v. 69

The expert in warfare says:
Rather than dare make the attack
I’d take the attack;
rather than dare advance an inch
I’d retreat a foot.

It’s called marching without marching,
rolling up your sleeves without flexing your muscles,
being armed without weapons,
giving the attacker no opponent.
Nothing’s worse than attacking what yields.
To attack what yields is to throw away the prize.

So, when matched armies meet,
the one who comes to grief
is the victor.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Usula K. Le Guin

Can you imagine a more contrarian prose-poem? The Tao Te Ching can be read as a manual for statecraft in parallel to interpretation as a guide to mystical experience. This meditation upon statecraft admits that conflict is a given, that friction is unavoidable in the course of relations between peoples.

The suggestion: casting oneself in the role of aggressive mother-fucker is ill advised.

Better to take a blow, absorb the assault, (so to take the measure of the opponent).

After all, the aggressor concedes the moral ‘high ground’ to the opponent.

The eminence of victory is thrown away from the very beginning.

That matters. It matters a great deal.

We can always use a song. This one by Berlin, still stands. Take My Breath Away. The solo is by the incomparable Terri Nunn.