Framework (Draft 3.0)
Introduction
Hello! This is literally a copy paste of all the writing work I have done on Framework Building so far. I do not expect you to read all of this, but if you are curious, this will give you a little insight into how much work and iteration goes into writing these pieces. I have been playing around with how to talk about Framework building for MONTHS and I have finally come to final structure for how to talk about it.
The first section below, Outline 3.0, is the outline for the final draft (3.0) I am currently writing, but I wanted to get this out before my 2PM Sunday Meta Space starting in about an hour so that if anyone wanted to read up either beforehand or while the space is ongoing, you had something to follow along on. There is a finished draft below (2.0) that is pretty much an unpolished version of what I will eventually publish and probably not a bad read if you are curious. The big difference is 3.0 will give more opening context and better introduce the sections and how they relate.
Outline 3.0
Introduction
Awakening forces us to throw out our old understanding and start pretty much fresh
This can be daunting because not only is there many things to learn, but we have to know how to approach this framework building
I want to break this down into 4 parts
Establishing how to approach framework building
Determining values and goals that are lindy
Starting with personal and then building out
Self Improvement
Make yourself into a stronger person
Body, Mind, Spirit
Understanding the World Around You
Understanding the meta patterns of why the world is dysfunctional
System Incentives Determine Behavior, Not Malice but Apathy, Poor Values
Establishing Meta Skills
Learning the key skills that will not only server you on the individual level, but will be helpful as you build out
Learning Mindset, Problem Solving, Iterative Adaptation, Communication, Networking, Process Optimization
How to Build a Framework
If you are starting from scratch, the question becomes where to start
You should start with yourself as this is the thing you have the most control over
Make yourself into a stronger person
You need to have a goal for what you want your life to look like
In order to have a goal, you need to have values
Values are objectively determined by life and we can look to what is lindy
Lindy values are found in what is natural and the wisdom of the past
You will also find that the Meta Skills we talk about are going to be helpful in building this Framework over time
Self Improvement
The first step on The Journey is Self Improvement
This is the area you have the most control over
You want to make yourself stronger before you can help others
Many of the skills you learn in self improvement can be applied more broadly
Health
The most foundational thing is your health
Body
Workout
Eat well
Sleep
Mind
Consume good information
Spirit
Having a good relationship with The Divine
Career
You want to be able to take care of yourself
This means becoming competent and success at your chosen profession
Many of the Meta Skills will come in handy here
Relationships
We are human and thrive on good relationships
You want to approach relationships like you would like others to approach relationships
Know who to invest in and who to cut loose, you want people around you who elevate you
Understanding The World Around You
While you are working on yourself, you must interact with the world around you and it is important to know how it functions
It is a common mistake for newly awakened to make that all the bad things in the world can be chalked up to some nefarious conspiracy theory and malevolent bad actors, but it is much less dramatic
System Incentives Determine Behavior
If you want to know why a system produces certain results you need but look at the incentives of the system
If you want to change behavior, it is best to change incentives
This is why a spiritual component to life is so important, it incentives moral and transcendent behavior
Not Malice but Apathy
Most people are not intentionally malicious
Most people will slide into apathy, Last Men
They simply want to be comfortable and will take the easy path
Poor Values
Lack of Spiritual
Rejection of Hard Truths
Lack of Willingness to Sacrifice
Meta Skills
There are a few key skills that will serve you well as you are working on your framework and the first step of life improvement
These skills you will be able to apply more broadly across all domains so it is important to know what they are and to cultivate them with intention
Learning Mindset
Low ego, curiosity, empathy will help you be open to, hunger for, and extract new information
It is not about learning what is true, but also how other people see the world and how to interact with them
Problem Solving
Often it is not the doing of the solution, but which problems to engage with and what solutions to pursue that is the hardest part of getting things done
Understanding a problem and setting a goal is a skillset that will always serve you well
Iterative Adaptation
All things are about adaptation
Your environment, skillset, and goals will change over time and you need to be able to adjust and pivot
Communication
Being able to communicate clearly is very important in the transfer of ideas
You are never communicating alone and must be able to adapt your communication to your audience
Networking
The people you know in your life will have a big impact on you
You want people who will encourage and elevate you
Be selective with who you spend your time with
You also want to be the person to others you want them to be to you
Introduce people to each other
You will know you have a good network when you are excited to do this as it means you have good people of value who will enrich each other
Process Optimization
Being able to streamline processes is a skill that will serve you well in every field
The Goal and The Phoenix Project
Clear Goals and Metrics, Minimize friction, Find bottlenecks
Conclusion
Building a Framework requires focus on what is practical and valuable
It is best to start with yourself as you will not only become stronger, but the skills you learn in improving your own life can be applied more broadly’
You need to reflect on what is best for you and what values you want to establish
Self Improvement is broken down into Health, Career, and Relationships
You should also learn the general patterns for why the world functions how it does
Systems incentivize actions, not malice by apathy, and poor values
Finally, it is important to know the meta skills you need to learn in order to not only be successful building out your framework, but that will serve you as you improve your own life, create, and make the world a better place
I know this is a lot of information, but knowing this at the start will help you understand how to think about the path in front of you and be successful as you move forward
Draft 2.0
Introduction
After we awaken to the mainstream delusion and we are forced to throw out much of what we once believed, we are faced with the predicament of building a new understanding of the world around us. This can be daunting as it is hard to know where to start and what information to trust. This section will take you through the process of rebuilding a framework for understanding the world around you and how to navigate it.
Because there are effectively an unlimited number of truths we can pursue, it is important to understand that the building of our framework first requires an understanding of our own personal goals. This gives us a focus to build our framework around and decide what information will be valuable for us to learn first. This requires establishing true understanding of value to decide what goals are worth pursuing. The two other sections necessary for framework building are understanding the reasons for why the world around us operates as it does and the meta skills you will need to use as you continue on your journey. Let’s dive in.
