Meaning

Cliches, truisms and other sayings resonate for a reason ... they have a basis in truth. Their downfall is that they only really make the sense they are meant to, once the truth and the reality are actually experienced, and the subtleties involved understood. Up until that point, the words can mean whatever we decide they do. Same for all written and spoken knowledge.

We can only see and understand out of our own eyes after all, and we all possess the human trait of trying to make sense out of the input that we get by comparing it to what we already believe ... hence the tendency we all have to see patterns and recognize points of reference, even when they do not exist.

Here are some famous sayings from Sun Tze's Art of War:

"To know your enemy, you must become your enemy"

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized"

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win"

"Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across"

"All warfare is based on deception"

These all make sense to me in the context that I have experienced them, and they all seem to me to be very important keys to understanding tactics. But who knows, in the future my 'truth' could morph into something else, and I will look back and realize how limited it was before ....

We must be careful to not get too fixed in our understandings .....