A Blog From Beyond The Social Grave · 4:30am Nov 2nd, 2020

Yes! It is I! Ruby the Great and Soon-To-Be-Well-Read, and also Not Dead. It's been far too long since we've last spoken, but it's also been far too busy and stressful lately to be able to tack anything down here, as I'd have next to nothing to report. But for now, I do have something to report: A completed book, and a soon to be completed book. That is, Rosseau's The Social Contract (complete) and Martin Van Creveld's A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind (ongoing).

Now, to begin, I got a job that's part-time, a small two days, at a place I've worked at for 7 months before. I've found that with my autism, something that minor and manageable would be fine for me to gain some level of income, while also not detracting from my reading and writing productivity. While this was the hope initially, it was soon dashed. Getting back in the rhythm of being employed again will take some time, and it's been five, almost six weeks, since I've started working again. On another note, it was originally going to be two days, but someone there, who wasn't much liked to begin with by any of the staff, clocked out suddenly during a shift and left. Mind you, we usually only have two people working at a time, so this was far more devastating than if someone did this at any other job. So, that said, it's three days a week for the time being.

I also mentioned a bit about how the initial hopes of balancing work and personal productivity had fallen apart, but not followed up on it. So, I found that I've been under a tremendous amount of self-imposed pressure on all sides already, and adding workdays to this made it insurmountable. So having to divide my attention a thousand ways leaves very little for each item individually. That's the reason why I haven't been completing my readings on pace as I had before. That said, let's talk about my readings.

The Social Contract is an incredibly important, influential, relevant, and poignant book written about the nature of people as they relate to governments, and the various types of government (as seen through the limited scope of antiquity), how they do and ought to function, but also what people's role is in directing government as well as government's main job is to cater to the Public's Will. Among many other things that usually I'd delve into considerable detail explaining, but this blog post has been giving me pressure for quite some time, and with that, stress. So perhaps I'll come back to it, perhaps I won't. It all depends on how I'm feeling. I should mention that things have been excruciatingly difficult as of late, so this blog post that's been looming over me for quite some time has been hard to write.

As for the book I'm reading, it's by the famed military scholar Martin Van Creveld, who in it, details the various ways of strategy that different societies employed throughout history, and what the cultural view on warfare was. For instance, where we start is with the ancient Chinese, and we get a summary of the strategies they employed from Sun Tzu, Sun Pin, T'ai Kung, etc. But also insights from those like Lao Tzu about Daoism, and then combining them into a note I took like this, "The Chinese viewed war as a departure from Dao or ‘cosmic harmony.’ Also that Dao can only be restored with Dao, as in, the victor of the war should be the most virtuous. The first of Sun Tzu’s five fundamental factors was the morality of the fighting, and that, “which causes harmony between the people and their leaders, and that would guide them and life and lead them to death without mortal peril.”
Sun Pin adds, “Engaging in a battle without righteousness, no one would be solid and strong.”

To sum up, expect less of these, as the pressure from everything (of which there are many sources) cause me great stress, and with my autism, overwhelms me extremely quickly, and then nothing gets done, which only feeds back into the stress and pressure I put on myself. So in writing this blog, I attempt to relay much-needed updates for those who care and also alleviating one source of stress and pressure. Let us all hope I get better at managing these sorts of things, and that I become more and more productive!

Thank you all, truly. WAtS has not left my mind, and I continue to make steady, if but small, notes on it next to every day! For those of you just joining me, consider reading my other blogs to gather an insight as to what I do, and what I plan to do!