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4 < Back to list A. Character refunction 4 A kindness Placeholder text until I find the time to draft a full description. 4 .1 A Need experience 4 .2 A Defunctionalizing Info This subsection applies 'relational knowing' statements to illuminate how this defunction relationally lowers your ability to fully function. It is typically framed with more/more or more/less or less/more or less/less associations that can be empirically tested. 4 .3 A Refunctionalizing Info This subsection applies 'relational knowing' statements to illuminate how this defunction could be turned around to raise your ability to function. It also uses more/more or more/less or less/more or less/less associations that can be empirically tested. 4 .4 A Example(s) This subsection offers some examples of this defunction you may observe affecting your life. Usually more than one example is provided. If reading this, there are no examples yet to this defunction. 4 .5 A Associated defunctions This subsection points to similar or applicable defunctions. If reading this, there are no defunctions specifically associated with this defunction. 4 .6 A Relevant refunctions This subsection points to relevant or complementary refunctions. If reading this, there are no relevant defunctions to correlate with this defunction. 4 .7 A Applicable principles This subsection points to those anankelogical principles that aptly apply to this defunction. If reading this, there are no anankelogical principles related specifically to this defunction. 4 .8 A Referenced blog posts This subsection points to those blog entries that relate to, or cite, this particular defunction. If reading this, there are no blog entries yet related specifically to this defunction. Date created: 8/26/23 Type: Date revised: A. Character refunction The more you pleasantly smile and encourage others, the more your needs resolve. Refrain from harsh words. Give encouragement to those in need. Smile more towards others, even if they do not smile back. Let your smile sustain your positive attitude, especially in those moments when you don't feel like smiling. Yet be sure your positive regard stays sincere. Be an example of the level of kindness we all need for more civil interactions, leading to more meaningful lives. Previous Next Discuss at our Engagement forum

Intellect is overrated where love is underperformed. < Back H02 Love Principle List of all principles Intellect is overrated where love is underperformed. Image: Pixabay – jonbonsilver (click on meme to see source image) Summary When confronted with something that hits close to home, it’s easy to then intellectualize it. To avoid discomfort of being vulnerable to others, we often prioritize rational knowledge over the less rational and messy side of being fully human. But flip the script. Go beyond trying to intellectually understand the things we do by trying to better understand each other. Then observe the power of love do some amazing things. Description Which do you value more in your life right now? Being smart. OR Being loved. Anankelogy Anankelogy introduces social love . That’s the act of prioritizing a proper response to another's need as being as important or more important than your own need(s) . Whether you feel like it or not. This can inspire others to respond better to your needs. You affirm another’s need, independent of your feelings. And independent of their emotional reaction. They could be resentful toward you, even hostile, but you still take the bold step to identify and address their inflexible need or needs. You leave rationality out of it for now, because needs exist independent of rationality. Rationality or intellect applies best for how we respond to any need. Not to the inflexible need itself. Your emotions convey your needs with little regard for reasoning. And the more threatened you feel, the more intense your emotions. While challenging, you can dispassionately respect another even while feeling disrespected. It’s a worthy discipline. While feeling upset, you can still affirm their needs. You could still feel a bit defensive at the time. You give them reason to drop your guard. You show them you’re not so hostile toward the needs they cannot change. You cultivate trustworthiness to be somewhat more honest, a little more vulnerable, a bit more exposed. You drop any rational arguing that no longer serves you in this moment. You shift gears. You switch from appealing to reason to appealing to their potential to be more loving, more empathetic, more gracious, more understanding, and more patient. You do the same for them, to encourage them to drop their rational arguments. To give them the confidence to no longer hide behind reasoning. You reach deeper to show how much you care about the inflexible needs inside them that require not reasoned defenses; they simply are. The power of this social love can break down barriers, heal emotional wounds, respect the unseen impacts of trauma, and draw out more of humanity and potential to be more loving to each other. No reasoned arguing or rational decision-making proves necessary. Need-response Emotions get a bad rap when acting upon our more intense emotions. But the bulk of your emotions guide your daily routines. They rarely lead you astray, as your emotions report what satisfactorily worked before. Your emotions effectively convey your needs moment by moment in your routine situations. When an unmet need compels your emotions to urgently do something, you may regret the decision. You wish you took a little more time to consider your options. You wish you would’ve been more rational. Rational