Did you ever feel like you're loosing a war? When everything you ever believed in and fought for was wasted? You may be a noble or so but you die bleeding like the rest of your foot soldiers and your body will be ravaged as a spoil of war. Dust recognizes no one. Loosing a war happens even to the greatest geniuses of war at one point. They all fall down if not at least stumble.
There was never one who literally ended his own misery though. There were rumors of Hitler shooting himself scribbled by scrupulous critics but was never proven anyway. I am definitely not a Pacifist and I condone genocide, his name is only mentioned here as an example of a fallen leader. Let me mention Nero as well as an exception. He was thought to have become lunatic and that caused his downfall.
The greatest war heroes and thinkers always come up with a plan to rise up soon after a defeat. Not that they wait to be defeated first, but it's when man is pushed to his lowest that he has nowhere to go but to go up again. I write not to emphasize on the defeat alone and how it feels but rather what to do about it. History shouts of leaders worthy of emulation for their skill to get past the darkness of the night as they look forward to the hope which morning brings, this write up is insufficient to mention all of them.
I am one who looks back to the past for lessons learned and I do not believe that history repeats itself, we are actually those who do repeat history. For those who are less experienced in what it feels when loosing a war, lessons abound everywhere: from people we personally interact with to those we barely know and whose story we may have just heard from someone else, and from various forms we may not have noticed, like a song, a book or a video.
There was this Chinese movie I watched only a few months back, both sides of war is portrayed in that there was actually no enemy at all but one side is enemy to the other and that's it. It was not the usual villain versus hero plot, both sides were both victim and offender. There were lessons to learn in both winning and loosing. I would like to talk about loosing a war. Let me name a few things one can do that will have you loose whatever kind of war you face in life:
1. Delay. The general allied with the imperial prime minister and had delayed a well-manned plan a lot of times prior to the actual attack itself. By doing so, the wind they foreseen to be blowing for them that night eventually shifted course and blew against them. As we say it locally, "what are you waiting for? Christmas?!"
2. Arrogance. This arrogance maybe understandable due to the fact that his army is greater in number in contrast to that of the opposing side. He is a higher ranked general too who had subdued all other protesting groups save for the tiny province encamped in a scenic spot called, "Red Cliff."
3. Lust. This is related to the first in that the same general kept on shoving his subordinates away just to spend stolen moments with the wife of one of his enemy's, the same woman he had offered his cup once but was denied. It may look insulting to her husband what she did but her intentions at first is to diplomatically stop the advancing party from attacking her native shore. She ended up locked of course, having thought of poisoning the general with a sip of her famous tea recipe.
4. Self-sufficiency. He may have been the best war leader of his time yet his own wisdom is not always enough to win a war. The opposing group has only but four young, inexperienced warlords at the time, yet each one has contributed well to the defeat of one giant using but a sling of stone.
One worthy to be mentioned would be the genius behind most of the tactics used, a young noble who carefully studied wind patterns within a few days period and was able to predict at what time will the wind shift course to their advantage. The enemy's fiery arrows boomeranged due to this. He also came up with the idea to send about five bogus boats that were manned by utmost three persons to be able to gather a million arrows. The larger group, not realizing the trick behind it, fired continuously until the boats retreated. I believe he also thought of sending the two neighboring allies away to make the enemy believe they were abandoned by those two. Of course, their group came back to aid in time for the biggest attack.
There were also countless others of lower ranks who had their share in the victory, like one who had formulated mixtures that will increase a hand-made bombs blast. I was not able to check which one had thought of the other ideas which was shown on the movie but I'm sure all other young lords took part in brainstorming for those plans as much as when it was time to have them executed: there were kamikaze boats that were deployed to lessen if not eliminate enemy ships harbored near the shoreline; a few troops whose mission is to attack the enemy's base camp though it means they have to get past great warriors before even getting an inch close to the general (they got to penetrate the defense line of course using the hand bombs).
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On a personal note, it's always the weak who fall right through a spear to have himself stabbed to death and killed rather than to endure a certain pain. This life is not always similar to war but for whatever reason, I feel like I'm loosing a war inside the deep recesses of my soul. I will not be weak and freely fall down a spear as some would, I'd rather bite my lips to lessen the pain of a dagger piercing my heart till I breathe my last and be no more.
So much for the morbid analogy, I have never been to war of course and I hope that there would be no need to be so; but for the past few days, my whole world has been falling apart and the whirlwind inside my head had been spinning round that I can no longer be in control of myself. If I was weak, I would have crushed myself to pieces, burned myself alive and scattered my remains like dust that knows no home of its own. Yet my blood is stronger than all the pain there ever will be inside my head so I surely will go on ashamed yet unabashed, suicidal yet hopeful, and morbid yet happy even if I'm loosing a war. #
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