Building Your Framework for Understanding
When we first awaken, we realize that what we are really breaking from is not just what is true and what is not, but the value system for how we should live. The mainstream delusion often elevates the group above the self and puts an emphasis on tolerance. It tells us we are selfish if we seek material wealth, personal improvement, or to even build healthy families. The talking heads in the mainstream constantly push the idea that energy is better spent sacrificing for others. They also encourage us to trust the institutions and to not think for ourselves.
While it is a common reaction to dive down rabbit holes and learn about esoteric topics or government conspiracies, these are largely a distraction. The reason the next step in The Journey after building a framework is self improvement is because that is what we should be focused on first. This goes back to the timeless wisdom of The Serenity Prayer, understanding what we do and do not control and focusing on that which we do. We are first and foremost responsible for ourselves and the best way to deal with a harsher reality is to become stronger ourselves.
While this is a good general goal, self improvement will mean different things for different people. We are all in different stages of our lives, have different strengths and weaknesses, and are in vastly different situations and environments. So the first step in building our framework is to establish a goal for what self improvement means for us.
Establishing a Goal
For us to even have a goal, we need to first understand two things: where we are in our lives and what is actually valuable and worth pursuing. Think of this like setting a starting point and a destination. We need to know where we want to go and where we currently are for us to then map a path to get there and identify what we need to learn to be successful on our journey. This will make it clear what information is truly worth learning when we awaken and need to start building our framework. Again, it is not the conspiracy theories or deep rabbit holes of the internet that are important post awakening, but how we are going to live in this new reality we find ourselves in.
Values
To set our goal, we need to understand what is even worth pursuing. While I am not here to tell you exactly what you should do, I do believe there is a natural truth to what is valuable and meaningful. You can read more about these ideas in my article on Naturalism. To briefly summarize, the broad goal of all life is to flourish, the perpetuation of healthy patterns. You yourself are a healthy pattern, but it is also good ideas, your family, and positive systems.
The easiest way to identify what is good is to look at what has worked for past generations, what is “lindy”. Lindy is the idea that if something has lasted for a long time, it must be robust and viable. Things like the nuclear family unit, healthy ways of living, honor, and virtue are all examples of this. This is why many who first awaken find themselves reading the great philosophers or theologians of the past. We are looking for what I call “natural ideals”, the fundamental elements of what has worked, so we can adapt those ideals to the modern world. Much of the discussion online about how to live a good life is effectively this, discussion of how we can adapt past wisdom on value and use it to understand how to live in our modern world.
Goals and Self Reflection
Once we understand our values, we must determine our goals. It is hard to separate goals from our own situation as your goals will depend on what you want and what you are capable of achieving. You will also need to break down your goals into short and long term and be aware that these goals will change over time as you discover more about yourself and your environment.
I highly recommend sitting down in front of a whiteboard, pad of paper, or even with a trusted friend and brainstorming about what goals you might want to set for yourself. The answer will come as you reflect. The important thing is putting in the work to reflect and explore what makes sense to you.
I would break down the categories of goals into three areas: Health, Career, Relationships. I would further break down Health into three categories: Body, Mind, and Spirit.
Health
Body
It is common advice for men in our sphere to encourage newcomers to go to the gym and start working out and I think this is solid advice that everyone should include to some degree or another. Having a healthy body is the foundation. You must also make sure you are eating well and getting enough sleep. There is tons of content about this and you should find a routine that works for you.
Mind
When I say mind, I am referring to your intellect. The information you consume is much like the diet you consume in that negative information will result in a negative mindset. You want to focus on feeding your mind information that is positive and stimulating. Just like you will find much in the space about working out, you will find an equally large number of people who advocate for reading classic literature, philosophy, business strategy, and consuming high art. Fundamentally, you want to keep your mind engaged.
I would also advocate for creating. This is the next step in The Journey after self improvement, but you do not have to wait until you master an idea to start writing about it. In fact, I find that activities like journaling, engaging in online forums, or writing blog posts is a great way to process the ideas you are learning and often this can be helpful for others on this journey.
A final point I will make here is that while recreational content can be great to relax and unwind, the majority of the information you should focus on consuming should relate to your goals. If you plan to workout, reading information about how to lift or good dietary practices are important to building a good foundation.
Spirit
I adamantly believe it necessary to have a healthy spiritual component if you wish to live a meaningful, fulfilling, and effective life. I have a whole section of my content dedicated to understanding the spiritual as we must balance our material and spiritual needs to live a good life. I believe that all traditional religions are simply different interpretations of the same thing. Call it God, The Divine, a Higher Power, or just Karma, this force is a key element to our lives and if you wish to build a healthy life, you must find some way of incorporating this.
I am not here to tell you what is the right or wrong way to practice Spirituality and Religion, but to encourage you to explore the spiritual and find a practice that is right for you. Prayer and meditation are important ways to commune with The Divine and a spiritual grounding will give you the strength you need to navigate this new reality. I highly recommend you read The Duality Game if you want to understand more about my take on the Spiritual.
Career
We all need to be able to make a living and support ourselves and sometimes even our family and friends. To this end, becoming competent in your chosen line of work is essential. I have written threads about this on Twitter/X and will write a future article that dives more into how one can go about pursuing their ideal career, but what is important at this step is to understand the importance of a good profession and being able to provide. Ideally, as you become more proficient, you will become more self reliant and do not have to rely on the mainstream system.
You can apply the similar ideas we have talked about to framework building of goal setting, reflection, and building a path to your career. I will also get into Meta Skills in the last section of this article and many of those skill will be relevant to pursuing a good career.