decision-making applies more to novel situations than those routine situations we face minute by minute each day. For example, you rarely make purely rational choices when driving to work each day. You typically get to work on automatic pilot, following your gut instincts. Your emotions get you there because you can trust your emotions to report how to safely get you to work following the same effective routine as every day before. Rational thinking kicks in when you must take a detour. You then have to focus more and make a decision on a different option. Rationality emerges as important in a modern society rich with novel situations. But most of our decision-making has less to do with rational choices than optional choices. If we see no option to fully resolve a need, we opt for the next available thing—automatically. Usually with little if any reflection. And often with little if any bad consequences. We ride with our instincts on what seemed sufficiently satisfactory as before. Reactive Problem Modernity presents many novel situations. What worked before suddenly applies poorly in many of the new situations we face. We now must stop and think about it more often. And handle the regret when past gut reactions lead to frequent trouble. Our propensity to keep things manageably simple spurs us to generalize. So we emotionalize our rational thinking. We give rise to hyperrationality , which ascribes socially plausible reasons for our need-driven emotions. Then we cling to this idea that people are easily persuaded by disinformation and misinformation , or even malinformation . That itself is misinformation, or perhaps disinformation, or maybe even malinformation. misinformation = false information not intended to harm or manipulate disinformation = false information is intended to harm or manipulate malinformation = true information out of context intended to harm or manipulate Such hyperrational thinking ignores the deeper more vulnerable truth of our needs. Actually, we are less persuaded by the information itself and more by what in it that seems most responsive to our needs. Focusing on the information alone easily feeds the problem of hyperrationality that ignores our vulnerable needs. But who benefits? Who gains by selfishly denying our underserved needs in ways that fuel our desire to spread compelling narratives? To whose advantage do we normalize selfishness and self-righteousness as rationally good? Who profits the most when overrating rationalities while undercutting our potential to be more understanding and loving toward each other? Or put another way, which powers that be could be most threatened if we resolved more of our needs? Who’s incentivized to thwart us from responding more effectively to one another’s vulnerable needs? Responsive Solution It doesn’t take a genius to spread warmth with a caring smile. All our expectations of intellectual prowess easily miss the greater potential for our deeper human connections with each other. Yes, intellect matters. But intellect alone does not keep families and communities meaningfully together. The deeper qualities of life that holds us together costs little in rational capital. The young exuberant child with a learning disability, for example, can spread far more love than the cold professor too preoccupied to warmly smile at his anxious students. Love can resolve far more needs than mere intellect. Anankelogy recognizes love as a character refunction along with other noble responses like gratitude , grace , resilience , empathy and patience . It doesn’t require deep knowledge to thank others, to try to understand others more, or to be patient with them. It simply demands more love of honoring the needs of other as our own. Yes, having intelligence for how to think about our needs is good. Having wisdom for how to respond to our needs is much better. Having love to uplift our potential to resolve each other’s needs is unbeatable. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: I find it easier to love others once I know at least one personal unconditionally loves me. What some people call love seems more like appreciation, or desire, but not actual love. I still value good reasoning over feigned love, but I get the point. I sense social pressures pull us to value rationality more than our personal views about it. Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

Glossary I improperly resolving needs (v.) To resolve one's own needs at the involuntary expense of others, negatively impacting their needs. For example, stealing their food (negatively impacting their need for food security) so you can satiate your hunger. You fully resolve your body's nutrient requirements in a way that prevents others from fully resolving their needs. Opposite to properly resolving needs . See objective evil or evil . indulgent side-taking (n. & v. