Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

[jacob]

@J+G - EREWL1-7 is solving the freedom-from problem. WL8-10 is solving the freedom-to problem. It's that simple.

In terms of Plato's Cave, WL8 corresponds to having made it to cave exit. WL9-10 is building a new society/community on the surface.

WL5->6 was a huge transition. WL7->8/9 will similarly be a huge transition because the human is no longer asked to solve problems given to the human by the world (like how to find the best WOG given the environmnet). Rather, than finding the solution to a given question, the WL8 human needs to be able to ask the question... starting with "who am I really?"

In terms of how one knows whether one has maximized one's potential, one doesn't. For example, the purpose of some humans is probably just to serve as a bad example and a warning of what not to. The key here is that at WL8 it's all on them, whereas WL1-7 have remnants of societal programming and conformity that guides people.

Another way of saying it is that WL8 or actualization requires construct-awareness. IOW, one has to know the source of one's beliefs or values. Turns out the majority of people don't. Instead they repeat values they've heard from others---like the people they surround themselves with or what they just heard on tiktok. One could say that the typical human is empty inside, but it would be more accurate to say that the typical human is a social/societal mirror believing/behaving/saying what they believe the world wants.

Along with awareness of their programming, a construct-aware person would also be aware of all their trauma and how it causes them to (re)act.

If WL7 is the starting line, then WL8 is the first step beyond it.

[Jin+Guice]

@jacob:

Thanks for the response. I feel what you just said is what I'm trying to figure out. I'm discussing how I'm muddling through the process of trying to discover what my values are. I'm trying to separate what is cultural programming and response to trauma and what the parts I actually want are. So in that way I'm on the WL7->WL8 threshold, although i still don't really feel sufficiently skilled enough to graduate WL6 and I'm still not FI enough to graduate WL5 (but I'm very aware that they are just rough guidelines). I have to say that I've been consciously avoiding trying to level up WLs just to "level up" and yet the WLs keep being the next step of natural progress.

I realized that Maslow sort of made a pragmatic guide to this (though perhaps it is against the spirit of using a guide to figure out who you are outside of any guidelines) or at least studied something quite similar.

That guide made a lot of sense to me.

The other part of this series is asking where our cultural programming and trauma come from, in the hopes that understanding how we got here may help us understand where to go. It seems to come from the social value meme (which is supposed to literally be our cultural programming, if I understand it correctly).

[7Wannabe5]

How do you know you somewhat self-actualized = somewhat "fulfilled your potential as a human being." It seems that this definition can only come from you and you can only be sure if you had no misalignment (doubt) in yourself.

Well, this has to do with "authenticity", which I think has to do with all the evolving and innate aspects of you, but also particularly where/how "Fi" which relates fairly closely to what I refer to as "the juvenile feminine energy" enters into your perspective and functioning. Obviously, "FI" or "juvenile feminine energy" also relates fairly closely to how you tend to process trauma, because this is also where your "sensitivity" is found.

So, this is really a very different issue for somebody who is ENTP vs. INTJ, because of the relative placement of Fi within other cognitive preferences. My current take on the matter (which is mostly my own invention )is that a true generalist type like ENTP has multiple "authentic purposes" because Fi in the 7th position is "bubbling up" through the higher cognitive functions. IOW, there are many goals/activities/practices you might successfully be engaged in as an eNTP by scrambling together some mix of Ne and Ti, bringing in some Fe and Si, and even reaching for some Ni and Te, but Fi is what provides the signal that your purpose is authentic rather than "just pimping." (This is kind of confusing, because humans who have Fi as more primary in their stack hold authenticity as purpose which is different than other types actualizing and authentic purpose. But, this can be seen in the fact that the purpose of art is to help bring the feelings of the consumers of art to the surface where they might be better examined.)