Relationships
You can be healthy and have a good job, but your life will not be complete without good relationships with your friends, family, and community. This also includes romantic relationships. I will touch on meta skills such as network building and communication in the last section of this article, but in the context of goal setting, it is important to highlight the importance of good relationships to a complete life. The goals you set here will depend on your current situation, but I recommend focus on family and friends first. Key to relationships is being able to give your time and care to those around you. I have said before that the best way to approach winning people over is to be an example of what your ideology can create and what you think others should aspire to. If you are this person to the people in your life, you will find that they are happy to reciprocate and your relationships will strengthen.
Understanding The World Around You
While our first step is building a framework for establishing our goals and how we can achieve them, we still must navigate the world around us and it is helpful to have a basic set of tools for understanding basic patterns in the world. There are three main points I want to focus on here: Understanding the incentives of a system will tell you what to expect, knowing most problems are not a result of malice, and how poor values and goals are often to blame for broader negative trends.
Understanding Incentives
When people first awaken, they often fall into believing broad conspiracy theories for why people act the way they do. But if you really want to understand the decisions people make, you only need but look at the incentives of the system.
Take politics for example. Why are controlled politicians in power? Well, because wealthy donors will offer money to whichever candidates will pass legislation that favors them when in office. You might say that politicians can refuse the money on principle, but then best case is they have to run against opponents who did take the money and will be able to out advertise them. Money being part of the equation in political races means that politics will always be controlled by wealthy interests. It is the system and not necessarily the people who are primarily to blame.
So if we can see the material incentives that motivate people in a system, we can understand why the system produces the results it does. Most of the problems we have are therefore not addressed with direct action against the results, but changing the system and its incentives. Or creating new systems with better incentives.
Not Malice
Another common misconception when it comes to trying to understand that world around us is the idea that many of the bad aspects of the world are a result of malicious people. Certainly, there are malicious people in positions of influence who direct events, but the majority of people on this earth are not malicious. More often, they are some combination of lazy, unaware, unfocused, tired, apathetic, or simply stupid. They do not understand life well enough to resist falling under the sway of the system and default to the easiest route.
This is what Nietzsche was referring to when he wrote about the idea of The Last Man. This is someone who does not care to do what is right or wrong or live a life to the fullest, but is motivated by comfort. Someone who will do the bare minimum to get by and with little regard to the broader results of their actions. It is important to understand this as not doing so will result in a poor model of the world and how to take practical action in it.
Certainly, The Last Man is a kind of evil, but if you approach them as intentionally evil on an individual level, you will not be able to produce any positive results. You need to understand The Last Man and his motivations and only then can you know how best to interact with them (or not interact with them) to get the desired results.
Lack of Correct Values
The other large component of understanding the world around you is that the reason these systems have occurred and that we are plagued by Last Men is poor values. Many people have accepted the premises of the mainstream, the herd morality, that has them focus on personal material consumerism and parroting toxically tolerant ideologies. They are told that self improvement is not necessary as long as they profess the right values.
What most people are missing are three things: an appreciation for the spiritual, a willingness to accept hard truths, and a willingness to take hard action.
Lack of Spiritual
People who have a poor understanding of the spiritual are much more likely to persuaded to do the morally wrong things for a material gain. If you do have an understanding of life as more than just the material, but an assessment of your soul and an experience of spiritual exploration, you know that compromising your soul is rarely worth a material benefit. Because of this lack of spirituality, people like this can be bought and controlled.
Rejection of Hard Truths
Most people do not think about truth from the perspective of “is this idea true or not” but “what will people think of me if I profess this idea”. They simply would rather parrot something they know is wrong to get along, than to hold to their guns if it meant people around them would reject them. In this way, it is very hard to get them to accept things, even if they are true, if believing in those things will put them in opposition to the mainstream and jeopardize their status within the herd.
Lack of Willingness to Sacrifice
Most people are not willing to sacrifice comfort to do the right thing. While they might say something is the morally right thing to do, they will do everything to signal this, but avoid actual action at every opportunity. Sacrifice for what you believe is hard, but without action, there is no real belief. What people like this really believe is that by saying they believe in a thing, other people will like them. Even people who will profess their belief in things like climate change will take little real action to minimize their impact unless there is visibility to it. They don’t want to sacrifice for what they say they believe in, they simply want to be seen as part of the in-crowd.
Meta Skills
The final section of this article is devoted to the skills you will need to use while you are building your framework. The idea is that these general skills is not only can they be applied to how you are building out your own framework and achieving your personal goals, but they can also be applied broadly to any efforts you undertake. When we start to get into the last two steps of Creativity and World Improvement in The Journey, the skills we have cultivated working on ourselves will also be applied in these domains. Apply these on the local level and then being able to apply them on the global. This is the beautiful thing about starting our Journey working on ourselves. We are not only strengthening ourselves, but understanding how these skills work and honing them so when we do expand beyond ourselves, we have a ready made toolkit of Meta Skills.
Learning Mindset
Core to progression in life is having a mindset around learning that will keep you open to new ideas. This is not to say that every idea you encounter is worth adopting, but even the bad ones can be learned from. There are three core elements to the ideal learning mindset: low ego, curiosity, and empathy. Low ego allows you to be willing to accept there are things you don’t know and other people to learn from. Curiosity is what drives you to learn new things. Empathy is what allows you to draw that information out from other people and understand the lens through which they view the world and what information might be gained from that.
Problem Solving
When you are solving any problem, the first step is to understand it. You need to know what you are working on before you can put together a solution. This is why we start framework building with understanding ourselves and the lindy values. We are understanding the problem of how to live a good life and then formulating a goal based on that problem. As you get better at breaking down problems and creating solutions
Iterative Adaptation
One of the most important skills to have when pursuing a goal is the ability to adapt. It is pretty much unheard of when building a company from startup to unicorn to not have at least one if not multiple pivots from one focus to another. The market will shift, early adopters will request certain features, and what can be achieved will change as one learns more about the technology and what is possible. Being able to adapt to these changes is essential to success. This skill will not only be applied in business, but also personal goals, creative content, relationships, and every other pursuit. Knowing how to adapt quickly and effectively will keep you on the right path.
