Lilith2

Petty tyrants

The “petty tyrants” are mentioned in The Fire Within : A petty tyrant is a tormentor. Someone who either holds the power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction. Petty tyrants teach us detachment.

Tyrant

Primal source of energy, ruler of the universe (alias "life is a bitch/bastard, and then your die").

• Ominous dots are hilariously inline with God not playing dice with the universe but playing an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time, as Terry Pratchett puts it so well in Good Omens.

Petty Tyrants

Tyrannical rulers or authoritarian persons who actually hold power over life or death of others.

• Pillage & Plunder: Modern war is a combination of military, economic, political, and propaganda pressure against "the enemy", fought on all fronts at once. What western nations have used for centuries is a two-pronged strategy, one energy-driven (aimed at securing more resources from the rest of the world) and the other security-driven (aimed at enhancing the capacity to intervene in exactly such locales),  that governs policies toward much of the world.

Minor Petty Tyrants

Tormentors who are fearsome and inflict misery, but do not hold any real power over life or death of others. In digital contexts we have sockpuppets and trolls.

• Sockpuppetry (using false identities for deception) is centuries old, but the web has made creating sockpuppets, and falling for their tricks, easier than ever before. And we can make our own, if only for understanding our adversaries and finding countermoves.
• Trolling on the internet fits this category. You can not control whether you will become a target of trolls but you can decide if you will be a victim. Knowing that the troll’s goal is to elicit a reaction instead of a response, you can initially use the famous “Don’t Feed The Trolls!” defense, but if maintained this gives the trolls even more power as it gives them the power to silence you.

Little Petty Tyrants

Tormentors with violence and cruelty; inducing fear through deviousness; subjugating another through sadness; or by making another act in anger or rage.

• Cyberbullying is also not under our control. And in the current state(s) of society, some of our little ones and more vulnerable members of society are in need of help, the help they are not getting locally because everybody is too busy making money and racing around for that.

Teensy-weensy Petty Tyrants

These are the tormentors who are just frustrating, exasperating and annoy to distraction. IMHO hanging out with those now and again is also a great exercise in not giving power away and not taking someone elses power away either.

• Petitioning authorities acknowledges authorities in their role. The constant stream of people asking for help with spreading petitions and the like can be quite annoying, but, if running a no-censorship soapbox operation, must be relayed. I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. Thank you Voltaire. Kindly.

The ingredients of the new seers' strategy shows how efficient and clever is the device of using petty tyrants for detachment. The strategy not only gets rid of self-importance; it also prepares warriors for the final realization that impeccability is the only thing that counts in the path of knowledge.

Uncluttering for impeccability

Keep on fiddling

All of us, without exception, believe a mix of truth and misinformation, and often enough, disinformation. We strive to understand the world as it is, and not how it looks only according to our preconceptions, which are shaped by a multitude of forces, embedded as we are in our cultural matrix. Sometimes, the most unlikely seeming explanation turns out to be the correct one. In a warrior mindset we consider alternative views, but question everything.

Most traditions have mindmaps that have been and are evolving locally from the experiences of the previous generations on what worked and what didn't for them and that can be helpful for uncluttering your mind with. The oldest mindmaps use trees and wheels as cognitive "hathangers". And all are generalisations in the wind without grounding details if not from there. Asking for details from ones own cultural matrix is not enough. Not even close. One needs to eat the local food, drink the water, breathe the air, listen to the stories, smell the earth, feel the bark of the trees, see local peoples, and experience local ways to catch what can only be described as a mere glimpse of the answer 42, the knowledge hidden in the trees and wheels in that specific locality on this beautiful planet.

Uncluttering means abandoning the comfortably known and takes a leap of confidence. The known may be painful, but there is some confidence in known operations and that makes it a comfortable pain. Therefor, may the clutter be with us until the burden becomes too great for us to carry, because then any creative change that promises to save time and energy becomes a viable option .

• Uncluttering your life - Are you working flat out just to stay afloat, and not getting anything "important" done? Does it seem like there aren't enough hours in the day? Is your trash can full? Do you feel overwhelmed? No time to spare? No time to unwind?
• Uncluttering your machine - Is your desktop a shining example of neatness and cleanliness? Or is it a big heap of icons only fit to be sorted in some manner? How many files are in your Documents folder? What does your directory structure look like? Easy to work with and a natural fit for you and what you do? Can you easily find what you are looking for or does the way you organise suck totally and drain your energy?
• Uncluttering electronic waste - What is e-waste? How do I dispose of my "old" computer(s)? Can I reuse (parts of) it?

Methodologies, processes and choreographies

Most processes are adapted to allow for minimalist approaches and to minimalise the risk of becoming the petty tyrants we fight.

• Shortest retrospective ever
• Scenario planning
• Threat modeling the quick and dirty way
• Walk of the wolf

Unexpected forms of logic

• Non-linear time
• Roleplay and controlled folly
• Confusing surveillance systems

References

.