Merćer
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- Dec 20, 2020
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The best way to fight off aggressors is to keep them from attacking you in the first place. To accomplish this you must create the impression of being more powerful than you are. Build up a reputation: You’re a little crazy. Fighting you is not worth it. You take your enemies with you when you lose. Create this reputation and make it credible with a few impressive—impressively violent—acts. Uncertainty is sometimes better than overt threat: if your opponents are never sure what messing with you will cost, they will not want to find out. Play on people’s natural fears and anxieties to make them think twice.
The porcupine. It seems rather stupid and slow, easy prey, but when it is threatened or attacked, its quills stand erect. If touched, they come out easily in your flesh, and trying to extract them makes their hooked ends go deeper and deeper, causing more damage. Those who have fought with a porcupine learn never to repeat the experience. Even without fighting it, most people know to avoid it and leave it in peace.
when someone attacks you or threatens you, you make it clear that he will suffer in return. He—or she—may be stronger, he may be able to win battles, but you will make him pay for each victory. Instead of taking him on directly, you hurt something he values, something close to home. You make him understand that every time he bothers you he can expect damage, even if on a smaller scale. The only way to make you stop attacking him in your irritating fashion is for him to stop attacking you. You are like a wasp on his skin: most people leave wasps alone.
Once people see you as a fighter, they will approach you with a little fear in their hearts.
When opponents are unwilling to fight with you, it is because they think it is contrary to their interests, or because you have misled them into thinking so.
—Sun-tzu
The porcupine. It seems rather stupid and slow, easy prey, but when it is threatened or attacked, its quills stand erect. If touched, they come out easily in your flesh, and trying to extract them makes their hooked ends go deeper and deeper, causing more damage. Those who have fought with a porcupine learn never to repeat the experience. Even without fighting it, most people know to avoid it and leave it in peace.
when someone attacks you or threatens you, you make it clear that he will suffer in return. He—or she—may be stronger, he may be able to win battles, but you will make him pay for each victory. Instead of taking him on directly, you hurt something he values, something close to home. You make him understand that every time he bothers you he can expect damage, even if on a smaller scale. The only way to make you stop attacking him in your irritating fashion is for him to stop attacking you. You are like a wasp on his skin: most people leave wasps alone.
Once people see you as a fighter, they will approach you with a little fear in their hearts.
When opponents are unwilling to fight with you, it is because they think it is contrary to their interests, or because you have misled them into thinking so.
—Sun-tzu
