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[Lei Lei]

LAW 11

LEARN TO KEEP PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU

Do you have a price? You know they say everyone has a price. What is saving your liberty worth? Are you disposable? Can someone else do what you do? Or can someone younger, fresher, less expensive, less threatening, take your place. They say jack of all trades master of none, go back and master one. Perfect it. So that even if someone wants to get rid of you they can't. Even if they don't like you, they have to deal with you.

You might not necessarily will want to line yourself up with a powerful person because if they are an equivalent to your craft. They are already strong, if they are an equivalent what do they need you for. Line yourself up with someone who can depend on you. That way you can create a relationship of dependency. "You become their strength, their intelligence, their spine. Thus, necessity rules and will rule the world." You don't wan t to be disposable. You can actually benefit from "having the power without the thorns that come from being a master."

True power is demonstrated when you can get individuals to do as you wish, without having to force or hurt them.

The best way to demonstrate this, is by breeding dependency. When a person requires your services, they are weak, and at times unable to function without you. If you leave they would have to either do the work or lose time trying to train someone else to replace you. Many of times when in this position, people have a dependency to make demands, give me this or I will leave, but watch that, because it can where thin.

"Louis XI (1423-1483), the great Spider King of France, had a weakness for astrology. He kept a court astrologer whom he admired, until one day the man predicted that a lady of the court would die within eight days. When the prophecy came true, Louis was terrified, thinking that either the man had murdered the woman to prove his accuracy or that he was so versed in his science that his powers threatened Louis himself. In either case he had to be killed. One evening Louis summoned the astrologer to his room, high in the castle. Before the man arrived, the king told his servants that when he gave the signal they were to pick the astrologer up, carry him to the window, and hurl him to the ground, hundreds of feet below.

The astrologer soon arrived, but before giving the signal, Louis decided to ask him one last question: You claim to understand astrology and to know the fate of others, so tell me what your fate will be and how long you have to live. I shall die just three days before Your Majesty, the astrologer replied. The king's signal was never given. The man's life was spared. The Spider King not only protected his astrologer for as long as he was alive, he lavished him with gifts and had him tended by the finest court doctors."

You must get a skill that sets you apart. And if you don't have one make it look like you have one. Learned to be a "creeping ivy," wrap yourself around the source of power so it was cause great trauma to cut you away.

If you can arrange it, try to make yourself a bridge between many departments. That way many places and people need you. You must learn other people's secrets, and information that you wouldn't want to or they definitely wouldn't want you to broad cast. Be in a position to create insecurity and paranoia but do act on it, unless a last resort. Remember, this kind of dependancy will not make a person love you, in fact it will cause them to resent you and fear you. But some times its better to be feared than loved. Fear can control. Love can never control. "Better to have others depend on you out of fear of the consequences of losing than out of love of your company."

Try to corner the market. Remember no such independence comes without a price. You will create enemies. The will form allies amongst themselves. They will come for you make no doubt about it. There will be an unbearable pressure being on top.

The first lesson which experience should teach you is to keep hope alive but never satisfied, keeping even a royal patron ever in need of you. (Baltasar Gracian, 1601-1658)