KEYS TO POWER Space we can recover, time never. Napoleon Bonaparte, 1 769-1821 Time is an artificial concept that we ourselves have created...
KEYS TO POWER Space we can recover, time never. Napoleon Bonaparte, 1 769-1821 Time is an artificial concept that we ourselves have created to make the limitlessness of eternity and the universe more bearable, more human. Since we have constructed the concept of time, we are also able to mold it to some degree, to play tricks with it. The time of a child is long and slow, with vast expanses; the time of an adult whizzes by frighteningly fast. Time, then, depends on perception, which, we know, can be willfully altered.
This is the first thing to understand in mastering the art of timing. If the inner turmoil caused by our emotions tends to make time move faster, it follows that once we control our emotional responses to events, time will move much more slowly. This altered way of dealing with things tends to lengthen our perception of future time, opens up possibilities that fear and anger dose off, and allows us the patience that is the principal requirement in the art of timing. There are three kinds of time for us to deal with; each presents problems that can be solved with skill and practice. First there is long time: the drawn-out, years-Iong kind of time that must be managed with patience and gentle guidance. Our handling of long time should be mostly defensive-this is the art of not reacting impulsively, of waiting for opportunity. we shall be in trouble.
" So he had the fellow 's feet cut off Both families did exaetly the same thing, but one timed it right, the other wrong. Thus suecess depends on ... rhythm. LIEH TZll, QlJOTED IN THE CHINESE LOOKING GLASS, DENNIS BLOODWORTH, 1967 The sultan [of PersiaJ had senteneed two men to death. One of them, knowing how mueh the sultan loved his stal !ion, offered to teaeh the horse to jly within a year in return for his !ife. The sultan, faneying himself as the rider ofthe only jlying horse in the world, agreed. The other prisoner looked at his friend in disbelie! " You know horses don 't jly. What made you come up with a erazY idea like that? You 're only postponing the inevitable. " "Not so, " said the [first prisoner]. "I have aetually given myselffour chances for freedom. First, the sultan might die du ring the year. 5eeond, 1 might die. Third, the horse might die. And fourth . . . 1 might teaeh the horse tu jly!" THE CRAFT OF POWER. R.G. H. Sm, 1 979 LAW 35 295 TIIE TI{O[ T \,\D I'I IE C [ IlCi':Ol\ A fisherman in the month of May stood angling on the bank of the Thames with an artificial fly. He threw his bait with so milch art, that a young trollt was rllshing toward it, when she was prevented by her mother. "Never, " said she, "my child, be too precipitate, where there is a possibility of danger. Take dlle time to consider, before YOIl risk an action that may be fatal. How know YOIl whether yon appearance be indeed a fly, or the snare of an enemy? Let someone else make the experiment before you. lf it be a jty, he will very probably elllde the first attack: and the second may be made, if not with SlIccess, at least with safety.
" She had no sooner spoken, than a glldgeon seized the pretended fly, and became an example to the giddy dallghter of the importance of her mother's co linse I. FABLES. ROBERT DODSLEY, 1 703-1 764 296 LAW 35 Next there is Jorced time: the short-term time that we can manipulate as an offensive weapon, upsetting the timing of oUf opponents. Finally there is end time, when a plan must be executed with speed and force. We have waited, found the moment, and must not hesitate. Long Time. The famous seventeenth-century Ming painter Chou Yung relates a story that altered his behavior forever. Late one winter aftemoon he set out to visit a town that lay across the river from his own town. He was bringing some important books and papers with hirn and had commissioned a young boy to help hirn carry them. As the ferry neared the other side of the river, Chou Yung asked the boatman if they would have time to get to the town before its gates closed, since it was a mHe away and night was approaching. The boatman glanced at the boy, and at the bundle of loosely tied papers and books-"Yes," he replied, "if you do not walk too fast." As they started out, however, the sun was setting. Afraid of being locked out of the town at night, prey to local bandits, Chou and the boy walked faster and faster, finally breaking into a run. Suddenly the string around the papers broke and the documents scattered on the ground. It took them many minutes to put the packet together again, and by the time they had reached the city gates, it was too late.
When you force the pace out of fear and impatience, you create a nest of problems that require fixing, and you end up taking much longer than if you had taken YOUf time. Hurriers may occasionally get there quicker, but papers fly everywhere, new dangers arise, and they find themselves in constant crisis mode, fixing the problems that they themselves have created. Sometimes not acting in the face of danger is YOUf best move-you wait, you deliberately slow down. As time passes it will eventually present opportunities you had not imagined. Waiting involves controlling not only YOUf own emotions but those of YOUf colleagues, who, rnistaking action for power, may try to push you into making rash moves. In YOUf rivals, on the other hand, you can encourage this same mistake: If you let them rush headlong into trouble while you stand back and wait,
you will soon find ripe moments to intervene and pick up the pieces. This wise policy was the principal strategy of the great earlyseventeenth-century emperor Tokugawa Ieyasu of Japan. When his predecessor, the headstrong Hideyoshi, whom he served as a general, staged a rash invasion of Korea, Ieyasu did not involve hirnself. He knew the invasion would be a dis aster and would lead to Hideyoshi's downfall.
