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Tag: action

  • Theme:

    ideology: rejecting survival within tribalism

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    1–2 minutes

    What happens when children are taught to reject their own tribe, or when parents prioritize distant children over their own?

    Ideology and in-group preference can enter twine. Going against your tribe or kin can provide motivational social affirmation (acceptance from an alternate tribe or faction), yet it is based on twisting natural impulses; it requires denial or abnegation of self (or reliant others) as a social signal of growth (ideological adherence) that is ultimately detrimental (contradictory) to survival.

    For example, when threatened, inaction can be made to seem wise (cowardice OR peace and self-control). Avoiding responsibility and duties is framed as rejecting the system/society (brave, counter-culture, OR lazy and parasitic). Donating your paycheck, despite your child’s needs.

    Though common-sense says these actions are harmful, reframed within ideologies as valid traits to maintain social inclusion allows destructive tendencies to become normalized.

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    The more you do…

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    1–2 minutes

    The more you do, the more balls you drop. We often lose our keys when we move to a new city or forget to tend our relationships when starting a business venture. Our focus is on the new, and the common suffers.

    Considered mathematically, the more you do, the more losses and chaos you will suffer as you stir the pot, but you will also encounter more luck and become adept in turmoil.

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  • Theme:

    Determinate Action makes “You”

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    1–2 minutes

    Once you have taken action, it solidifies or determines who you are. In part, this is who you are seen as: your identity is predominantly socially constructed.

    To commit an act that brings you shame (self-hate) provokes extreme psychological responses: either you overcorrect away from yesterday’s heinous self, or you over-justify your position, further alienating some while enraging and converting others.

    Both responses create a “new self” from a single point, a turning point where your agenda diverges either to abnegate or rally and resuscitate. Either way, it is a reaction that is obviously “you,” yet “not you” because it is a divergent alternative provoked and created by the inability to forgive your original act.

  • Theme:

    Transcending Material Goals for Sublime, Unattainable Fulfillment

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    1–2 minutes

    When pursuing a goal, motivation falters as you’re haunted by dark fantasies of failure. These fears obscure the path, and success becomes elusive: you are nearly there, but cannot see it. You need a guiding light beyond your objective.

    To overcome your doubt and dissuaded fixation, shift focus from tangible objectives to abstract, immaterial goals—commodities that transcend physical limits.

    Unlike material achievable goals, which deteriorate and shift due to their finite nature, the commodity can never be fully attained. It is eternal and avoids capture. This echoes the logic of capitalism, where commodities are fetishized into the sublime, approximate to God, and the pursuit itself becomes divine.

    This animating motivation stems from a base, subjective desire, which can now be elevated to transcend the original, objective need. In so doing it offers a long-term stable, albeit unattainable, path toward self-fulfillment.

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  • Theme:

    doubt and faith

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    1–2 minutes

    Having faith beyond doubt is to stop seeking: perfect faith is perfect stagnation. Pure faith obliterates curiosity.

    You may still perform and struggle, but personal change will be incidental. The world may change through your performance, but only towards a singular, less considered state.

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  • Theme:

    Naivety or the Calculus of Kindness

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    1–2 minutes

    Naivety is not kindness (in fact, it is often cruel), yet kindness is linked to a lack of understanding as if moral action precludes effectual action. Meanwhile, rationality is portrayed as sharp and hard, cutting away the soft for the "greater good."

    However, if rationality leads to kindness, the seemingly foolish move becomes the smart one.

    Still, if we wish kindness to be smart, we will find ways to justify it despite the harsh realities we face daily.

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    Create something

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    1–2 minutes

    Create something to uplift your spirits—it won’t be a masterpiece, but the simple act of creation can anchor you while discharging the ruminative loop of your thoughts.
    Engaging in a tangible, attentive activity (a concrete action) is a small step toward agency and a reminder of one’s ability to shape your environment, which in turn can shape one’s mood.

    Oddly, the physical item (the remnant of action) embodies your time spent, mapping it into the real, while so much of our time is spent scrolling or pontificating with no memorable results.

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    Harmonizing Presence and Purpose

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    1–2 minutes

    Acute awareness in the present allows appreciation, while achievement requires purpose-driven action.

    These are not wholly incompatible, yet the search for meaning employs a mental state (intellectual focus) fundamentally at odds with the enjoyment of inherent beauty (open relaxation).

    The interplay can create harmony, where deliberate purpose propels us into meaningful action, during which existential angst recedes, leaving us free to feel deeply.

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    The breaks: optimizing for good luck vs bad

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    1–2 minutes

    Engagement intensifies both fortunes and misfortunes.

    Mathematically, if a 2% chance exists for positive outcomes and 3% for negative ones, increased activity amplifies both lucky breaks and things going awry. Simultaneously, an escalation of activity (to produce good luck) heightens stress and the likelihood of errors.

    There must be a ‘golden zone’ – a balance where one optimizes positive occurrences while containing adverse breakage.

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    Shielding yourself with social intent

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    1–2 minutes

    A clever and increasingly common rhetorical device is to claim intent, despite reality.

    For instance, a specific person argues against health studies on obesity, claiming they are to shame people. If prejudice can be assigned, medical studies and their real-world repercussions (death) are invalid. If you get in trouble at work for stealing, it is the deviously ill-intentioned underling who is to blame, not your actions.

    The fascinating part about assigning blame, or labeling ill-intent, is it allows one to reassert protagonist status; it dodges responsibility for actions. After all, disciplined behavior is an obnoxious remnant of "tradition" that should be discarded.

    Yet, more troublesome is when actions cease to count and intent overshadows outcomes, we begin to notice intent shifts to victimization and societal injustice, expanding the shield of intent into nobility.

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