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Glossary J judicialism (n. ) - DEFUNCTION Reliance upon the impersonal, avoidant adversarial process to address justice needs with emphasis on assuring a fair adjudication process, but with little to no accountability to actual outcomes upon the justice needs of the vulnerable. Exists as a structural problem level of defunction . See civic legalism . 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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You don’t need anyone’s permission to breathe. < Back F01 Authority Principle List of all principles You don’t need anyone’s permission to breathe. Image: Pixabay - Tama66 (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more authority extends to every detail in our lives, the more it risks slipping into overreach. No human has any legitimate authority over your naturally existing needs. No authority can declare you must now float in midair at odds with gravity. No authority can change your need for water or your need for acceptance or for security. No one can change what you naturally require, not even yourself. Description Which do you think is more likely? Enjoying modern conveniences may require us to give up a few freedoms. OR The more we rely on authorities for what we once provided for ourselves, the more coercive authorities can get. Anankelogy The less we can provide for ourselves, the more vulnerable to the whims of those we must relyupon. I cannot dig my own well for water, for example, so I must take the word of those who tell me this city water is okay to drink. What if it isn’t ? Even if I could dig my own well, I do not have the time. Even if I could test my own faucet water, I am content deferring to local authorities who persuade me to trust its quality. Our lives run deep with countless instances of having to defer to authorities. What if local authorities advise me to boil my water ? Annoyingly inconvenient, but fine. What if local authorities drastically raise my water bill ? Deeply frustrating, but I’ve got to have water. What if local authorities shut of my city water supply due to nonpayment by my landlord? Now I’m utterly disgusted! Each encroachment on my access to water acclimates me to tolerate what I would have objected before. Each government intrusion into my personal affairs—like warrantless surveillance of my private conversations overseas—conditions me to put up with a few more invasions of my privacy. Each minor infringement upon my right to access quality healthcare coerces me to settle for whatever crumbs the authorities permit. Our vulnerable dependencies tend to incentivize authorities to gradually impose upon our unchosen needs . You can choose how to respond to authorities. But you cannot choose to no longer require self-efficacy . Or cease your necessity for equal treatment . Or stop your need for the dependability of others. Each time you cannot resolve such needs, you naturally suffer emotional pain. Authorities often coerce us into accepting their pain relief options as the only available option. Adversarial justice and polarizing politics induce us to settle for the winning side in a court or ballot battle. They rarely inspire us to identify and resolve all painful needs. This easily pulls us into relying upon them to ease the mounting pain they help to perpetuate. We increasingly submit to their influence. At least we don’t seek their permission to breathe, yet. Need-response Populism is in part a reaction to failing elite-led institutions. Their authority counts on the populous accepting their expertise. The less responsive to our inflexible needs , the less trust we have in their institutions. The more their impositions go against our needs, the more we understandably resist. But the more our lives depend upon their institutions, the more some of cast a blind eye to their shortcomings. We can explain away their imperfections. We could rationalize how no institution ever fully lived up to its founding purpose. We may even accept their narrative that any failings are mostly our personal fault. These authoritative powerholders rely on untested assumptions about how to impact our lives. But they do not know what they do not know. These elite influencers could use impact data that we ourselves provide to them, as condition to earning the legitimacy to impact on our lives. Reactive Problem Anankelogy distinguishes between “ascribed legitimacy” and “earned legitimacy” of authorities. Ascribed legitimacy : Arbitrary acceptance of authority prone to manipulation and coerced low responsiveness to the needs of those under that authority. Earned legitimacy : Cultivated acceptance of authority by incentivizing authority figures with impact data that evidentially demonstrates they have enabled the full resolution of subordinate needs. Contemporary norms rely heavily on ascribed legitimacy. But as the rule based international order breaks down , tolerance for mere ascribed legitimacy collapses. U.S. hypocrisy , especially in its relation with the Israeli far-right government , exposes the compounding incompetencies of authorities