In memory of all the dreams that died on the altar of strategy, and in celebration of all the miracles born from simple, unstrategic love.
We live in an era obsessed with strategy. From boardrooms to battlegrounds, spiritual retreats to startup incubators, strategy is glorified as the master key to success. The strategist is seen as visionary, the master of patterns, the engineer of outcomes. But what if strategy is not the master key—but a shadow of something deeper? What if our obsession with strategy is not only misguided, but counterproductive?
This essay argues that strategy is a derivative—a secondary formation, like a financial option contract whose value depends entirely on an underlying asset. And that love—not sentiment but the raw, generative force of consciousness—is that underlying asset.
When we begin with strategy, we start from lack. When we begin with love, we start from abundance. And what unfolds from love—action, excellence, mastery—is more powerful, resilient, and truthful than anything strategy alone could design.
The Delusion of Control
Strategy assumes a manageable universe. It promises order through calculation: if we optimize the variables, predict behaviors, anticipate risks, we can win. But this mindset rests on a deeper illusion: that life is fundamentally knowable and controllable.
In practice, strategy creates recursive complexity. In Formula 1, for example, teams simulate hundreds of possible race conditions: tire degradation curves, pit stop timing, opponents’ reactions. But every strategic layer demands another, as opponents react to your reaction to their reaction. The result? A hall of mirrors. A sophisticated mess.
And here’s the deeper issue: strategy rarely accounts for desire. Not just market desire, but internal desire—the ambitions, fears, anxieties, and egos of every player involved. The strategist’s own ego. The founder’s insecurity. The investor’s greed. The performer’s craving for validation. These desires interact in unpredictable ways and turn even the most elegant plan into an entropic spiral.
The problem with strategy isn’t just technical—it’s ontological. Strategy begins from fear. Love begins from truth.
Strategy Corrupts Because It Contracts
At its core, strategy is based on scarcity. It’s a response to the idea that there’s not enough—time, money, energy, love—and that the world must be sliced, optimized, and controlled to survive. It’s a map drawn under pressure.
Strategy imposes limits. It formalizes goals, then narrows all attention toward their achievement. What doesn’t contribute to the metric is discarded. What can’t be measured is ignored. The result is not mastery but fragmentation. Life becomes a project to manage, not a mystery to reveal.
But love is boundless. It does not optimize—it augments. It expands what it touches. It doesn’t ask “How do I get more with less?” It simply gives, and in giving, creates more.
Where strategy confines, love opens. Where strategy calculates, love expresses. Strategy begins with fear of not having enough. Love begins with the knowing that what you are is already enough.
Barcelona Didn’t Create Magic. They Revealed It.
Under Pep Guardiola, FC Barcelona had a strategy—tiki-taka passing, high pressing, positional play—but more than that, they had an essence. Their football was not designed to defeat the opponent. It was designed to express their love for the ball. The opponent became irrelevant.
They didn’t create magical moments through planning. They revealed them by staying with the ball, trusting each other, and surrendering to the flow of play. The result? Magic—goals that felt inevitable, as if the game were unfolding according to a deeper logic.
This is the difference between adaptive strategy and purist expression. The adaptive strategist plays to the environment. The purist is the environment—so deeply aligned with their own nature that they reshape the world around them.
Barcelona didn’t win by outsmarting. They won by overflowing.
Bhakti Before Blueprint: The Wisdom of Devotion
In the Rama Raksha Stotra, each verse is sung “Shriramachandra Preetyarthe”—“for the pleasure of Lord Rama.” The action is not calculated for reward. The reward is the act itself. The singing arises from love, and from that love emerges structure, language, resonance.
No one sings to please Lord Ram without first loving him. The love comes first. The goal is not set then pursued. It is born of affection, and the path to it unfolds naturally.
This is not mysticism. It’s design at the deepest level.
From Swa-Dharma to Swa-Bhava: The Journey of Mastery
In the Gita, Krishna advises Arjuna to act without attachment to results: “Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana.” This isn’t passivity. It’s alignment.
Action born of love is Nishkama Karma—desireless, but not directionless. It flows from one’s Swa-bhava—essential nature—and matures through Swa-dharma—right action. Practice becomes expression. Expression becomes self-revelation.
The river flows with direction. But when it meets the ocean, the flow continues without strain. It has arrived, yet it still gives.
When Goals Become Spectators
In the presence of love, goals become spectators. They are fulfilled not through force but through fidelity—to one’s essence, to the moment, to the craft.
Love evokes action.
Action reveals possibility.
Possibility suggests goals.
Goals give rise to strategy.
But none of this requires conscious planning. It unfolds because love organizes reality more intelligently than thought ever can.
You don’t need to strategize to grow apples. Be the tree.
The Death—and Resurrection—of Strategy
So is strategy dead? Yes, if it is pursued as the master key, the controlling intelligence, the first mover.
But if strategy arises as the servant of love—if it flows from alignment, not anxiety—then it is reborn. It becomes elegant, unconscious, and exact. Not imposed but received. Not managed but revealed.
This is the intelligence behind great art, great sport, great leadership. It is not strategy driving love. It is love driving everything.
Practical Implications
For the individual: Don’t strategize your happiness. Love what you do. Let that love generate the path.
For organizations: Don’t build culture around quarterly goals. Build it around what you love. Hire people who share that love. Let strategy emerge.
For relationships: Don’t calculate connection. Express love. Let the bond organize itself.
The Final Freedom
Strategy is a derivative. Love is the underlying asset. When you return to the source, everything else falls into place. The excellence you chased through planning now flows through presence.
You stop trying to make music—and become the instrument through which music plays itself.
Love is not a tactic. It is the truth.
Love is necessary. Love is sufficient. Love begets love.
Everything else is commentary.
Reinvent The Self! 