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of choosing to support a side in some conflict against the opposing side as a way to pacify discomfort, instead of taking the disciplined approach of empathy and mutual regard to address each other’s affected needs. This shameless rush to a take side typically... overemphasizes each other's differences while disregarding common ground, relies on impersonal arguments to avoid engaging relevant specifics, resists addressing or resolving needs when easing discomfort of those needs, opposes the other side’s inflexible needs that they cannot change, called moral conflation (i.e., conflates unchosen needs with chosen responses to them), misapplies critique of moral relativism and moral neutrality , provokes the opposed side’s defensiveness to produce more of what is opposed , and self-righteously and arrogantly serves own conflict porn to win at the expense of others. Although aiming to ease pain, it usually results in more pain since it overlooks the affected needs prompting that pain (i.e., discomfort avoidance ). See premature opposition and oppo culture . This contrasts with a more disciplined approach to take a side on a contested issue, which could include a negotiated agreement on a resolution path to mutually solve the issue. The key distinction is between an intent to relieve discomfort and to resolve needs . See easement orientation and conflict orientation . See adversarialism and avoidant adversarialism . inflexible need (n. ) Another identifier of core needs, organic needs, or natural needs . Refers to unchosen needs that automatically occur in response to a diminished ability to function. Distinguishes from flexible responses to needs, which colloquially can be called a need, but anankelogy refers to as a preference or access need . E.g., I inflexibly need water when thirsty but if I say I need a bottle of water, I am more accurately saying that I prefer the water that my body requires to be provided in a bottle. Since water is the only or primary way to restore by body's fluid equilibrium, it is an inflexible need since I cannot choose anything else that would restore my fluid equilibrium as effectively. The bottle is a flexible "access need" since I could flexibly get the water I inflexibly need directly from a faucet or a glass. Distinguishing between inflexible natural needs and flexible access needs can save us from many unfortunate problems. We often falsely expect others to change their inflexible needs. We would do better to focus on flexible access needs, on how we each flexibly respond to our core inflexible needs. Otherwise, you may find that what you reactively resist you tend to reflexively reinforce . A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z < back to glossary menu

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Glossary R reactive culture (n. ) Set of social norms privileging feel-reactive reactions over need-responsive considerations. Features toxic legalism . Contrasts with responsive culture (see below). reactive pain relief (n. ) - DEFUNCTION A defunction of reacting to the discomfort of unresolved needs by immediately trying to ease its discomfort with little to no thought of how ignoring the unresolved needs evoking such pain tends to persist and potentially intensify the pain ineffectually avoided. Defunction similar to passive-aggressive pain relief . Contrasts with the refunctions of strategic pain relief and discomfort embrace . Recognized Impactee [RI] (n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] A person or entity recognized as impacted more from those in positions of power than they impact the social power relation. Prior to such powerholders acknowledging such potent influence, the RI is regarded as a Reporting Impactee . reflexive correlation (n. ) An empirically observable association between two or more variables that seem to change each other, which can suggest a cyclic relationship between the identified variables. While correlation is not necessarily causation , social science research typically anticipates one variable (the dependent variable ) to change as an apparent consequence of another preceding variable (the independent variable ). See cyclic correlation . The nature-based paradigm of academic anankelogy anticipates a string of dependent variables looping together to suggest that anything definable as an independent variable requires it to be isolated as a predecessor to a particular dependent variable in that part of the ongoing cycle. Each independent variable to a particular dependent variable can then be viewed as a dependent variable to a preceding variable in that cycle. refunction (n. ) Anything that raises one's ability to function more fully, improving their wellness. Opposite to a defunction . relational knowing (n. & v. ) - RK (abbr. ) - REFUNCTION To directly understand something by identifying how one thing appears to go along with another, allowing you to create your own testable hypotheses. You identify for yourself the associations between two or more things affecting your needs. You observe four types of associations: more-more : more of this, then more of that (“positive relation” as both move in same direction) more-less : more of this, then less of that (“negative relation” as both move in opposite directions) less-more : less of this, then more of that (“negative relation” as both move in opposite directions) less-less : less of this, then less of that (“positive relation” as both move in same direction) See image here . relief-gen (n. ) relief-generalizing (v. ) - DEFUNCTION The defunction of oversimplifying a reaction to some need to gain broad support for relieving its pain, typically resulting in more pain since the overgeneralization overlooks the specifics necessary to fully resolve the needs. This typically results in more pain from these unresolved needs, which in turn feeds this vicious cycle of continually generalizing for relief. See popgen . Reporting Impactee [RI] (n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] A person or entity asserting they are impacted more from those in positions of power than they impact the social power relation. Once acknowledged by the powerholder of such potent influence, the RI is regarded as a Recognized Impactee . residual pain (n. ) resolution path (n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] - REFUNCTION Identified steps to resolve a need or needs. Once identified and announced to others for