Boxers, Fencers, and Dancers

“The fencer’s weapon is picked up and put down again. The boxer’s is part of him. All he has to do is clench his fist.” - Marcus Aureleius

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I often wonder what the best path to success is. And by best, I don’t mean the path that could produce the best possible outcome. I mean the path that, if played over and over in a simulation, would result in a favorable outcome with near certainty. [1]

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Thinking in this way has made me wary of dependencies. Because when certainty is the goal, protection from dependencies (or any external factor) that might derail success becomes critical.

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One only needs to look around to see this is true. Take global trade (US-China). Or energy (EU-Russia). Or big tech (Apple-TSMC). Or finance (Too Big To Fail). Dependencies are often the cause of our biggest problems. And it’s true at the macro and the micro.

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The lesson then for the individual seems simple: expand what’s in your control and protect your vulnerabilities. More agency. Less dependency. Be the boxer, not the fencer.

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I’ve recently been thinking a lot about what makes strong money, and a key attribute is salability: the ability for a money to retain its value across time and space. The strongest money isn’t affected by external forces: government approval, economic conditions, location, and so on. [2] This principle seems to apply to people, too. The strongest people are immune to attack from outside forces: governments, media, competitors.

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For those in pursuit of sure success, there’s a practical lesson here: prioritize acquiring salable skills. Skills that retain value across time, space, and context. Skills whose value is not dependent on external factors. 

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Learning to write, speak, and think critically is good advice because these are transferable skills that nobody can take from you. The investor Naval Ravikant made this point well in a 2020 Twitter Q&A when he was jokingly asked, “How do I steal your money?” His reply: “Steal my ideas, they’re worth more.”

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When the source of your success is internal, you enjoy greater agency and security. But when your success is dependent on external factors - a colleague, an economic event, a legislative outcome - you expose yourself to failure.

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In taking this line of thinking to the extreme, one might be tempted to conclude that dependencies should be avoided completely. But I think that’s mistaken.

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From a practical POV: while technology has changed what’s possible to accomplish alone, there are still limitations to individual pursuits - be it time, skills, or experiences. Some goals simply require dependencies: building a corporation, traveling to space, or making a film. For people with these goals, the lesson shouldn’t be to avoid dependencies. Instead, it should be (1) to limit the downside risks of your dependencies and (2) to be judicious and deliberate with the dependencies you do establish. 

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From a philosophical POV: dependencies unlock new (and meaningful) experiences. I think about the boxer and fencer as compared to the dancer. The common idiom, “It Takes Two to Tango” gets at this idea that in order to partake in some experiences, dependencies are demanded. And what’s interesting is that it’s the dependency itself that makes the experience all the more meaningful. 

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In action movies, a protagonist’s family is often the target of the villain. The interdependency of the family creates a vulnerability for the hero. But in acknowledging this reality, it would be inappropriate to conclude that removing that interdependency is the best path forward.

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Life is a series of tradeoffs and some tradeoffs are worthwhile. (Even if they make you more fragile.) I think the lesson then should be that, in the end, your dependencies should enrich your life rather than impair it.

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Yes, learn to be the boxer and not the fencer. This is important. But also know it's sometimes worth being the dancer, too.