Communication
Being able to communicate clearly is necessary no matter the field and something you should always be working on. Like many things, efficiency and elegance in your communication is the goal. The better you can capture and idea with as little effort as possible the better. But it is not just about general communication, but learning how to adapt that communication to your audience that is important. Also important to communication is driving towards the goal. Many people are happy to ask questions, but this is not nearly as effective as proposing solutions. You want to be assertive and this will help move communication forward in a positive way.
Networking
One thing that will always be with you is the people in your network. If you find bright people who enhance your life and you can cultivate those positive relationships, they can often serve you in ways you didn’t expect down the line. You should also approach relationships from the perspective of being the person to other people you would want them to be to you. For example, if you know two people who might benefit from knowing each other, you should try to connect them. The more value you add to other people in your network, the more likely they are to work to include you in theirs.
Process Optimization
There is a ton of great literature around process optimization and I find myself often applying the ideas in this discipline to many other aspects of my life. Want something done fast? Try to remove as many friction points and back and forth as possible. Want to be maximally productive? Understand where you bottleneck is and try to improve at that point. If you are interested in learning about this, I highly recommend Elija Goldrat’s The Goal and The Phoenix Project.
Tweet Outline
Building a framework for navigating the world:
-You must always start by having a goal
-That goal is determined by your values
-Values should come from what is Lindy (what has existed culturally for a long time) and promotes flourishing (the goal of life)
-healthy living, strong family relationships, competence in your work, spiritual groundedness
-Once you understand what you want to do, you should focus on learning what is relevant to your success
-Avoid irrelevant rabbit holes
To understand the world around you:
-Incentives and system control outcomes
-Most incentives are material and we often lack a spiritual dimension when considering what is important
-Often is it not evil but ignorance, laziness, lack of awareness, fear, lack of focus, or exhaustion that results in bad outcomes
-If people lack direction and are easily controlled it is because they lack clear and healthy goals
-The hard part is not often how, but what to do
You need meta skills:
-Defining goals and making plans of action
-How to learn by keeping an open and inquisitive mind
-Adaption as conditions and goals change
-Networking and relationship building
-Communication with clarity and efficiency
-Maintaining momentum and motivation
Brainstorm 1
When I first sit down to write, I start with a brainstorm and just try to get all of my ideas on the page. This was the very first brainstorm I did on framework building at least 4 months ago (I know I know, very slow getting this one out)
Goals
I not only want to talk about the idea of building a framework but also what to actually build your framework on. It is good that I have already written about naturalism as I think this is the foundation of what someone should rebuild their framework on, focusing on things that are lindy, natural, and have existed for a long time. It is important to realize that the reason that most people start reading all the great philosophers is a search for truth and understanding. Another very key point here is that a framework does not need to explain everything and what you should focus on what is practical. I can link to the two universe decision making article on this.
Ideas
Meta overview
When you awaken, you realize the way you were understanding the world is wrong and you need to find a new way of understanding the world. This requires you to build a new framework, a way of understanding the world. The problem is that when you have come to question everything, what can you trust to be the foundational truth that you build your new framework upon? And how big and comprehensive a framework do you have to build?
The answer to the first question is you go back to tradition and philosophy and base your understanding on what is natural and lindy. Trusting in things like hierarchy and merit, healthy family, community, culture, and nation. Natural ideals. The answer to the second question is that your framework should only address what is practical. If you understand your next step to be on self improvement, you should not worry too much about the bigger picture and focus primarily on understanding how to improve yourself and your life. As you grow into creative and world improving efforts, you can start to expand your framework to include the topics in these areas. You will also find that the strategies you learn in self improvement are relevant to the later steps as good strategies are meta patterns that are applicable in any discipline.
Core Necessary Understandings
Do not wish for the world to be safer, but for you to become stronger
One of the first things you realize when you awaken is that the world is a more crazy and scarey place than you first might have thought. This can be very overwhelming and is what often deters most people from seeking the truth, they want to stay in their delusion as it grants them a false sense of security. But the real way to deal with this is to strengthen yourself. Make yourself into the best version of yourself that you can be. This can be counter intuitive as the herd morality of mainstream society says you should put the group above yourself and those who strive towards self improvement are selfish. But it is through personal empowerment you will come to help make the world around you a better place. And self improvement is how you will learn both about yourself and your world and have the most meaningful life experience
Master of both worlds
To live a good life, you should not just seek the asylum of the parallel world, but still be able to thrive in the mainstream reality. You still need to get a good paying job, build a network with normal people, and engage in the collective culture if you want to be successful. You can think of these two worlds as the material and the spiritual. Living a good life at a high spiritual level does not mean burning your material world to the ground or giving up on it. You need to find a way to live by balancing the needs of both. This is part of the reason when we first awaken, we don’t stress our social and familial networks by discussing our experience with them. They are a part of the material world and we should strive to keep that as much intact as possible.
You don’t need to know everything to live a good life
One of the common mistakes that people make early on in their journey is to think that the only way forward is to learn the full truth about everything before they know what they should do next. This isn’t true. There are many things you might seek to learn but will have no bearing on the decisions you make on a day to day. I encourage you to employ the two universe decision making here and don’t feel like you need to build a framework with an unnecessarily large scope.