their feedback, the identified steps get appropriately adjusted to include respect for the affected needs of others. Once concluding such inputs, the process commits all involved to enable resolution of the identified natural needs on all sides, and to also confront any selfish impediment resisting resolution. Applies to the "avowal" phase of the need-response cycle in a wellness campaign . resolution-friction (n. ) - DEFUNCTION Any resistance to fully resolving needs. Does not have to be intentional, but frequently results from an intent to avoid the pain of reported threats to functioning. This includes well-established social norms like the adversarial approach of legal systems in the judicial process and in politics. The historical way these legal structures favors a relieve-over-resolve approach tends to resist a resolve-over-relieve effort to fully resolve needs. The resulting pain typically reinforces the norms to prioritize relief over fully resolving needs that could remove cause for such pain. There is no such thing as pain apart from the body reporting a perceived theat to functioning . response conflation (n. ) - DEFUNCTION Another name for the defunction of moral conflation . response distinction (n. ) - REFUNCTION Another name for the refunction of moral distinction . response reputation (n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] - REFUNCTION One's informally or officially recognized trustworthiness to respect the needs of others. responsive culture (n. ) Set of social norms favoring need-responsive considerations over feel-reactive reactions. Counters toxic legalism . Contrasts with reactive culture (see above). responsivism (n. ) The belief and practice that responding to the unchosen needs of others, before addressing any chosen responses to such needs, can produce more favorable results than adversarial alternatives. Counters the moral conflation inherent in avoidant adversarialism with moral distinction , as a way to more effectively address and solve social problems. Need-response is the profession while responsivism is the activity. Examples: Personally Responsive to apply moral distinction Responsive Supervision Responsive Depolarization for depolarizing politics Responsive Innocence for the wrongly convicted innocent responsivist (n. ) One dedicated to applying responsivism to address social problems, as an alternative to adversarial activism that easily slips into the problem of moral conflation , which tends to perpetuate pain and problems. rhetorical need (n. ) The widely accepted reference to a flexible or optional way to restore functioning, in contrast to anankelogical reference to an actual 'need' as inflexible (in contrast to flexible options), innate (in contrast to arbitrary experience), natural or organic (in contrast to humanly constructed), unchosen (in contrast to chosen responses ). A rhetorical need is not recognizable as objective fact , as it can be characterized as subjectively flexible, arbitrary, constructed, or chosen. Timing provides the basic distinction. The actual need occurs first, prior to awareness. The rhetorical need then follows, in response to it. Anankelogy recognizes how your core needs exist as objective facts independent from subjective experience. Your life's requirement to function occurs prior to your emotional responses to such needs. We colloquially refer to many of these responses as a need . "I need a pencil" for example, but a writing utensil itself can never restore me to optimal functioning. I say I need a pencil as it rhetorically symbolizes how I prefer to respond to my objective need to not forget my thoughts. Anankelogy characterizes any rhetorical need as more of a "preference " than an actual need. If there is any flexibility for how to restore wellness, or functionality, then it is more likely an arbitrary rhetorical need and not a specific objective need in the anankelogical sense. Examples: "I need a 'bottle' of water." You can get water from out of a cup or another way. Water is the actual, objective need, not the container for it. "I need a 'map'." You can find a route in alternative ways. Travel direction is the objective need. "I need your 'email address'." You can contact others in different ways. Social connection is the actual need. "I need 'to go home'." You likely could go to other locations to satisfy this purpose. Shelter is the objective need. "I need to replace the oil in my car." You can function without replacing your car's oil. Transportation security is the actual need. "She needs my phone number." She could contact you in other ways. Interpersonal communication is the objective need. "My boss needs me to come in early." Arriving the usual time only affects you indirectly. Economic security or resource security is the actual need. We generally prefer to convey to others how we prefer they respond to our actual needs by citing such rhetorical needs . There is some safe room for change if they refuse. We generally prefer to avoid the uncomfortable vulnerability of directly expressing an actual need that we cannot change. We easily slip into conflicts when failing to distinguish between these actual needs and our rhetorical references to them. Anankelogy identifies this problem as moral conflation . And corrects this problems with moral distinction that affirms your inflexible actual needs before questioning any flexible rhetorical responses to them. This may include character refunctions that could make it easier to recognize and acknowledge the difference. See the four anankelogical levels of experiencing your needs . RI client (n. ) [wellness campaign terminology] Another identifier of a campaigner . Or the person with the targeted wellness goal in a wellness campaign led by a proxy . More broadly, can apply to wellness campaign members who hold no official power over others in the campaign, typically in the TEAM phase. 