According to Art of War written by Sun Tzu, it is best to know yourself as well as your enemy. In this context, the relationship between you and your hypothetical enemy is very important. It is not about just being superior to your immediate enemy but rather understanding the structure of you and your surroundings because battle tends to be 3 way deadlock. I mean, if you expect your invisible hypothetical enemy to be almost unimaginably smart, you will certainly lose against a visible moron right in front of you. But if you try to beat a moron in front of you, you will certainly lose against very smart yet invisible enemy hiding somewhere. However I would say that it is still better to lose against a moron in front of you yet win against almost unimaginably smart invisible hypothetical enemy hiding somewhere. I mean, we always need to choose either to strive for mastery or to end up becoming irrelevant after all. To make a living, we have a lot of things that we are supposed to do. But we always come to this conclusion that we must do what we must to do at the moment by setting a final goal and deadline and make a plan to get there in time just to stay relevant however otherworldly we appears to be and be subjected to ridicule by doing so.
And when considering to hand over legacy to the next generation, it is better that your studies are so idealistic that the following generations cannot materialize your ideas for generations to come since ideas can only be ideas until they are materialized, and the longevity of the idea represents how idealistic it truly was. Thus Ideal ideas almost never die. In my personal case, it’s a tradition of bird and flower scene in great free hand style, and I’m considered the 3rd generation who study under the legitimate masters in Chinese art about this subject. It is considered almost impossible to make ideal great free hand style paintings even with decades of discipline. I believe that Chinese art is very advantageous as we start humanistically compete each other towards the endgame as I explained in the 3rd post.
However creating art is just one part of the process. How to manifest your art in front of other people is another part. I often contemplate about who to sell my art.
In conclusion, I want to sell my art to those who cause any event which can bring about an effect in an unexpected way like if the wind blows the bucket makers prosper. The more you don’t quite know how this happens, the better. The competition believes that he/she is losing because of pure luck while the winner know exactly why this is happening and can have time to come up with the next move while the loser is still contemplating. The loser gradually start realizing that he/she is losing for reasons, but when the loser realized that, he/she is about to lose again in a way the loser don’t quite understand.
There are notions of a holy grail and 玉 (usually shiny semi-precious stones, mainly jades). Holy grail is described as a hidden treasure in chivalric romance which only people who overcame numerous moral hardships can be relevant with. 玉 in Chinese character is written as 王 (king) with dot (、) which describes 玉 is a hidden treasure which only belongs to 王 (king), or paradoxically someone with 玉 can only be the most virtuous like 王 (king), just like a real owner of a holy grail must be someone who is considered to be the most virtuous alive in chivalric romance.
Such hidden treasures like 玉 have always been the subject of collection or even pillage to paradoxically prove the owner’s virtue therefore structurally the most precious 玉 always ends up in hands of the most superior due to repeated collections or pillages. 玉 is usually shiny semi-precious stones in general but especially jades. However due to the characteristic of semi-precious stone, it is very difficult to subjectively pick the superior stone to others because of their unique naturally occurring patterns. So this is more like hind-sight based opinion which stone was actually 玉 in the real meaning unless you witness someone actually becoming 王 (king), and his belongings automatically becomes 玉 as the result. In this context 玉 can not only be semi-precious stones but also any treasures like porcelains, scrolls or whatever 王 (king) owns. Therefore ancient Chinese artists wanted their art to belong to future king if not current king, so their art can be sublimated into valuable 玉 backed by authority just like British royal warrant.
Then the question among artists is going to be “who will be the next king?” King will most likely to be someone who can authenticate real value of things or even people accurately and certainly obtain them regardless of the competition only if necessary. I personally measure this probability as someone’s “lewd nature.” If they are “moody lewd,” it is even better.
Let me explain my usage of terms. Someone with superior lewd nature cannot be serious about life and slacking off however logically taught it is important to always strive for mastery therefore he/she is not marked by their competition as a threat. However when being exposed to something or someone this person is really interested in regardless of the logics, he/she will suddenly become cartoonishly competitive. Moody lewd person seems to be not interested in anything while he/she is secretly super interested in something or someone without implying any trace of it. This person is so under control that the only way he/she will attempt to obtain something or someone is through disinhibition, and those who witnessed his/her disinhibition experience manifestation of a celestial being therefore conclude him/her of being super virtuous as I described in detail in the previous post.
Therefore virtuous person can control his superior lewd nature to the extent that he/she always appear to be moody to the surroundings yet only way he/she attempt to obtain something or someone is through disinhibition which literally means failing to inhibit his/her lewd nature. Thus becoming an owner of such a hidden treasure (玉) which everybody strives for makes certain person virtuous like a king (王). This kind of person practices theory which most people don’t quite know how it work but somehow benefit from his/her disinhibition in the end. As an artist, I want to create an art that such person would strives for.
Makoto Shijo 