Naturalist values
If you want an understanding of the core truths you can build your new framework on, my ideology of Naturalism is a great place to start. To understand that reality is built on objective rules and the goal of flourishing, we can then realize what are good strategies to live in that world. These strategies have been proven out by time. Eating healthy, taking good care of yourself, amassing wealth and power, building good friends, family, and professional networks, strengthening your community, and having children. If what you are doing serves these things, they will make you stronger and help life flourish.
Understanding the broader world
(These things might be worth writing in another article. I think I want to focus on what is personally actionable in these sections, but it would be good to link to another section on these ideas.)
Understand incentives to understand action
If you want to understand why people act the way they do, you simply have to look at the incentives. It is not so much that you have a big group of people in on some grand conspiracy, but that a few people can control the incentives with money and power and those incentives cause people to act in the way they want that is aligned with the goals of their plans.
There is nuance to everything
One of the most important realizations I have had in interacting with people is that everyone believes what they believe because they think they have good reasons to believe it. If you really want to understand the world, instead of thinking the people you disagree with are just stupid, try to understand why they think the way they do. Even if they are wrong, there is value in understanding their position if for no other reason than to know how to counter it. But you might often find that people want to do good and there is more in common than there is difference. If you appreciate the nuance in disagreement, you will go a lot further in your interactions with people and the world. It allows you to have compassion which is important to not get consumed by hate and anger.
There is always a reason
You might be quick to wish to destroy things you think are of no value, but everything that exists has a reason for existing. That reason might be a bad reason, but there is a reason and it is important to understand that reason before you attack that thing. If you attack something without understanding it’s reason, you will not be able to defeat it.
Brainstorm 1.2
It has been sometime since I wrote about framework building and so I think it would be best for me to write from scratch on this idea.
Goal
The goal of building a good framework is to understand what is going on in the world around you and understand how best to act in this environment. This requires your framework being built on the most robust truth you can find as a framework that is based in truth will have the greatest success of predicting how you should act. Another aspect of a good framework is it tells you what to value. So A good framework helps you understand what you should be oriented towards, how to get there, and how to read the environment around you so you can best make decisions.
Thoughts
I think this is one of those articles that I might have to break things down into a starting general philosophy. I could see that philosophy talking about things like natural ideals, the importance of creating over destroying, scoping to what is important to you (two universe decision making), that a framework is powerful based on its predictive power,
Becoming Self Sufficient to Have Agency
This might be something to add into self improvement, but I think a very important part of a framework is the idea that for you to have agency, you cannot be as reliant on others, especially those who would not be aligned with your goals and your understanding of the world. While we have to play the two games of finding balance between our spiritual and material lives, the goal of the material is to strengthen ourselves such that we might live in as much alignment with our spiritual ideals as possible.
An easy to understand example of this is if you work for a company that would have you be involved in ideological rituals you do not agree with, but you need the job, you will need to compromise your values so that you can support yourself. But if you build your professional capacity so you can work for yourself or are so valuable that companies cannot fire you, then you can act more in accordance with your values and not have to compromise.
Many Systems Work on Bad Incentives
I think one of the most important things when first awakening is to understand that people aren’t all evil and that the mainstream delusion is not perpetuated by people who are all in on a big conspiracy. Most of this delusion is perpetuated by perverse and material incentives. I can get a scientist to lie about their findings if I give them money to tell me what I want people to hear. I can also use social pressure.
This is why it is so important to aspire to values that transcend the material world and to become as self-sufficient as possible as you will not be willing to compromise yourself and your soul for material gains and will be willing to call out what is wrong and what is evil when you see it. The problem is most people are not like this and so the system can keep them in line with these material incentives.
Understanding What to Value
This should be based on the idea that life is about flourishing and that your life should be oriented towards the things that will allow you to flourish. This can start off by meaning self improvement, but it is also about having a family, strong relationships, good community, and it also includes things like pushing good ideas into the world around you.
Understanding How to Read the Environment
Another big point is going to be about how to understand the environment around you. If you don’t know how to read the state of the game, it will be almost impossible to make good decisions on what you should do.
Understanding how to Make Decisions
This section should be on the idea of meta strategies that can be applied in different situations. You learn the patterns of life and therefore you can make smart decisions on what to do in certain situations to determine your goals.
Framework Building
The act of framework building is always going to be an iterative process where you are changing things based on what works and what doesn’t. It is also important to note that not only will your understanding of the world and how to act in it change, but your goals will change over time as well. Sometimes you might achieve your goals and sometimes you will realize that the goals that you set for yourself no longer appeal to you.
Bottomline, constant adaptation and willingness to change are an essential part of building a good framework as no framework is in its final form.
