The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Adapt the past to the present spirit.
Once you identify the essence of the
zeitgeist, it is often a wise strategy to find some analogous moment or
period in history. The frustrations and rebellions of your generation
were certainly felt to some degree by some previous generation and
were expressed in dramatic fashion. The leaders of such past
generations resonate through history and take on a kind of mythic hue
the more time passes. By associating yourself with those figures or
times, you can give added weight to whatever movement or innovation
you are promoting. You take some of the emotionally loaded symbols
and styles of that historical period and adapt them, giving the
impression that what you are attempting in the present is a more
perfect and progressive version of what happened in the past.
In doing this, think in grand, mythic terms. Danton associated
himself with Cicero, whose speeches and actions in favor of the Roman
Republic and against tyranny naturally resonated with many French
people and gave Danton’s mission the added weight of the ancient

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past. The filmmaker Akira Kurosawa brought back to life the world of
the samurai warrior, so celebrated in Japanese culture, but re-created
it in such a way as to make judicious comments on the issues and
moods of postwar Japan. When running for president, John F.
Kennedy wanted to herald a new American spirit that was moving past
the staleness of the 1950s. He called the programs he would initiate the
New Frontier, associating his ideas with the pioneer spirit so
reverentially ingrained in the American psyche. Such imagery became
a powerful part of his appeal.
Resurrect the spirit of childhood.
By bringing to life the spirit of your
early years—its humor, its decisive historical events, the styles and
products of the period, the feeling in the air as it affected you—you will
reach a vast audience of all those who experienced those years in a
similar way. It was a time of life of great emotional intensity, and by re-
creating it in some form, but reflected through the eyes of an adult,
your work will resonate with your peers. You must use this strategy
only if you feel a particularly powerful connection to your childhood.
Otherwise your attempt to re-create the spirit will seem flat and
contrived.
Keep in mind that you are not aiming for a literal re-creation of the
past but capturing its spirit. To have real power, it should connect to
some issue or problem in the present and not simply be some mindless
bit of nostalgia. If you are inventing something, try to update and
incorporate the styles of that childhood period in a subtle manner,
exploiting the unconscious attraction we all feel to that early period in
life.