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Mutual respect resolves more needs than mutual defensiveness. < Back E11 Conflict Principle List of all principles Mutual respect resolves more needs than mutual defensiveness. Image: Pixabay – 12019 (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you are hostile towards others you oppose, the more hostile and defensive they are inclined to be toward you. Mutual hostilities result in fewer resolved needs than mutual respect. The more you engage others in mutual respect, the more opportunity to resolve each other’s needs. Mutual respect draws out more of potential to support each other, and to love one another. Description Which do you think is more likely? You’ve got to fight for what you know is right or others will disrespect you. OR You’ve got to cultivate mutual respect if you want to solve more problems. Anankelogy Anankelogy recognizes how modern societies tend to slide deeper into mutual alienation. Few us truly know one another. Or what we specifically need in the moment. We reveal less and less of ourselves even to our closest companions. Loneliness has become a global health crisis , as a global epidemic . The more we sink back into our hyper-individualized silos, the less we engage one another. We replace interpersonal responsiveness with impersonal laws. We get legalistic. We repeatedly set ourselves up for disappointment when crediting laws more than mutual respect for our safety . When was the last time you won an argument and then was able to completely solve a problem? Has any of your arguments provoked more problems than it actually solved? Did they win you any friends who can now help you in a moment of crisis? Or did it leave your needs unresolved? The less our needs resolve, the more painful they feel. The more painful our unresolved needs, the more urgent they feel. The more we urgently react for their relief, the less our needs resolve. The less our needs resolve, we’re back to feeling their painful urgency. And on and on. The less we personally relate with each other’s changing needs, the more such estrangement can set up the conditions for violence. As JFK put it, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Anankelogy unpacks our shift from civilly respecting each to indulging in more forms of disrespect. We now privilege once prohibited traits like selfishness, self-righteousness, rudeness, haughtiness, spitefulness, and so forth. All in the name of public debate! Need-response Need-response can help you shift from privileged selfish regard , which traps you in misery, with mutual regard , which can remove cause for pain by resolving more needs. Selfish regard rudely boasts to others: “My needs matter more than yours!” or “My needs matter and your needs don’t matter at all.” Its groupish cousin sounds quite the same: “Our needs matter more than theirs!” or “Our needs matter and their needs by comparison don’t matter at all.” Anyone indulging in such selfish regard and stubbornly refusing to engage others in mutual regard can now be assessed as complicit in contemporary problems. This includes those prioritizing relief over resolving the needs causing the pain. And this includes complicity in furthering any form of violence. Reactive Problem If terrorism is such a horrific problem, why do we reinforce it with our poor reactions to it? Do we dehumanize militants (who understandably dehumanize others) by totally disregarding any unmet needs driving their desperation? Opposing violence with violence predictably provokes more violence . Responding to the unmet needs behind the violence predictably mellows the violence. Claiming that only rewards violence ignores how punishing violence with violence rewards the violence. Group violence typically reacts as a form of resistance to ongoing violence of a greater force. Wherever there are resistance fighters up against a stronger military force, there will be asymmetrical battles using guerilla tactics. Guerillas fighters win when they hold out long enough not to lose. The stronger military force loses when they fail to decisively win against guerillas. Consider the example of Vietnamese resistance against the U.S. military fifty years ago. Guerilla tactics ideally remains contained between armed combatants. But sometimes spills over into noncombatant populations. Resistance fighters may rationalize targeting noncombatants in response to the stronger force targeting their own noncombatants. The standard applied sets the standard replied . Wherever there are these guerilla tactics frustrating the stronger force, the stronger force tries to smear these resistance fighters as “terrorists”. To be sure, that’s a loaded term . It means whatever the speaker wants it to mean, which spurs more conflict. If the first casualty of war is the truth, then perhaps the first victory is effective use of propaganda with such loaded language . It can effectively manipulate us into accepting grotesque acts of violence for our group’s ostensibly noble cause. Once employed, propaganda of the stronger force paints such resistance fighters as subhuman, ignores their legitimate concerns like violated rights, and self-righteously boasts of their “right” to squash any resistance. The weaker force typically joins in such mutual defensiveness. Once employed by the both sides, while denying targeting of innocent lives, they start to lose the discipline necessary to resolve