Letting Go Four Hands

"Letting go four hands is for when you and an opponent are in a deadlock and no progress is being made in the fight. It means that when you think you are going to get into a deadlock, you stop that right away and seize victory by taking advantage of a different approach."

Rereading Musashi keeps yielding fruit, sweet delicious fruit that is also high in fiber.

Stupid epiphany for you: If you want something else, do something else.

And by 'stupid' let us remember the old military adage 'if it's stupid and it works, it isn't stupid.'

I awoke today with a sense of decisiveness, a really wonderful feeling - the decision - I'm going to stop exhibiting for a while.

What I was observing was increasing effort for diminishing returns, largely hedonic returns. The exhibitions I've done have been successes. I feel no shame. I just felt my momentum slowing, my enthusiasm waning and these things leaching into my support base and bringing us all to a deadlock, an impasse. I could see it down the road. Not now, but down the road.

What would Musashi do? He would drop his fucking sword and kill you.

Let that thought explode in your mind a while. There is stuff we know how to do, and do well. It's an attachment to this knowledge that makes us persist even when it isn't working.

So you drop it, and do something else. And that's what I'm going to do. I've become the most successful artist I know. There is nobody ahead of me to imitate at what I do. I'm running out slack to pull up. So now I have to do something different - I have to invent. I have to find different avenues and different opportunities.

Miyamoto Musashi is terrifying, I'm glad my opponent is myself, I am substantially less terrifying.