Conversations like this remind me of the phenomenon of books that people say have a lot of re-reading value. There was either too much going on the first time through. So you reread it many times and see things you missed.
When you watch a professional athlete or a master of anything, you can only 'see' the things that are within your horizon of comprehension. If someone is narrating they can expand that horizon. Someone who is more advanced than you will always be learning new things, but if you see them doing something new, odds are reasonably good that it's you who changed, not them.
Sun Tzu comes out of a culture that values intuition highly. Allusion and understatement are tools in that toolbox. You are meant to be spending time unpacking things, instead of being beaten over the head with them. If Lego came pre-assembled you wouldn't appreciate it as much.
I personally think Sun Tzu is very readable and has layers of meaning. Some of its lines hit like lightning bolts but much of it is very subtle. I think a lot of Chinese philosophy of the era in this style is about how you approach, not what you're approaching.
This is one of my favorite lines (standing in for the whole chapter). I don't think it's very obvious what it means or how to apply it but after taking it to heart it helps me avoid bad fads and bad orthodoxy alike:
...
Thus the battles of the skilled are without extraordinary victory, without reputation for wisdom, and without merit for courage.
Conversations like this remind me of the phenomenon of books that people say have a lot of re-reading value. There was either too much going on the first time through. So you reread it many times and see things you missed.
When you watch a professional athlete or a master of anything, you can only 'see' the things that are within your horizon of comprehension. If someone is narrating they can expand that horizon. Someone who is more advanced than you will always be learning new things, but if you see them doing something new, odds are reasonably good that it's you who changed, not them.
Sun Tzu comes out of a culture that values intuition highly. Allusion and understatement are tools in that toolbox. You are meant to be spending time unpacking things, instead of being beaten over the head with them. If Lego came pre-assembled you wouldn't appreciate it as much.