Anyways, the reason I knew that I was "self-actualizing" or "being authentic to myself" by engaging in my rare book business was that it spoke to the aspect of juvenile feminine energy within me that projected itself on to "library books that were very good, but nobody checked out this year besides me." This relates to trauma, because the poor books were being seen as "abandoned, wasted, unable to find expression, etc." And this loop of "authenticity" was completed when customers would thank me for helping them to find the special books they particularly wanted. IOW, my vision of a better world strongly corresponds with the task of promoting "valuable works of self-expression" to "where they will be appreciated." Since Fi /juvenile feminine energy also relates to the concept of "romance", it is also as though I see one of my purposes to be matchmaking between books and readers. I also experienced this feeling of right livelihood in certain aspects of my job as inventory manager for the alpha store of a very large corporate book store chain, and just last summer selling rare books related to lost arts and crafts at a flea market. Sitting in a lawn chair in a booth at a flea market talking to people about the books I appreciate and which I am also attempting to sell is pretty pure example of something I would do even if it didn't involve money. For me this is the activity equivalent to being in a room adjusted to perfect body temperature. Although, I would note for the record that some necessary related activities such as hauling boxes of books from car to booth, not so much. However, I also thing seeking a lifestyle of continuously perfect fluidity and flow (like fluidity with kick of excitement) is towards a fool's errand. Every day, year, FiTB cycle-of-life, you are also going to have to rebuild lower aspects on Maslow's ladder (or many similar models) and also re-evaluate where/who you now are through process such as values clarification.

By contrast, when the forces that be* made it increasingly difficult for me to make enough money with my lifestyle business to support my frugal lifestyle, I started engaging in "retail arbitrage", moving a variety of goods from clearance racks (or similar) at brick and mortar retail outlets to internet sites, and it was clear to me from the get-go that although somewhat fun in the way that treasure hunting or gambling is often fun, this was much more a "just pimping" activity. For me, investing in the stock market, although also fun at the level of trading, is also "just pimping" or "just shopping towards stock-piling", so that's why I don't prefer it as a large part of my answer to "money on tap." However, I can see that others might find investing in the stock market more fulfilling if they didn't share my take on the battle between very small businesses and giant monopolies. For example, some humans may hold the belief that large corporations perform needful tasks more efficiently, because they never worked for a large corporation and/or they never owned their own small business.

*Interesting note being that one of the FTC commissioners who was fired this week was engaged in the anti-monopoly case quite directly involved in the "forces that be" related to my business. One of the interesting things about running your own very small business it that it can inform your perspective across the economy, much in the same way that creating your own very small permaculture project can inform you about extended eco-system.

[Jin+Guice]

@7: What you're describing kind of sounds to me like you are finding your actualized potential by figuring out your own core values, in your case using MBTI stack functions and sexual dichotomy as a guide.

I also thing seeking a lifestyle of continuously perfect fluidity and flow (like fluidity with kick of excitement) is towards a fool's errand. Every day, year, FiTB cycle-of-life, you are also going to have to rebuild lower aspects on Maslow's ladder (or many similar models) and also re-evaluate where/who you now are through process such as values clarification.

Yes I agree, which is why I added that last post where I think actualization (roughly equal to ecstatic flow state) is only achievable on the scale of the moment. I think being 1) aware of your lower level sensory signals and 2) aligned in thought, emotion, sensation and action would lead to more time spent in the flow/ actualized state. It's also possible that you could experience meeting your lower level needs also in a flow state.

The point isn't to make yet another scoreboard for "time spent actualized" though, it's to pay attention to your sensations, moods and thoughts, inquire about them and then see what happens.

[Jin+Guice]

Modernism and Needs of Modernity

Layered on top of Maslow's needs are needs that I call "needs of modernity." These are add-on needs that help us meet the needs from Maslow's Hierarchy in the modernist environment. For example, our need may be "sleep" but this often ends up looking like a house, a bed, sheets, pillows, a blanket, darkness and quiet. All of these things need to be clean and pest free.

Needs of modernity are part of the slippery slope that takes us from the gift of easy satisfaction of physiological needs to the curse of consumerism. There's often a bait and switch, where a basic physiological need becomes met by increasingly complex mechanisms, all of which become interpreted as things we can't live without.

Requiring a job to meet our physiological needs adds more needs of modernity. Added on top of that are the many social needs of modernity.

A large part of what ERE does is examine needs of modernity. A lot of the waste is created keeping up with needs that are illusory, exaggerated or caused by other facets of modernism (i.e. medical treatment for a lifetime of inactivity). Getting off of the consumer treadmill means stripping away the needs of modernity to reveal the needs underneath.

