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Mental

Borrowing a corpse to resurrect the soul (Jie Shi Huan Hun)

Many things have had happened since I last updated this blog.

For one, my uncle passed away. Healthy, therefore all the more devastatingly unexpected. The feeling is strange if you had dinner with a person only to find out he or she is dead the following day. Life is just too fragile to be mindful of everything. I guess through some twisted logic, Joker came to the conclusion, “Why so serious”…why so serious indeed?

Then one day I had this enlightenment if you like. I am reaching 30 years old [soon] and therefore rightfully I have another 30 years to live meaningfully, i.e. before I end up on crutches or bed-ridden if I couldn’t fool the statistics. I don’t think 30 years is that long for I have almost completed one full cycle of 30 years. If retirement age is set at 55, what is left for me? Think about it.

The 36 Strategies of the Chinese is another equally famous book, if not better, than Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It is a compilation of thinking and strategies used by the Chinese for almost 5,000 years of history. The author is Anonymous or Nameless, in keeping up with the mysterious nature that the Chinese is very fond of.  This book is somehow closely linked to the Book of Changes, or I Ching that I couldn’t understand a single word.

The book is divided into 2 parts in general, the advantageous and the disadvantageous, i.e. if you are in an advantageous situation, you can just refer to Strategies 1 – 18. Under each category, it is further broken down into three finer parts e.g. under the Disadvantageous Situation we have (a) Confusion strategies (b) Deception strategies and (c) Desperate strategies. Thus 6 strategies in each of the 6 categories will add up to 36 strategies. Beautiful.

Borrowing a corpse to resurrect the soul is strategy # 14, used when one is in an offensive mode. The origin of the saying comes from the Chinese mythology of the well known Eight Deities. One of the eight is called Iron-crutch Li, rumoured to be a very handsome man. Before his spirit left the body to meet another Deity, he ordered his disciple to guard his body for seven days while his spirit is away, after which the disciple ought to burn his body because if he didn’t return, it means he has become a deity himself. Something dramatic happened and the disciple burned his body on Day 6. When Li Xuan (Iron-crutch Li) returned on Day 7, he couldn’t find his own body and therefore left his soul wandering around. One day he spotted a beggar’s corpse and went into it and so became a lame beggar who had to use an iron crutch to move around.

I like this strategy because it challenges us to look at things of the past and to reuse them to our advantage. For example, corporations that buy other well-known corporations to penetrate local market (Proton-Lotus) or product life cycle extension like Gillette MACH 3 Sensitive that is enhanced with aloe vera strip. Shaver blade is nothing more than thin metals used to remove unwanted body hair. And whether it’s laced with aloe vera or not, it still functions the same.

The strategy borrowing a corpse to resurrect the soul advocates using alternative means from the past to achieve our purpose. In applying this strategy to my blog, I couldn’t think of a more literal way to resurrect my blog using an old corpse (old idea).

 

 

 

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