Writer’s Bushido, Day 2
“The Moon and the Stars” from Miyamoto Musashi
“What is meant by the moon and the stars is that although both are in the sky they are two different things. The sky is the attack and the moon and the stars are the methods used. There should be no thought about using only one method or the other. You attack with a technique and it does not work. You try it again and it still does not work. Switch! You must never rely on only one particular attitude to get a job done.” — Miyamoto Musashi, Book of Five Rings: The Book of Fire
In this excerpt, Musashi builds a metaphor to remind us to be nimble. If the sky appears comfortable containing millions of stars and an enormous, changeable, moving moon, then Musashi recommends we can be that way too.
Techniques, after all, don’t take up physical space. We can learn new methods. We can learn as many as we have the patience to figure out, in fact. Whole constellations of skills and varied approaches.