[7Wannabe5]

The course on human immunology I am taking emphasizes the fact that Sanitation is the greatest gift of Modernity. Drinking water free of fecal matter and mosquito nets and screens on your windows are the greatest human life extenders invented thus far. Even in primitive times, microbes were our greatest predators simply because we are relatively very large animals offering up huge consolidated lumps of flesh for pathogenic predation. Pests are not just a source of irritation; they can kill you dead.

[Jin+Guice]

@7: The spoils of modernism are plentiful, but they are also, from this particular time and place, extremely cheap. We take most of the good shit for granted and spend our time working for and servicing not that great shit that doesn't help us.

[Jean]

I think constipation was among the top causes of death in humans during middle ages.

[Jin+Guice]

I think constipation was among the top causes of death in humans during middle ages.

The spoils of modernism are plentiful...

[jacob]

Globally, famine killed or shortened lifespans up until the 1940s when the Green Revolution mostly put an end to it. (After that, food shortages became a distribution/affordability problem rather than an inability to grow enough.) Famines would be so regular that most people would experience more than one event across their lifetime.

In addition to shortening lifespans from malnutrition (think scurvy, rickets, ...), malnutrition also weakened people and made them more susceptible to die from infectious diseases. There are basically two kinds. Vector-borne (malaria, yellow fever, ...) that killed in rural areas ... and airborne/waterborne/contact-based (cholera, smallpox, measles, polio, tuberculosis..) that killed in cities where people lived close to each other + a hybrid where the vector was animals living close to humans (rats=plague, fleas=typhus). Fun fact: The plague still exists in the SW-US. However, it's now treatable and mostly survivable if detected/identified in time. The problem is that it's so rare that it might be misdiagnosed.

Also consider that humans had no access to antibiotics, so even a small cut could kill if it became infected. This also ended around 1940 with the refinement of penicillin. Obviously also something like appendicitis would be lethal.

Going back to medieval times, during that time, death by murder (crime, war, capital punishment, and otherwise) was around 10%. That is much higher than even the most dangerous places today.

In terms of the single most dangerous thing, we're looking at childbirth. Both to the one giving birth and the one being born. This is the main reason why life expectancy was so low. If you remove children dying with the first few years from the statistics, life expectancy went up considerably. Still people weren't exactly a healthy bunch. Good news is that cancer and cardiovascular deaths were quite low. Those are 20th century diseases.

[AxelHeyst]

I think JnGs point is something along the lines of:
-We spent ~10units of resources solving cholera and childbirth deaths and etc etc using the tools of modernity. Yay modernity!
-and now we’re spending 1,000++ units of resources solving problems like “isn’t it annoying to at sometimes it takes three seconds for a feature length film to load on your phone when you’re on the train in a tunnel?” And ripping the earth and our minds apart in the process, and some of us get confused and think modernity is bad because we see the earth-and-mind rending and forgot/take for granted the “not dying shitting our guts out” part of our lives.

Eg modernity is now being used to solve problems that it isn’t the appropriate method for, and issues are ensuing.

I don’t think there are a whole lot of people round these parts who don’t recognize the vast benefits modernity has brought humanity? Maybe I’m missing something though.

[Jin+Guice]

@AH: Yes! It's interesting to review just how good we have it though. If you live in the first world today, you barely need money to access the important facets of modernity. And I further argue that physiological needs and their needs of modernity and (physical) safety counterparts are the only problems money solves well.

To me that last sentence is a summary of ERE with an eye towards the needs hierarchy.

Where I'm going with this is that I think we are spending most of our energy and resources earning and spending money to meet needs that money is terrible at meeting.

[AxelHeyst]

Hm there’s something I might not be clear on. Let me say something probably wrong and you correcting me will clear it up for me:

what you call the ‘needs of modernity’ are NOT the needs that modernity is good at solving. Modernity is good at solving physiological and safety needs, which are basic universal ones.

The ‘needs of modernity’ are pseudo-manufactured needs to at sit on top of vast complex contrivances, like the ‘need’ for a car and a drivers license and a credit card so you can get a Netflix account… yeah?

