As a boy, impressed by Dumas’s novels, I went with a school friend (who later became a gold medallist) to enroll in a certain fencing section (it seems even paid).

Signed up.

The training and exercises began…

After a couple of weeks, the coach told me that I shouldn’t come anymore: I don’t know how to get into the right position by number, I don’t know how to hold a rapier correctly, in general, I’m a dumbass in fencing and I have NOTHING to do in it!

(My friend was very good at this, he was even a champion!)

Many years later, when watching an average French film “The Life of a Bachelor” based on Balzac’s novel, I heard a fencing teacher’s phrase in it:

“You need to hold a sword like a bird. If weak, it will fly out of your hand.

If you do it too hard, you’ll strangle a bird!”

As usual, I was washing dishes, thinking about it, and the thought immediately came to me that this saying or rule is much more universal than it seems, and applies to any kind of weapon or tool.

I know from military practice that a pistol should also not be clutched convulsively by the handle or sluggishly wrapped around it. For sniper pistols and sports pistols, when you need to quickly fire several shots in a row, a small hole is drilled at the end of the barrel, next to the front sight, at the top. This is done precisely so that you don’t have to aim every time, because an ordinary pistol, according to all the laws of mechanics, throws up slightly with each shot. And this hole, through which a jet of compressed gases is ejected directly when the bullet departs, compensates for the recoil by its reaction and allows you to keep the initial sight.

So, any weapon and any object should be held in the hand ADEQUATELY for its purpose.

Even a hammer. Or a cup of tea.

The next playful thought was about itself: How should thoughts be “kept” in mind?

It turns out to be the same as a bird – again ADEQUATE!

If it is too weak, then thoughts begin to jump like fleas, “undisciplined” fuss, get confused, and instead of strict, orderly thinking, a kind of “mental jostling” arises.

As one wit said: “It took him a long time to gather his thoughts, but the meeting never took place.”

If it is too strong, the thought “petrifies” and turns into a dogma!

A person becomes a dull, pedantic reader, incapable of free, flexible, non-dogmatic thinking.

If there are many such “petrified” thoughts (DOMINANTS) blocking any non-dominant thoughts in the mind, then strict and unwavering observance of the Psychological Law of Archimedes is a clear evidence of this:

“Any unusual or unpleasant thought immersed in consciousness is pushed out of it with a force proportional to the “volume” of its strangeness or unpleasantness.”

The example of this little note clearly shows the bizarrely twisting associative chain of thought from the fencing rule to the Psychological Law of Archimedes.

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