the street, we find that the Krav Maga defender must play by the rules (or lack of) in order to survive.

“I am no superhero”: the Krav Maga defender will attempt to de-escalate the hostility of the situation because the defender knows full well the dangers of combat.

“An elusive creature”: This is where the value of verbal disarming comes into play as the Krav Maga defender appears submissive and the neutral stance which he adopts can explode into bursting combatives at any second. All these means that the Krav Maga defender is an elusive creature for the attacker to read.

“The chain is only as strong as its weakest link”: Krav Maga combatives are all aimed at the weakest spots in the human anatomy because that is the fastest way to end a fight and the attacker is always assumed to be stronger. This is another method of power maximisation.

“Tragic Realism”: as witnessed by point 1 and 3, Krav Maga operates on a level of “pessimistic realism” which is important to understand. Because merely looking at the dangers ahead and resigning oneself to it inevitability is cynicism. Looking at the dangers ahead and preparing accordingly is pessimism.

On Civilisation (John Armstrong)

Armstrong's thoughts are very much in sync with my own on agents of change, love and art as bridging towards the truth. In this book, he brings in an extra dimension of civilisation as the societal life-support system in the environment of freedom in order to nurture high-quality relationships between people and their ideas and objects. He defines such high-quality relationships as enabling the flourishing of our human nature. Such relationships are beyond attachment and obsession and invoke a questioning of worth and value.

And so this adds onto my idea: that free agents come together/ act seperately in order to foster a society with a nurturing environment with the aim of developing human flourishing (freeing the others from the social realm of pain and thereby allowing them to look upon and explore concepts of value).

But this is no airy-fairy idealism for he acknowledges that material support must be present in order to allow for such flourishing to happen. Very importantly, he even goes on to defend worldy goods and that they are not the cause of us being spiritually/ innerly deficient. He posits that it is not material comfort that has beguiled us from the path but that we have not grown sufficiently in our inner world. And this is because we allow our attachment to material goods to be just that. We do not use them as conduits in which to explore and develop our concepts of value. To achieve this, we must go, "So I love having this/admiring this object, but why do I love it? What does my love for this object then tell me about myself?"

Another important point that Armstrong puts forth is the distinction between "happiness" and "flourishing" and that we should aim for the latter since happiness is a buoyant inner state but not grounded in action and character. This brings into emphasis the new maxim that I shall adopt for next year, "How can I be of help to others today?" We must help each other deal with the challenges of mortality in the outer realm where the tangible realities bite at us on the most immediate level. And when happiness can be achieved, we must guide others on to a flourishing state.

13. On War- The "Warrior's Vanity"

In this post, I shall combine lines of thought from Azar Gat and Leo Braudy and explore the significance of the "Warrior's Vanity" as a sub-cultural superstructure in sustaining the soldierly ethos. (as termed in my previous post, "On war- What makes an effective soldier?"

Azar Gat starts us off with his argument of the evolutionary strain on all facets of human civilization and their origins from the innate biological drives that derive from our reproductive and sustenance needs. Everything else that is to be (which Azar understands with a Marxist conceptual aid as the cultural super-structure) has its roots from these biological drives, whether directly or indirectly.

Similarly, the evolutionary strain runs it course and casts its effects on the sub-cultural super-structure of the warring class/ group as well. Leo Braudy termed this set of values as "Code of Honor" which many have used before him. However, I posit that my term, the "Warrior's Vanity", lends an extra dimension of conceptual appreciation to this set of values. Firstly as Braudy argues, the code of honor needs to be affirmed by an appropriate audience. This feeds the warrior's vanity for he wishes to be desired/ respected and admired for his displays of courage and skill in battle. It is both self-affirming and reinforcing of the expectations of soldierly conduct in battle.

The significance of this much prized and justified source of vanity is that it helps signal the boundaries of exclusive membership which is highly important to all sub-cultures. Secondly, as explained above, it serves to anchor membership. Lastly, it posits the individual to rise above personal interest and ensures the thriving of the warring group's endeavors.