conflicts. This becomes evident when failing to resolve internal conflicts within their own populations. The violent self-righteous typically spark more problems than they resolve. Responsive Solution Need-response instills the discipline to engage all the needs provoking a conflict. Need-response insists we all relate to each other’s needs, regardless how they are conveyed. Need-response challenges the usual excuse that such mutual regard rewards violence. No more excuses! If confronted, engage . Identify all the needs in a conflict. We’ll keep challenging those who selfishly champion only their own side. Who underpin defensiveness with their lack of empathy. If provoked, engage . Refuse the temptation to indulge in mutual defensivenes s. Maintain your open and responsive orientation amidst the conflict. We’ll keep trying to incentivize them with your mutual regard . If accosted, engage . Never strike back at the level they strike you. You’re internally stronger than that. Together, we’ll document the exchange. You keep standing tall and we’ll keep the receipts. Those you engage who stubbornly persist in their defensiveness, with no clear reason, can be written off. They risk losing their responsive reputation . We’re going to enforce the social love we hold as the higher standard. Together, we’re keeping score. Anankelogy demonstrates how there is no greater human authority than resolving needs in love . Need-response is set to enforce this highest moral authority, when enough qualified need-responders can effectively establish its greater legitimacy by resolving more needs, solving more problems, removing more pain, and reaching more potential than other available options. You can become a qualified need-responder , starting today. Simply join our free program to get started. The next program walks you through the steps to develop your conflict orientation . If you by habit remain closed and guarded during conflicts, like most of us do, then you will learn what it takes to remain open and responsive to needs. In that first program, you learn to stretch your tolerance so you can readily replace mutual defensiveness with mutual regard even as it hurts. You learn to replace easing the pain of your needs to fully resolving your needs, so you can remove cause for pain and reach your full potential. If your potential includes becoming a qualified need-responder with us, we’d like to hear from you. Sign up to Anankelogy Foundation and post any question you may have in our forum . Help us all to replace mutual defensiveness with mutual respect. Welcome aboard! Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: Applying this to terrorists seems implausible, not to mention risky. It takes more than mutual respect to resolve needs; it takes mutual efforts. Many are too traumatized to remain open in a conflict. Defensiveness can’t be all bad, as it protects me from suffering further harm. Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

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You don’t choose your needs; your needs choose you. < Back C04 General Principle List of all principles You don’t choose your needs; your needs choose you. Image: Pixabay – SplitShire (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you lack something your life requires, the more you will feel yourself compelled to do something about it. Your objective requirement to function or objective prioritized need will overrule your choices to do otherwise. The more pressing your needs, the harder to swim against the tide to choose a different course. All your choices ultimately serve your demanding needs. Description Which do you think is more likely? You can control what you need by making better choices. OR Choices only impact when you feel a need or what to do about it, and never the need itself. Anankelogy We often assume more control over our experiences than can be delivered. We may expect to have the self-control to not act on a feeling. We may even believe we chose to need what we feel we must have. Life doesn’t work that way. Whatever you naturally require to function exists independent of your beliefs, feelings and actions. Sure, your belief-informed behaviors could trigger a need in the moment. But that need conveys something necessary for your function despite your beliefs, feelings or actions. You cannot choose to not require something to function and not suffer from a lack of functionality. Your innate priority to continue your own existence, in order to have the option of choices, compels you to serve your needs. Your moral agency speaks to your actions and not to the needs prompting your actions. Your need for water is amoral. Requiring a friend to talk to is amoral. The necessity to be alone for a while is amoral. The less you respect these needs, the more they compel you to respond or to react to them. You don’t choose to require whatever your life requires, but they sure do choose you to respond to them promptly. Need-response Need-response is unique in how it distinguishes between unchosen needs and chosen responses . Failing to recognize or make this distinction is called response conflation or moral conflation . That unnecessary provokes many of our conflicts. If the one you oppose did not choose whatever need they are acting upon, then why oppose that need? Keep your disagreement to their actions. As stated in the Serentiy Prayer , accept the things you cannot change, then find the courage to change the things you can. No one can change their needs to suit you, only their response to such needs. Reactive Problem Too many conflicts erupt when expecting the other to be able to choose what serves