Nobody intrinsically needs a drivers license, but *because* modernity over-solved other real needs and is trying to build complex systems to solve needs it isn’t good at solving (status, social, emotional), were in a situation where we ‘need’ drivers licenses and smart phones.

And ERE is a hack at seeing the real needs vs the fake needs and lets us fuflill our physiological etc needs while spending barely any money because we can just skip a lot of the “‘needs’ of modernity.”

?

[daylen]

why not "desires of modernity"? then no need to explain they are not needed

[jacob]

what you call the ‘needs of modernity’ are NOT the needs that modernity is good at solving. Modernity is good at solving physiological and safety needs, which are basic universal ones.

This is a good way of putting it. Modernity has provided cheap food and cheap housing for almost everybody. (We live like kings past.) Yet, modernity is not good, awful even, in terms of providing belonging. The only form of actualization modernism offers on the work-side is to either become a really good specialist worker or to have a career [=a sort of intentional series of specialized work], which are both pretty low in the hierarchy of adult ego development. Belonging is offered in the form of brand name lifestyle products. People buy stuff, like a piano they never play or books they never read, to become part of the cultured class. Or they buy sports paraphernalia to belong to a sportsball club. And so on.

Postmodernism goes a little further in terms of the subjective experience of the self. Most importantly, it transgresses the shrink-wrapped product. However, it often turns it into a service instead: therapy sessions, adventure travel,...

PS: I'm actually not sure about the safety needs. All -isms more or less solve for that as well as they can.

[OutOfTheBlue]

Thank you for engaging in this way, thef0x. These are excellent points. Apologies for the delay. Will try to reply once I create a new journal more focused on this stuff in the coming days and bring these discussions there.

And J+G, thank you for these explorations and discussions in your journal.

[Jin+Guice]

@AH: Yes and no, but mostly yes.

like the ‘need’ for a car and a drivers license and a credit card so you can get a Netflix account… yeah?

It's more like the 'need' for a car and a drivers license and a credit card so you can access the complex systems used to deliver water, sanitation, food and medicine AND so you can get a Netflix account. "Needs of Modernity" are needs by proxy.

The needs in the hierarchy are unchangeable regardless of circumstance. Needs of modernity, are changeable depending on circumstance. However, if you ignore them in the modernist environment, you're ignoring the way most people meet or attempt to meet their needs, which misses the mark if I'm trying to examine how needs tie to 1) ERE and 2) consumerism.

I came up with this category of needs when I attempted to make a WoGs in a spreadsheet where I mapped activities and items to needs. I found this category useful because it's very easy to think "water is almost free" but the way I actually get water is from a house, which is not free and the way I actually pay for that house is with a job which requires things like clothes and transportation. Since I use ERE methods, all of these things are very cheap in terms of money, even considering all of the additional proxy needs. But, meeting the need for water is much more difficult than I thought it was when I was considered that need met every time I turn on the tap.

My point here is that needs of modernity aren't all things you can just get rid of because they are frivolous inventions of modernity. All needs of modernity map to an underlying need from the hierarchy, and if you want to simply get rid of a modern convenience or item, you need to examine all of the underlying needs that convenience or item is meeting (or attempting to meet).

The lightbulb moment came when I applied this logic up the chain of needs. It hadn't occurred to me, that if I needed a car to get to work, to pay for the house where the water is coming from, that I "need" a car to (indirectly) get water. Now look at the things we "need" to have belonging. As Jacob astutely notes, modernity is terrible at belonging. I think part of the reason for this is we've subconsciously come to believe that belonging can be bought and belonging is bought using the same hidden logic as water. The problem with belonging is that it's a hidden emotional need that people may not admit to themselves they need. Further it is difficult to quantify, know or feel when there is "enough belonging."

So we end up with several human needs (esteem, belonging, cognitive engagement and aesthetics) which we don't fully admit are important to us, which we don't fully understand, where satiation is difficult to determine and which we attempt to satisfy by proxy with things modernity sells us. On top of that, there are a bunch of "needs of modernity" which indirectly necessary to meet basic physiological needs.