Outline 1.0
Intro
Framework building is about creating a framework that helps you understand what to orient towards and how to make decisions that will help you achieve what you want
To make decisions, you have to have a clear goal, an understanding of the rules, and a solid set of strategies that will serve you well
Necessary to successfully navigating reality is not only an understanding of the material world, but the of the spiritual which will enable you to define and pursue higher ideals that are necessary for living a fulfilling and meaningful life
Strong frameworks are ground in nature and truth
Good frameworks are efficient and focused on what you can control
Philosophy of Framework Building
A Foundation in Truth
The strength of a framework is measured by its ability to orient you towards what is valuable and to enable you to make good decisions to get you there
This means that a good framework is predictive which requires it to accurately reflect truth
Part of the problem with is knowing what to believe as true after awakening and realizing the untruth of the mainstream delusion
Scope
It is essential to realize that a good framework only need cover the parts of your life that you need to make decisions about, that you have control over
It is easy when awakened to want to know grander truths and to dive down the rabbit hole and conspiracy theory, but this is not productive as it has no bearing on your life
Focus on what you can control and what is most important
Your next step on the journey will be self improvement so you framework should focus on enabling that self improvement
Health
Career
Relationships
Spiritual Centeredness
Material and Spiritual
We not only live in the material world, but also the spiritual
This is important to understand as what will be fulfilling is an orientation towards these higher, spiritual ideals
The reason people make bad decisions is that they are too immersed in a material understanding of the world
If you are to live a life that is truly meaningful, you need to break free from seeing the world in a material sense
You need to be able to take care of your basic material needs, but you should also know that pursuing the spiritual ideals will often lead to the universe helping you with your material needs
If you want agency to pursue your higher goals you need to become self-sufficient
Process of Framework Building
Creating Goals
To know what to orient yourself towards, you have to understand what are the higher ideals to strive for and how you wish to approach that based on your wants and needs
Flourishing
The goal of life is to flourish
This doesn’t just mean living a healthy successful life from a material perspective, but oriented towards higher spiritual goals
You can flourish on an individual level of health, career success, and positive relationships with family, friends, and community
You can also perpetuate healthy patterns, natural ideals
Goals should also be centered around what you can control: your personal life
Understanding Truth
You must also establish an understanding of the foundational truth of reality so you know the rules of the game you must operate within
It is also by understanding the incentives around people that you will understand why they act how they do. Once you accept this reality, you don’t have to fight against how things are, but operate within that reality
Most of this is grounded in a natural understanding of humans
Learning Strategy
Once you have an understanding of your goals and the rules you must operate inside, you can come to learn the strategies that will allow you to achieve your goals
Strategies that work well are predictive in that they allow you to make decisions that will achieve the results you desire
Many of these strategies can be derived from what I call meta strategies or meta patterns
If you understand these patterns you can apply them to new situations with impressive predictive results
To find those who know what they are talking about, look at the fruit of their work to judge the quality of their advice
Outline 2
Introduction
Once we have awakened, we must be able to orient and navigate the parallel reality we find ourselves in
To do this, we must build a new framework that is grounded in truth, orients us towards our true goals, and effective and efficient in enabling us to make that right decisions to achieve our goals
I will first explain the philosophy behind a robust and powerful framework
A foundation in Truth and nature
Scoped to be practical for us an individuals
Includes not just the material considerations, but the spiritual
Next I will explain the process of building such a framework
Establishing an understanding of the truth or rules of the game you need to operate within
Defining goals that will be fulfilling and meaningful
Discovering and honing the strategies that will enable you to achieve your goals inside of this more true reality
Philosophy of Frameworks
A good framework not only enables us to make good decisions about how to achieve our goals, but also what goals we should even orient ourselves towards in the first place
To do this, our framework should be based in truth, not just material, but also spiritual
It should also be effective and efficient, meaning that we should not try to define and understand all of reality, but focus on what is relevant to us
Finally, there is no one best framework as the meta game around you and who you are are constantly changing. You need to routinely adapt your framework so it is maximally effective
Ground in Truth
When we awaken, we realize that the mainstream delusion imposes a framework upon us that does not serve us
To do this, it must bend reality so that the conditions we consider when making decisions lead us to make decisions that benefits the system, often at the expense of ourselves
If we wish to have a framework that best serves us, we need to reestablish an understanding of reality that is closer to the truth
We can think of truth as the rules of the game we are playing inside, but also an understanding of what will be meaningful to pursue
Not just an is but also an ought
Scoped
Many times when we start out creating a new framework for understanding reality, we can get caught up pursuing irrelevant truths. We wish to know about the inner workings of the government or the financial system
Ultimately, these things do not matter if they are not relevant to the decisions we need to make to achieve our goals
In this realization, we understand that our framework should be efficiently egocentric. We do not need to understand everything to make good decisions for ourselves and so we should focus on learning what we need to achieve our own goals
Our next step in the journey is self improvement
The idea is that if we want to live a good life and change the world for the better, we must start with strengthening ourselves
Our initial focus will be on health, career, relationships, and spiritual meaning
Knowing this, we can cut out what is unhelpful to try to understand, especially at the beginning
The scope of our framework will grow over time as we start to get into the later stages of the journey: creation and world improvement, but we must follow the order so as to not get overwhelmed and lose sight of what is important and practical
Not Just Material, but Also Spiritual
One of the main problems with the modern world is we see things through a strictly material lens. The mainstream delusion presents a life well lived as pursuing material pleasures and being accepted by the mainstream society.
However, a life well lived is not about material, but our spiritual
This means when we consider our goals, when we consider the oughts, we cannot limit ourself to the material but consider the spiritual as well
It is what will lead us to not just a materially successful life, but a life full of meaning and purpose
Adaptive
While the underlying rules of reality do not change, the conditions around you and the person you are will change over time
This means that to build a framework that is best for you, you need to consistently adapt this framework and update it
You will also learn more about what you believe is truth
You will also expand your framework to help you navigate new goals and domains
Process of Framework Building
Now that we have established the philosophy of strong frameworks: grounded in truth, scoped to what is relevant to us, and considering not just the material but higher spiritual goals, we can start to build out a framework that will serve us well
Finding Truth
The first step is to establish a truth to lay the foundation of our framework
These truths will not only establish the rules of the game we are operating within, but also enable us to understand what is actually valuable to orient ourselves towards
These truths can be found in what is natural and lindy
We must accept the natural reality of competition and a drive to flourish
This means that things like hierarchies, competence, and power need to be understood
Establishing Goals
While the rules of the game and the general goal of flourishing is universal, our goals are specific to ourselves as they are dependant on who we are, where we are in our lives and what we think is most valuable for us given our environment
Basically, you may know the rules of poker, but you must play the hand you are delt and based on the players you are playing with
This means that for us to discover our goals, we need to take time to reflect
We need to understand where we are in our lives, what is important to us, where are strengths are, what we need to work on to be successful in the way we wish to be successful
Goals are going to be different for everyone, but they will follow common threads
You goals should focus on how you can build yourself into a stronger person
You want to think of basic things first such as health, career, good relationships, and spiritual wellbeing
Very simple things like getting sleep, eating well, time in nature, and getting in physical activity are the bedrock of self improvement
Learning Strategies
In any game where we have established rules and clearly defined goals there arises strategies that are best suited to help us achieve those things
While I cannot give you a full list of all the strategies, I can give you a broad understanding of identifying and applying strategies
First, I contend there are meta strategies or fundamental patterns to how to approach problems. If you learn these patterns you can apply them in new situations and they are an effective baseline approach to work from.