Better to stand patiently on the sidelines, even Jor many years, and then be in position to seize power when the time is right-exactly what Ieyasu did, with great artistry. You do not deliberately slow time down to live longer, or to take more pleasUfe in the moment, but the better to play the game of power. First, when YOUf mind is uncluttered by constant emergencies you will see further into the future. Second, you will be able to resist the baits that people dangle in front of you, and will keep yourself from becoming another impatient sucker. Third, you will have more room to be flexible. Opportunities will inevitably arise that you had not expected and would have missed had you forced the pace. Fourth, you will not move from one deal to the next without completing the first one. To build your power's foundation can take years; make sure that foundation is secure. Do not be a flash in the pan-success that is built up slowly and surely is the only kind that lasts. Finally, slowing time down will give you a perspective on the times you live in, letting you take a certain distance and putting you in a less emotionally charged position to see the shapes of things to come.
Hurriers will often mistake surface phenomena for a real trend, seeing only what they want to see. How much better to see what is really happening, even if it is unpleasant or makes your task harder. Forced Time. The trick in forcing time is to upset the timing of others-to make them hurry, to make them wait, to make them abandon their own pace, to distort their perception of time. Ey upsetting the timing of your opponent while you stay patient, you open up time for yourself, which is half the game. In 1473 the great Turkish sultan Mehmed the Conqueror invited negotiations with Hungary to end the off-and-on war the two countries had waged for years. When the Hungarian emissary arrived in Turkey to start the talks, Turkish officials humbly apologized-Mehmed had just left Istanbul, the capital, to battle his longtime foe, Uzun Hasan. Eut he urgently wanted peace with Hungary, and had asked that the emissary join hirn at the front. When the emissary arrived at the site of the fighting, Mehmed had already left it, moving eastward in pursuit of his swift foe.
This happened several times. Wherever the emissary stopped, the Turks lavished gifts and banquets on hirn, in pleasurable but time-consuming ceremonies. Finally Mehmed defeated Uzun and met with the emissary. Yet his terms for peace with Hungary were excessively harsh. Mter a few days, the negotiations ended, and the usual stalemate remained in place. Eut this was fine with Mehmed. In fact he had planned it that way all along: Plotting his campaign against Uzun, he had seen that diverting his armies to the east would leave his western flank vulnerable. To prevent Hungary from taking advantage of his weakness and his preoccupation elsewhere, he first dangled the lure of peace before his enemy, then made them wait-all on his own terms. Making people wait is a powerful way of forcing time, as long as they do not figure out what you are up to. You control the dock, they linger in limbo-and rapidly come unglued, opening up opportunities for you to strike.
The opposite effect is equally powerful: You make your opponents hurry. Start off your dealings with them slowly, then suddenly apply pressure, making them feel that everything is happening at once. People who lack the time to think will make mistakes-so set their deadlines for them. LAW 35 297 298 LAW 35 This was the technique Machiavelli admired in Cesare Borgia, who, during negotiations, would suddenly press vehemendy for a decision, upsetting his opponent's timing and patience. For who would dare make Cesare wait? Joseph Duveen, the famous art dealer, knew that if he gave an indecisive buyer like John D. Rockefeller a deadline-the painting had to leave the country, another tycoon was interested in it-the dient would buy just in time. Freud noticed that patients who had spent years in psychoanalysis without improvement would miraculously recover just in time if he fixed a definite date for the end of the therapy. Jacques Lacan, the farnaus French psychoanalyst, used a variation on this tactic-he would sometimes end the customary hour session of therapy after only ten minutes, without waming. After this happened several times, the patient would realize that he had better make maximum use of the time, rather than wasting much of the hour with a lot of talk that meant nothing. The deadline, then, is a powerful tool.
Close off the vistas of indecision and force people to make up their damn minds or get to the point-never let them make you play on their excruciating terms. Never give them time. Magicians and showmen are experts in forcing time. Houdini could often wriggle free of handcuffs in minutes, but he would draw the escape out to an hour, making the audience sweat, as time came to an apparent standstill. Magicians have always known that the best way to alter our perception of time is often to slow down the pace. Creating suspense brings time to a terrifying pause: The slower the magician's hands move, the easier it is to create the illusion of speed, making people think the rabbit has appeared instantaneously. The great nineteenth-century magician Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin took explicit notice of this effect: "The more slowly a story is told," he said, "the shorter it seems." Going slower also makes what you are doing more interesting-the audience yields to your pace, becomes entranced. It is a state in which time whizzes delightfully by.
You must practice such illusions, which share in the hypnotist's power to alter perceptions of time. End Time. You can play the game with the utmost artistry-waiting patiendy for the right moment to act, putting your competitors off their form by messing with their timing-but it won't mean a thing unless you know how to finish. Da not be one of those people who look like paragons of patience but are actually just afraid to bring things to a dose: Patience is worthless unless combined with a willingness to fall ruthlessly on your opponent at the right moment. You can wait as long as necessary for the condusion to come, but when it comes it must come quickly. Use speed to paralyze your opponent, cover up any mistakes you might make, and impress people with your aura of authority and finality. With the patience of a snake charmer, you draw the snake out with calm and steady rhythms; Once the snake is out, though, would you dangle your foot above its deadly head? There is never a good reason to allow the slightest hitch in your endgame. Your mastery of timing can really only be judged by how you work with end time-how you quickly change the pace and bring things to a swift and definitive conclusion.
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