Integrity begins with I, Honor Rises Up from Within
Real entrepreneurship is a mental and experiential martial art; We redirect challenging forces that confront us and channel these chaotic forces into creative, productive action.
Depending on the circumstances,
You should be hard as a diamond,
flexible as a willow,
smooth flowing like water,
or, as empty as space.
Move like a beam of light,
Fly like lightning,
Strike like thunder,
Whirl in circles around a stable center.
--MORIHEI UESHIBA
An entrepreneur must be flexible. If one door closes, turn quickly and survey every direction for the very best new opening for productive action. If you encounter a barrier, climb over it, tunnel under it, or tear it down.
Life and success abound with paradox. A rather obscure and ancient tradition in martial arts and Eastern ways of thinking can be described as "Thick Face/Black Heart". This enigmatic tradition can be traced far back into the culture of China.
It is a challenge to understand "the Eastern mind" with our Western mind, so I will explain:
A "Thick Face/Black Heart" practitioner moves like a wolf in the deepest, darkest woods. Such a one is austere, silent, an outsider with a connection to no one, yet with a vital connection to everything. There is only one species on earth that has been more biologically successful over a long span of history than the wolf; humans. A wolf is attuned to natural law, and thus survives and thrives as an integral part of life. There is always paradox in real truth. The proverbial "lone wolf" is a human myth. Survival is a collective pursuit. A wolf knows that its survival depends on working within a tight knit, loyal community of allies.
Thick Face means that you are strong to the judgments of the outside world. Your face, your resolve is as firm and set as your strong mind. No amount of doubt, ridicule or attack from the outside world can knock you off of your own internal center of balance. The critics be damned!
A practitioner of Thick Face never has to "save face". You do not need to be respected, appreciated, admired, understood or even accepted in the normal social construct. You find your honor from within. You draw your self esteem from a deep inner well, not from shallow applause from the crowd. Every great innovator in human history has first been greeted with disdain and ridicule from others. Outward honor is usually only bestowed long after the entrepreneur or innovator has weathered resistance all the way to their goal.
The Eastern concept of Black Heart in this ancient tradition is even more perplexing to the Western mind.
A practitioner of the martial art of Black Heart answers only to his own heart and natural law, not an external moral authority. Social expectation and convention are meaningless to these courageous warriors. To the people around them they may seem aloof, even arrogant. Deep inside however, a deep abiding love directs their action. Such courageous love is far beyond mere displays of kindness. They know that the word integrity begins with I... it is based on being true to your own heart.
Thick Face/Black Heart practitioners are an enigma, there lives are a paradox.
An ancient Zen parable captures the essence of the Thick Face/Black Heart state of mind and way of action; A group of holy monks lived in the woods near a bustling city. They were ascetics that lived with no money and very little food. They wandered the woods with no permanent home and planted forest gardens.
One monk, an odd sort of fellow, smiled and laughed when the other monks were silent, devout and serious. The odd monk played with the animals of the forest and the children at the edge of town. One sunny day, the odd monk started painting beautiful images of the joyful and exquisite world he experienced around him. The ascetics reprimanded him for such vane and useless action. They told him that he should put down his paint brushes to pray and meditate. With a Thick Face attitude, the criticism and disdain of the other monks went unheeded, their stern reprimands slipped out of his mind, like water off of the back of a duck.
The monk then wandered into the city and started mixing with common people. The merchants of the town were amazed at the striking beauty of the paintings that the odd monk carried under his arms. The merchants purchased the monk's fine paintings, and his pockets jingled with gold coins. The other monks were horrified with their brother's sin. A vow of poverty was central to their faith; now this "Black Hearted" infidel made a mockery of their moral certitude. In the eyes of the other monks, he was now soiled and made unholy by the mundane world of money.
The odd monk joyfully continued in his wayward path. The community of holy monks were ready to permanently expel this infidel from their life, when a great drought set in on the land and persisted through the entire growing season. Their small patches of corn withered in the sun. Their potatoes dried to dust in the soil. A great famine ravaged the country.
The odd monk went into town. He emptied his pockets of gold on the tables of the merchants that had purchased his paintings so long ago. They loaded a cart with bread, vegetables, milk and butter. The monk took his full larder back to the dying monks. He fed them all. He nursed them all back to full health and vitality. He saved their lives.
The Black Heart of such a wayward monk or wandering warrior is only black to the outside view of small minded moralists. Inside, their heart is wrought of pure gold, tempered by life's fire.
Jesus was a courageous warrior, a practitioner of "Thick Face/Black Heart". He had no concern about how the Pharissees, the moral authorities of his day viewed him. He answered to a higher, deeper power deep within his own soul. Jesus stated that he was "no respecter of persons". He commonly broke the moral code and local law. His daily companions were the rejected, the ruffians, the prostitutes and sinners. The holy Pharisees considered this rebel, this heretic Jesus as their very nemesis, one to criticize and then crucify.
Contemporary examples of Thick Face/Black Heart warriors are Ghandi and Martin Luther King. They were both met with public disdain, but followed their own drummer on to their destiny. They both had flaws, but they took action in spite of any personal limitations. Steven Spielberg brought us a profound story of such a one; At first glance, Oscar Shindler appears amoral; a womanizer, a manipulator, a war profiteer. Shindler is then revealed as the courageous channel of salvation that delivers concentration camp victims from the gaping jaws of death. Shindler is a paradoxical savior.
We are all incomplete and flawed alone. That has always been the human condition. Courage is taking action in spite of fear. Honor is found by taking action even when we are imperfect. All heroic of the civilization shifting acts in History have been carried out by imperfect people. If we "wait until we are perfect" to enter into heroic action, then we will wait out our entire life on the sidelines. We find wholeness in group action, where the strengths of one overcome the shortcomings of another. As long as love guides any human enterprise, we head toward a more advanced human civilization.
---Michael Richards
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The essay above is an excerpt from;
"Light One Candle, The Handbook for Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs"
(available at Amazon.com
Michael Richards, author, published by Innovation Press in 1998
Ron Paul
November 2008 
Little Big O
Access: Public