The two most common arguments I hear from consumers are that they "need" this or that (usually this means a need of modernity which is, at least in part, used to meet one of their physiological needs) or that they "deserve" some sort of reward (usually for putting up with some shitty aspect of modernity aka not meeting one of their needs above physiological. The reward is also often covertly serving as a proxy to meet a shadow need that the person doesn't admit to themselves.).



The last two paragraphs are, in my opinion, why consumerism is so hard to defeat.

PS: I'm actually not sure about the safety needs. All -isms more or less solve for that as well as they can.

Safety is tricky because it is the only need which is fully the absence of something. This also makes it tricky to quantify or determine satiation, so cue a bunch of people selling us expensive "safety" services or stuff. This is why I took it out of the hierarchy and applied it to each other category. Safety is freedom-from.

I do think modernity is absolutely stellar at physiological safety, defined as absence of disease, physical ailment and physical harm caused by outside forces. However, it loses some points on physiological safety by causing a bunch of new physiological threats (but living under modernism is still by far the safest physiological way to live though).

I don't think modernity does very well in terms of safety of esteem, belonging (emotional safety), cognitive interest or aesthetics (cognitive safety).

[7Wannabe5]

Maybe my current take on this is a bit different because I am dependent for thriving/surviving on a high-tech drug that was only recently invented? I mean, I used to vibe very frugal-DIY-bravado towards , "Okay, just give me modern technology through the invention of antibiotics and I will be good.", but now I find this not to be true for me in particular, so I experience a bit of cognitive dissonance or moral conflict now when considering the benefits of low-tech vs. high-tech, because I'm not likely, or literally would be unable, to consistently adhere to a philosophy/practice/policy that would render me dead or extremely debilitated.

Also, there are clearly many humans on the planet for whom even the benefits of Modernity have not yet arrived, so narrow focus on higher level problems of humanity might not be most overall efficient/effective overall solution space? Especially since it has been observed that for many of us helping others with the problems we have already solved may be an effective/efficient means by which to fulfill our own "belonging", "self-esteem", "competency", "interest", or "aesthetics" needs? For simple example, a river that is not full of human fecal matter and plastic garbage is aesthetically more pleasing to me than one that is full of human fecal matter and plastic garbage, and I do not have to be the private property owner of the river in order to derive aesthetic pleasure from cleaning it, although it is the case that my private ownership would likely better ensure that it stayed clean. Etc. etc. etc. add a multiplier if towards a systemic lever such as tutoring disadvantaged kids in mathematics, add another degree of multiplication if you create a math education video available on YouTube and promote it to teachers of disadvantaged tots, etc. etc. add another degree of multiplication if you create a framework in which the previous two are more possible, etc. etc.

[Jin+Guice]

@7: I'm again not seeing how this is different than what I'm saying. All of us here are to some degree products of the modern social meme and will thus experience modern social meme problems. How and when to employ expensive medical care is one of those problems. While I am blaming modernism for its own set of modernist problems, I am also very grateful that it has provided solutions to a host of other problems. Modernist problems are still problems and not all of them can be solved by opting out.

in terms of the framework I'm describing, health problems are "physiological safety" problems, which are problems that modernism is excellent at solving... but in real terms "excellent" might mean moving us from certain death to a less than comfortable life dependent on some sort of drug or medical technology.

I agree that modernity has not been extended worldwide although I think the present day problem is not so much one of resources as it is one of access, dignity and "problems of modernity" such as being poisoned by a modern day chemical or not having rights to the water in that flows threw your backyard. I agree that helping others is important and can be a way to meet ones higher than physiological needs, though I leave the type and amount of help up to the individual to determine according to their own values. I also think that in order to recognize the use in providing help to others we must first realize that we ourselves can get all that we need easily, which likely involves dealing with our own shadow beliefs and seeing the abundance of modernity rather than the scarcity of consumerism.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jin+Guice:

Yeah, I agree. It now occurs to me that maybe my needful defense of Modernity is also towards a bit of a kick-back at not entirely well informed hippie-dippie Post-Modern purity notions that we can all be cured of most of our physiological ills by ingesting Organic Green Smoothies in a Kumbaya circle.