“Measured” Decisions

Since for the Magus the most important condition for effectively conducting battle is developing the right strategy for that battle, the idea often arises that every decision made on the Way must be as “measured” as possible.

And that is, of course, true — in the heat of the moment it is unlikely that an effective strategy can be forged. Yet at the same time it would be surprising if this notion did not have a destructor built into it, and of course it does.

Often a “measured” decision is one for which a great deal of time is spent on thinking and “mulling,” so that a “measured” decision becomes synonymous with a “protracted” one. How often the “need to think everything through properly” is nothing more than a cover for fear and indecision!

In practice, for the greater part of the time supposedly spent “weighing” a decision, the mind is distracted by all manner of other things, and meanwhile the Parasite of mind, of course, does not sleep and whispers the line of behavior that serves it. And it can be very convincing. As a result, a huge proportion of “carefully considered” decisions turn out to be directly opposed to what is effective, leading only to losses of Power and defeats.

The Magus must sense where Power flows, and how any given decision will affect that current. Above all, he must not allow the parasite of the mind’s “arguments” to knock him off the Way and cause him to choose an option that does not accord with the desires of his heart. And the longer a decision is “thought over,” the more arguments the Parasite will muster in favor of the choice that leaves the mind in the position of a victim.

Therefore, although a Magus’s decisions should by no means be rash, the most important skill for a Magus is an honest look inward that allows him to orient himself quickly and accurately and determine how the vector of that situation relates to his own inner vector of the Way — in other words, the essence of decision-making for a Magus is to establish how the options relate to the Way.

So it is no accident that the Magus’s motto echoes the familiar saying, “It is better to regret having done something wrong than to regret having not done something at all.” Inaction is never a winning strategy, and “thinking over” a decision often amounts, in practice, to mere inaction.

With well-developed intuition, many prefer to rely on it, and it produces good results; whereas when intuition is not particularly strong, the Magus must expend extraordinary effort so that, using the principle of intelligence, he can grasp the situation requiring a decision and envision possible outcomes for each course of development — and do so quickly, first, while the state of choice itself is still relevant, and second, before the Parasite of mind has confused him with its impeccable logic.