your affected need. Consider the times when someone expected you to change some need. Look at the conflicts in the Middle East. Israelis do not choose to require security in their ancient homeland, or to require the self-determination to run their own lives according to their own Jewish values, free of other religious or ethnic influences. Palestinians also never chose to require security in their long-time homeland, or to require the self-determination to run their own lives according to their own religious or ethnically influenced values. If you pick a side in this fight, and slip into moral conflation of opposing either side’s unchosen needs , you risk doing more to enflame the problem than extinguish it . Indulgent side-taking does more to make problems worse. Instead of resolving needs to solve problems, ignoring the needs to relieve their pain promises to keep such painful problems in place . Sometimes a choice, especially a poor choice, needlessly provokes a problem. You may choose a course of action that results in prompting a certain need. Once triggered, you can hardly choose to ignore it without repercussions. You can either passively react by expecting others to choose something they cannot choose, or learn to be more responsive to your own and other’s unchosen needs . Responsive Solution Responsivism provides a simple three-step process to deescalate a conflict. When you find yourself at odds with another, quick apply these ABCs. A. A ffirm the natural needs they cannot change. B. B ring up the responses that can be changed. C. C ultivate mutual understanding and respect. We can steer clear of plenty of problems if we just first affirm each other’s unchosen needs before questioning their chosen response to them. We can replace our hateful alienating norms to impersonally argue our differences with a love-encouraging process to better understand one another’s actions springing from their inflexible needs . It is better, for example, to affirm the new mother’s inflexible need to assert autonomy over her exploited body when considering the option of terminating a pregnancy forced upon her. It is better to empathize with her situation, and recognize her limited options, to better understand her behavior. She cannot simply choose not to prioritize her unchosen need for bodily autonomy that ensures your continued ability to fully function. Likewise, it is better to affirm the inflexible need of some to speak up for the voiceless unborn. It is better to empathize with their priority to protect what they hold as the sanctity of life. They cannot simply choose to not prioritizes their unchosen need to preserve the life of the unborn. They cannot choose to not require how this ensures their continued ability to fully function. The needs themselves do not clash . They exist within each person. The conflict remains in how we choose to respond to these inflexible needs . You can’t choose your needs, so why try? Let your needs choose you to keep you optimally functioning. And then maintain the moral agency of responding to your natural needs with an aim to resolve them with minimal impact on others. That will take you much farther than presuming anyone can change the needs themselves. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: How does this speak to existentialism assertion of our freedoms of choice? Personal responsibility depends on choice, so hopefully this does not rationalize any irresponsibility. Choices depend on options, and too often I am faced with terrible options. That ABCs process seems easier said than done. Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

Love energizes meaningfulness in life. < Back H06 Love Principle List of all principles Love energizes meaningfulness in life. Image: Pixabay - Leolo212 (click on meme to see source image) Summary When you honor the needs of another as much or more than your own, you bring out the best in both of you. Something amazing emerges. Your love pulls you outside of your isolating cocoon. You start to soar to new heights of shared existence. You connect more deeply with others as your love melts your shells of alienation. You experience more of yourself as known and yet appreciated, still valued, still a trusted fellow human being. The more you help another appreciate their life’s value, the more your love brings out your own life’s meaningful purpose. Description Which do you trust as a better guide for your life? Fend for yourself and not give others the chance to hurt you. OR Spead more love to others to attract more meaningfulness in life. Anankelogy Anankelogy takes a penetratinginterest in how love brings satisfying meaning to our lives. Love as a broad subject can be challenging to define for empirical study . Anankelogy focuses on an empirical aspect of love best defined as “honoring the needs of another as much or more than honoring one’s own needs”. As independently observable behavior, such acts of love can be empirically measured. The more you’re loved and experienced yourself as valued, the more of your needs can resolve. The more your needs resolve more fully, the better you can function. Hence, this empirical way to measure love’s expression correlates with improved wellness. Anankelogy defines wellness as improved functioning resulting from resolved needs. Conversely, a lack of wellness reduces functioning as a consequence of unresolved needs. Both can be empirically measured, as independently observable phenomena. Knowing you had a meaningful hand in enabling others to more fully resolve their needs can profoundly resolve your deeper need for reaching more of your full potential. Or akin to what positive psychology