The Art of War
“Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.”
– Sun Tzu, from the Art of War
Article Originally Published September 19, 2017
Taking a hiatus last year to ensure (or determine) my own sanity, I found that my frustrations have been stemming, not from a simple dissatisfaction with design as a job or consulting, but from the realization that I want more.
There was a time when I would have said ‘my work has evolved greatly over the past few months’, but it is actually I who have been evolving.
The shifts in my own perceptions of who am I, the work I do and why I do it – these shifts have been informing my every decision, have changed the way I speak about myself and the manner in which I engage and communicate with my clients and colleagues as well.
People who know me best will have heard me speak of how I believe design, or art, to have an enthralling paradoxical duality to it: it is both the end and the means to the end; it infers purposefulness while in the very same moment existing only for its own sake; it is about being practical and useful while at the same time fulfilling a wholly aesthetic calling.
Can such a thing be?
And if it can be so with an ability or talent that one has been given, what more can be said of me? If the thing I create can have this many sides to it, then it is only reasonable to accept that I am even more complex, and my dissatisfaction at being viewed as a mere…cog…a mere tool in someone else’s vision for me and for themselves…the more my dissatisfaction, the more my frustration with my industry and my impatience with my world — the more it makes sense.
So since we speak of the ‘art of war’, what war is it then that we are embroiled in? Does the true war not begin with the battles in our own minds?
The more I meet with people and organizations to discuss their visions and their great ideas that they want to brand or sell, the more I realize that knowing, in some small way, our own minds, is the first, most challenging and also most rewarding step we can take to bringing our dreams to life.
The more I have understood what I have been longing for in my life and in my work, the better able I have been to help others seek out and begin to find their own. I say begin, because truly, it is a journey, the kind of journey that, yes, is about the end result they seek, whether logo or campaign or influence, but also about the ability to grow — to change, to do better even at the most basic level.
And the more I understand myself, and what I am seeking the more prepared I have become to adapt to a changing world that I may not always understand and that definitely may not always understand me.
And that is where the real adventure begins.
Bruce Lee Be As Water Philosophy video.