Specifically, problem solving through adaptation is a core meta strategy that will fuel your journey
Second, you want to constantly be learning and adapting your strategies as you go
To learn good strategies, you should look to learn from people who have had good results and other people you respect also respect. There is a wealth of information on the internet, but there is also a big signal to noise ratio. To pick out the signal, you want to judge people by the results you value and building a network of people whose opinions you trust.
Conclusion
Framework building is a necessary step after you awaken as to navigate this new reality, you must understand the rules of the game, your goals, and how to get there
A good framework is grounded in natural truth, is scoped to be maximally efficient and effective for your goals, and enables you to make the right decision to achieve your goals
So to build the right framework, we need to learn truth, establish our goals, and build a robust understanding of effective strategies
We must remember that the conditions around you will constantly change and the person you are will grow, taking on new goals and expanding into new domains so you must consistently update and adapt your framework
If you understand the ideas I have laid out here around framework building, you will be ready to take the next step in the journey, self improvement, and pursue the strongest version of yourself.
Draft 1.0
Introduction
Once we have awakened from the mainstream delusion, we must establish a new understanding of the world that will enable us to orient and navigate the new parallel reality we find ourselves in. To do this, we must build a new framework, or mental model for understanding the world, that can explain the reality we see that our old framework could not. This framework is grounded in natural truth, establishing the rules of the game, gives us values to determine practical and meaningful goals, and helps us discover and hone strategies to achieve those goals in the reality and conditions we find ourselves in.
To best understand frameworks and how to build them, I have broken this article down into two parts: The Philosophy of Frameworks and The Process of Building Frameworks. The Philosophy of Frameworks illustrates the four key considerations of building a framework grounded in truth, scoping your framework to what is practical and relevant to you, the necessity of considering not just the material, but spiritual world, and the importance of consistent adaptation. The Process of Building Frameworks covers the three steps of Establishing a Foundation of Truth, Defining Goals, and Discovering and Honing Strategies. By the end of this article, you will have learned everything you need to know to move onto the next step in The Journey: Self Improvement.
The Philosophy of Frameworks
Before we can build a new framework, it is necessary to understand the philosophy behind what makes an effective framework. Let’s dive in.
Grounded In Truth
When we awaken, we realize that our previous framework through which we understood the world and made decisions was fundamentally flawed. We trusted certain institutions or systems to tell us the truth, but realized they were indoctrinating us in a worldview that served their own purposes. We must then throw out that old framework and build a new one, but for us to feel confident in this new framework, we must establish it on a more accurate and robust foundational truth.
We seek truth for two reasons: to establish the laws of material reality so we may know the rules of the game we operate within and to define our spiritual values so that we may pick goals that orient us towards successful and meaningful lives. Simply put, truth allows us to understand both what is and what we ought to do. As I have talked about in Truth and Representation, we can never know the absolute Truth, but we can judge accuracy of our understanding of the truth by its ability to be predictive. If we represent the rules of the game well, our decisions should result in the outcomes we want. If we have values that accurately represent what is meaningful, our goals will be satisfying and fulfilling.
It is essential that we approach understanding truth accepting that there is a fundamental, objective, immutable truth, both in the material and the spiritual. This is necessary to establish as many in the mainstream delusion would argue for a subjective truth, that everyone’s truth can be different and also valid. While it is true that people can believe things and act as if they are truth, just like a man who thinks he can fly, the truth of the world will assert itself in an undeniable way sooner or later.
The Necessity of Scoping
While there are many areas we can seek truth, one quickly learns that the truth that is most important is that which is necessary to oneself. Knowing the truth about aliens or secret government projects is completely irrelevant to the decisions one is going to make in their everyday life. Since we want to be maximally efficient when building our framework, we should scope our framework to only focus on the areas we have control. (I lay out a technique for determining correct scope in the article Multi-Reality Decision Making if you wish to read more on the topic.)
We are effectively focusing our framework on enabling our next step in the journey: Self Improvement. As we grow in competence, we will move on to creative works, and finally world improvement and will expand our framework where necessary to enable success in these stages. What is important is that we are not wasting time building out a framework that is not necessary for us to navigate the current stage of the journey we are on and can focus that energy on what is important.
Material and Spiritual
While the material truth can often be thought of as establishing what is, it is the spiritual truth that defines the values that determine what we ought to do. And so, a purely material understanding will not be sufficient to build a framework that will help us not only understand the rules of the game, but the values that will serve as the basis for how we determine our goals and orientation. While we must often balance between what is materially practical and what is spiritually ideal, without the spiritual consideration, we will be stuck in a lower frequency, material value system that will inevitably lead to unfulfilling goals. (If you are interested in reading more on the balance between material and spiritual, I have an upcoming article on The Duality Game I will link here when it is finished. You will be able to find in on the Spirit section of my website and substack)
Adaptive
While the natural rules of our reality do not change, even if we had a perfect understanding of those rules, we still must consistently adapt our framework to our ever changing environment and personal progression. Therefore, it is important not to think of your framework as something static once established, but as something that will grow and adapt through your journey. This mindset of consistent adaptation is important to establish at the beginning so we are aware of when we need to adapt our frameworks.
