Controlled folly is the nucleus of stalking, but also the result from applying the stalking foundations. It is not something you can learn and practice, based on a strategy or a rational preparation, although it exploits pure reason to its advantage.
Controlled folly is a consequence of the harmony between stalking and intent. It arises from the awareness of the existence and maneuverability of the assemblage point, from the knowledge that we are the position of the assemblage point. All we are, as well as the world we are in, is a result of the assemblage point position. The problem is that, in our ordinary state of awareness, we are fully focused on the effects that this position produces (what we feel, what we think, and the events we take part in). So we can not have a complete and free vision, but only a partial one. We only see the small part on which we are focused. Our attention is selective, instead of extended to the whole horizon.
Controlled folly is the only way to act in a state of heightened awareness. In this state, our attention spans everything, the whole and the details, and our ordinary mind can not handle this kind of vision. If we insist on using our attention as we usually do, we become unable to act, even to speak. We need a change of speed, associated with the change in time mode. To do that, we need to apply control and abandon, patience and kindness, compliance to intent. Then we can see the structure that intent builds around us and act promptly and in tune with it, but at the same time direct the course of our actions.
Being aware of the assemblage point’s existence, and acquiring the ability to pilot the movement in the area defined by the necessities of stalking, is indispensable for the purpose of controlled folly. In sum, controlled folly is precisely based on the possibility of intervening, with strategy and awareness, in the mobility of the assemblage point. At that point, the strategic actions of the warrior are neither forced, nor a fiction, but the result of that very movement or voluntary placement of the assemblage point. When a warrior reaches a certain position, his state and his actions are authentic, real, yet they no longer have the power to nail him to the position itself, as he knows that they are only an effect of that specific position. He knows that everything changes as soon as he moves, and that is his real power, the power of knowledge that liberates him.
