Always Choose Death
Let go of who you are to make space for who you want to become
In Hagakure, a practical and spiritual guide to the warrior, Tsunetomo says: ”When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance”
I interpret this as being confident in my actions. Thinking of all the possibilities before they happen. Only the paranoid survive.
I recently took up fencing. When the opponent draws his sword high to strike, I embrace death and walk into his attack. If I do this without flinching, I might be able to get the point.
In real life, this translates to accepting failure before failure comes. Meaning not that I want it, but that I am ok with it. Without the burden of success, my moves are weightless. Has it ever happened that you play a tennis-match better somehow when you know you are gonna lose and you just “have fun”?
This separation is the letting go. Letting go of expectations, of thoughts that arise and make me tremble. This is meditation in motion.
Creating the content-bank
Always choose death. For example, I have been trying to grow my social-media, but to no avail. It doesn’t alert me. It means I still have to learn and be consistent. When I hit it big, my followers are gonna have a huge content bank to binge. Alex Hormozi had a weekly podcast for 6 years, without any substantial downloads. Now people are obsessed with his content. ALL of his content. So I choose “death” for the moment.
This stoic negative meditation also brings gratitude. Because I realize how many shitty things could’ve happened, but didn’t.
Silence
In Scorsese’s film Silence, Rodrigues - a portugese catholic priest, hearw that in Japan his mentor repented God. He cannot believe this, so he starts his journey to find out the truth.
He wants to be a good christian, living life as Jesus did. Humble and helping people. Jesus’ path was full of suffering, so he expects it. He sees death all around, but endures it. In a scene after getting tortured, he looks at a puddle and instead of seeing his face, he sees Jesus’s. His path is reaffirmed. He does not lose faith.
At the end, he meets his mentor. He is asked to repent God and step on a cross. He refuses. The japanese see his resistance to physical pain and start boiling other people alive. Rodrigues still does not repent.
His mentor talks to him. He says that Jesus would not allow those people suffer. Now paradoxically, Rodrigues has to let go of the identity that once defined him, a christian, in order to maintain his “purity”. He steps onto the cross and cusses God. In the last scene, he is old and ready to die, with a hidden DIY cross in his hands.
What I want to point out is that I have to let go of my the identity I want to have and embrace the idenities that will bring me there. I want to be a succesful entepreneur, but the first step is to put my head down and learn from those who have already succeeded. Let go of the expectation of viral videos and do videos with 0 views.