Process of Framework Building
Now that we have established the philosophy of a well built framework, I will walk you through the process of building your framework. We start by finding the truth we will set as the foundation for our framework. We can think of this as both defining the rules for the game and the values we will derive our goals from. We then establish our goals by both considering the values we have defined and also reflecting on ourselves and our environment to know what is best for us at this point in time. Finally, we must learn strategies that we can use to navigate our reality towards the goals we have defined for ourselves.
Finding Truth
Our first step in building our framework is to establish a foundational understanding of what is true. We can think of this as not as the material truth that defines the rules of the game we must work within, but also the spiritual truth that reveals the values we can aspire to that will lead us to fulfilling and meaningful lives.
Material Truth
Essential to establishing a healthy understanding of the material truth is accepting that there is an absolute, objective, and naturally based truth for the material world. This is to say there is an immutable truth at the foundation of reality that does not change. This is not hard for many to accept, as science is founded on the idea that there is an objective material truth to the world and we can understand it through science. This is how we should view
However, this point is necessary to highlight as many lost to the mainstream delusion argue that all truth is subjective and dependent on what someone believes. This is extremely dangerous as it would imply there is no foundation for reality, not a healthy way of being and opens the door for others to warp your perspective to accept ideas that are not true.
As far as recommendation for what you should accept as material truths, many of (I just stopped writing here)
Summary Outline of Draft
We must believe in an objective natural truth
We understand there is no way to be sure about what is absolutely true, but we can figure out what works over time
The things that work are what allow people to flourish
Flourishing is about not only living a long and healthy life, but putting good patterns into the world, be that through having kids, starting businesses, sharing good ideas, being a positive person, writing good literary works, etc
Things that are lindy are probably good strategies for flourishing
Strong healthy traditions
Family
We should try to identify natural ideals and find ways to adapt them to our lives
Keep in mind that we want to keep our need for truth scoped to what is relevant to us
We should also make sure that we allow our understanding of truth to adapt over time
Now that we have established the philosophy of strong frameworks: grounded in truth, scoped to what is relevant to us, and considering not just the material but higher spiritual goals, we can start to build out a framework that will serve us well
Finding Truth
The first step is to establish a truth to lay the foundation of our framework
These truths will not only establish the rules of the game we are operating within, but also enable us to understand what is actually valuable to orient ourselves towards
These truths can be found in what is natural and lindy
We must accept the natural reality of competition and a drive to flourish
This means that things like hierarchies, competence, and power need to be understood
Establishing Goals
While the rules of the game and the general goal of flourishing is universal, our goals are specific to ourselves as they are dependant on who we are, where we are in our lives and what we think is most valuable for us given our environment
Basically, you may know the rules of poker, but you must play the hand you are delt and based on the players you are playing with
This means that for us to discover our goals, we need to take time to reflect
We need to understand where we are in our lives, what is important to us, where are strengths are, what we need to work on to be successful in the way we wish to be successful
Goals are going to be different for everyone, but they will follow common threads
You goals should focus on how you can build yourself into a stronger person
You want to think of basic things first such as health, career, good relationships, and spiritual wellbeing
Very simple things like getting sleep, eating well, time in nature, and getting in physical activity are the bedrock of self improvement
Learning Strategies
In any game where we have established rules and clearly defined goals there arises strategies that are best suited to help us achieve those things
While I cannot give you a full list of all the strategies, I can give you a broad understanding of identifying and applying strategies
First, I contend there are meta strategies or fundamental patterns to how to approach problems. If you learn these patterns you can apply them in new situations and they are an effective baseline approach to work from.
Specifically, problem solving through adaptation is a core meta strategy that will fuel your journey
Second, you want to constantly be learning and adapting your strategies as you go
To learn good strategies, you should look to learn from people who have had good results and other people you respect also respect. There is a wealth of information on the internet, but there is also a big signal to noise ratio. To pick out the signal, you want to judge people by the results you value and building a network of people whose opinions you trust.
Conclusion
Framework building is a necessary step after you awaken as to navigate this new reality, you must understand the rules of the game, your goals, and how to get there
A good framework is grounded in natural truth, is scoped to be maximally efficient and effective for your goals, and enables you to make the right decision to achieve your goals
So to build the right framework, we need to learn truth, establish our goals, and build a robust understanding of effective strategies
We must remember that the conditions around you will constantly change and the person you are will grow, taking on new goals and expanding into new domains so you must consistently update and adapt your framework
If you understand the ideas I have laid out here around framework building, you will be ready to take the next step in the journey, self improvement, and pursue the strongest version of yourself.
Brainstorm 3
As I am working on this last iteration, I am realizing I am not doing a good job of using consistent language, as I have come to different understandings halfway through writing, such as the idea that the rules of the game are based on material truths and the goals of the game are based on spiritually truths. This is a much more fluid representation and means I will have to structure the article a little differently to fit in this new, albeit more elegant and efficient representation.
The other problem that I am running into is making a divide between the philosophy of a good framework and the actual practical things you should know to establish your framework. The problem is that telling people what to believe is not only kind of against my whole goal with this paper, but also would take a long time to lay out all the things that I think are important. I think that what I could do is give people criteria by which they can make decisions on what is true and how to incorporate them into your framework.
When I think of things that are important to believe are truth I think of things like beauty, biology, there are shades of good and evil in all of us, incentives drive action, people are not as smart as you think,
Brainstorm 4
As I am rereading and thinking about my past drafts and outlines, one of the things that occurs to me is that more important than the truth of the rules of the game is the truth of the goals of the game. Knowing what to value is far more important as even if you have a bad understanding of the rules, you will move in the right direction with a good understanding of the goals. But if you have a bad understanding of the right goal, then even a perfect understanding of the rules will never move you any closer than where you want to go