calls self-actualization. You position yourself to connect deeper with life. You then open up yourself to receive other’s support for your pressing needs. You find empowering purpose in the natural pain endured when resolving needs. You transcend material distractions to realize a pantheon of existence well beyond your tactile senses. You encounter a richer sense of joy in simply being. You find yourself ecstatically at-one with the universe. Need-response Life bombards us with many temporal things repeatedly distracting us from meaningful connection and deeper social love . Alarms should sound when you expect to depend on others more than others can depend on you. The more your daily life pulls you into satisfying the impersonal expectations of others, the more you naturally yearn for some reciprocation. The more you acquiesce to the demands of social norms to serve the expectations of others, especially when at odds with your overlooked needs, the more you understandably expect others to do their share. The more people you interact with in your social surroundings, the less you can know their specific needs. You naturally defer to social norms and written laws. But such norms cannot help you forge meaningful connections with others. Love can. Social love takes you beyond the minimal expectations of social norms. Such love propels you to support other’s needs, instead of mere harm reduction or easing pain. Such love inspires you to remove the common cause for pain, which is unresolved needs. Reactive Problem Alienating social norms frequently interfere with engaging social love. How can you honor the needs of others if you only comply with minimal standards that neglect their specific needs? The more our social norms become normalized as the preferred guide for social interactions, the easier we fall prey to toxic legalism . Such legalism dilutes the potency of love. Distracting hyper-individualism . Legalism tends to prioritize each other’s self-interests over common interests, which easily alienates you from the potential support of others. You’re supposed to fend for yourself as others fend for themselves. Legalism favors individualism over a sense of community or commonly shared bonds. Distracting hyperrationality . Legalism incentivizes you to guard your vulnerabilities behind a veneer of rational sounding arguments. You defend yourself self-righteously instead of humbly and vulnerably engaging each other’s affected needs. You keep your guard raised, so no one can come close and inspire you with their love. Distracting overgeneralizing . Legalism tries to keep things relatively simple, for easier cognitive processing. You risk accepting such watered-down versions as true, despite disconfirming details. Confirmation bias pulls you into tunnel vision . The more these oversimplifications relieve your emotional pain, the more you likely conclude they represent the truth. Distracting avoidance. Legalism privileges stayingalienated from each other, to avoid getting to know what each other specifically needs. You repeatedly miss opportunity to meaningfully contribute to another’s needs as you remain stuck in the pain of your isolation. Your unprocessed pain disconnects you from life and its potential meaningfulness. Distracting adversarialism . Legalism encourages you to oppose others as presumed foes who can’t be trusted, unless fearing your asserted rights with threats of punishment for presumed wrongdoing against you. Such broad stroke opposition limits your potential to spread love. In short, such legalism spreads antilove. And easily perpetuates anti-wellness. Responsive Solution Engage. Replace legalistic adversarialism with mutual regard for each other’s inflexible needs. The more you can endure the uncomfortable challenges in getting to know each other better, the more meaning you can find in absorbing such intense pain . You chase pain instead of letting pain chase you. Engage! Find out what others specifically needs, to earn their trust to engage your affected needs. Dissolve alienation by offering an act of simple kindness. Step outside of your shell to show others how it can be done. Reach out to those you trust can appreciate it, to encourage you to give more. ENGAGE! Hold influential people accountable with the greater authority of engaging love. Negate the suffocating hold of legalism by going beyond legal standards to address real needs. Earn the trust of others in ways legalist authorities never can. Bring out more of your life’s purpose by affirming their inflexible needs despite how they address them. Do for them what no one has dared offer before. While others remain in the shallow levels of legalistic reasoning, you ascend to the higher plane of meaningfully improving lives. You raise the standard to empirically measurable improved wellness . You connect more deeply with others as you enable them to resolve more of their needs, so they can meaningfully improve their level of functioning, their wellness. You bring out the best in them. You allow others to bring out the best in you. You spread love. And let yourself feel amazed at the blossoming of meaningful purpose such love brings out in us all. One loving act at a time. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: How do you express love to others who refuse any overtures of kindness or affection? I find many are too self-absorbed in their pain to even realize I am socially loving them. I look back on time when others tried to be kind to me and I didn’t know how to take it. What about the trauma many of us suffer and simply cannot trust others to give us love? Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next