The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene Law 48: Assume Formlessness
By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack.
Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp keep yourself adaptable and on the move.
Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed.
The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet
on stability or lasting order.
Everything changes.
When a Spartan boy reached the age of seven, he was taken from his mother and placed in
a military club where he was trained to fight and underwent the strictest discipline.
The boys slept on beds of reeds; they were allotted only one outer garment to wear for
an entire year.
They studied none of the arts, music was banned and only slaves were permitted to practice
the crafts that were necessary to sustain them.
The only skills the Spartans taught were those of warfare.
Children seen as weaklings were left to die in a cavern in the mountains.
No system of money or trading was allowed in Sparta; acquired wealth, they believed,
would sow selfishness and dissension, weakening their warrior discipline.
Sparta was a society dedicated to the art of war.
Spartans would be tougher, stronger, and fiercer than their neighbors.
This was the only way they could ensure their stability and survival.
The Spartans’ single-mindedness allowed them to forge the most powerful infantry in
the world.
They marched in perfect order and fought with incomparable bravery.
Their tight-knit phalanxes could vanquish an army ten times their size, as they proved
in defeating the Persians at Thermopylae.
A Spartan column on the march would strike terror in the enemy; it seemed to have no
weaknesses.
Yet although the Spartans proved themselves mighty warriors, they had no interest in creating
an empire.
They only wanted to keep what they had already conquered and to defend it against invaders.
Decades would pass without a single change in the system that had succeeded so well in
preserving Sparta’s status quo.
At the same time that the Spartans were evolving their warlike culture, Athens was rising to
equal prominence.
They took the sea, became great merchants and spread their currency throughout the Mediterranean.
Unlike the rigid Spartans, the Athenians responded to every problem with consummate creativity,
adapting to the occasion and creating new social forms and new arts at an incredible
pace.
Their society was in constant flux.
In 431 B.C., the war that had been brewing between Athens and Sparta for so long finally
erupted.
It lasted twenty-seven years, but after many twists of fortune, the Spartan war machine
finally emerged victorious.
Sparta had defeated Athens, but the fluid Athenian way of life was slowly breaking down
its discipline and loosening its rigid order.
They were adapting to losing their empire, managing to thrive as a cultural and economic
center.
Meanwhile Sparta grew weaker and weaker.
Some thirty years after defeating Athens, it lost an important battle with the city-state
of Thebes.
Almost overnight, this once mighty nation collapsed and would never recover.
In facing a serious problem—controlling superior numbers—Sparta reacted like an
animal that develops a shell to protect itself from the environment.
But like a turtle, the Spartans sacrificed mobility for safety.
They had no culture beyond warfare, no arts to relieve the tension, a constant anxiety
about the status quo.
Victory would mean new lands to govern, which they did not want; defeat would mean the end
of their military machine, which they did not want, either.
Only stasis allowed them to survive.
But nothing in the world can remain stable forever, and the shell or system you evolve
for your protection will someday prove your undoing.
"When you want to fight us, we don't let you and you can't find us.
But when we want to fight you, we make sure that you can't get away and we hit you squarely
. . . and wipe you out . . . The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harrass; the
enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue."
- Mao Tse-tung, 1893-1976 As always thanks for watching!