too removed from everyday lives to aptly empathize with those they negatively impact. Instead of actively respecting each other’s needs, uniformed authorities react to conflicts with an indulgent call to arms. On the world stage of geopolitics, this arguably bloats the military industrial complex . Weapons manufacturers benefit from forever wars , and not so much from peacetime. Uninformed authorities coerce us with fearmongering and self-serving pleas for tax revenue to “protect” national security , often without tested evidence . And always without addressing the underserved needs igniting the conflict. Big money incentives legacy media to play along. Too many of us fall in line. Metaphorically, we settle for asking their permission to breathe. In short, current authorities lack the kind of discipline that anankelogy can offer to improve their legitimacy. Responsive Solution For starters, asserting the objective fact of inflexibly unchosen needs can become a gamechanger. No longer can authorities blindly expect you to simply go along with their chosen policies. They must now recognize everyone’s impacted unchosen needs and unchosen priority . They will now be confronted with the indisputable reality that whatever they reactively resist they reflexively reinforce . Second, join us in raising the bar with mutual regard . Reject the false promises of avoidant adversarialism . Replace it with the higher standard of engaging mutuality . Join us in mutually nurturing our capacity to be more loving toward each other. Together, we cease conflating our unchosen needs with our chosen responses to them. Such moral conflation denies them earned legitimacy . To earn legitimacy, authorities must engage the unchosen needs and priorities on all sides of any conflict. This effectively brings them out of the debilitating traps of avoidant adversarialism . We level the playing field by encouraging powerful authorities to be recognized as mere fallible humans. We affirm their unchosen needs and priorities to model how they are to affirm ours. We raise the standard to social love . We affirm the legitimacy of their influence in our lives the more they demonstrably appreciate our vulnerable needs . When we say “you shall love ” we mean it. If we prove ourselves more affirming of each other’s needs, then we may assert greater legitimacy than them. Engage! Breathe freely. You don’t require anyone’s permission to breathe. Or to resolve any of your needs. And nobody needs your permission to resolve theirs. No one can bend the facts of anyone’s inflexible needs . Affirm the unchosen needs of others as you would have them affirm your unchosen needs . Hold the powerful accountable to this higher standard by lovingly refusing their coerciveness . Put love first. And if any authority refuses this higher standard, let them seek our permission for them to breathe. 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 will authorities react to my insistence to first affirm my unchosen need? Have you shown this works without engineering a repressive backlash? You have no idea how much pressure I’m under by the local authorities where I live. By what authority do you say I don’t need any permission from anyone to breathe? 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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Pain is perhaps nature’s least appreciated gift. < Back D03 Pain Principle List of all principles Pain is perhaps nature’s least appreciated gift. Image: Pixabay - Yeskay1211 (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more open you keep yourself to enduring evoked discomfort, the more you can resolve the underlying needs. The more you embrace the natural warning signs of threats to be removed, and you promptly remove them, the quicker you can move beyond the pain and remove its source. The more fully you can function. The better you can function because of pain, the more you can value it. Description Which do you think is more likely? Only a masochist or deranged person would ever appreciate feeling their pain. OR The more you appreciate the role of pain then the less of pain you must endure. Anankelogy Have you ever thanked your pain for alerting you to trouble? “Thank you, anxiety, for warning me that I may not be fully ready to handle this.” With this positive attitude, I am more likely to face a little more of it so I can build the courage to face even more—instead of reacting by retreating from what I fear. With my open appreciation for my anxiety, I make my fears serve me instead of me serving my fears . How do think your life would be if you had no warning system alarming you to respond to each threat? Wouldn’t you react more to trouble, as it springs up all of a sudden? The more I repress or suppress my uncomfortable feelings, the more threatening troubles spring up on me. “I tried to warn you,” my unpleasant feelings would say. Instead of avoiding my painful feelings, I could orient myself to more fully feel and process the pain. I could appreciate what it’s trying to warn me about. Then act upon that helpful information. Anankelogy explains how we each orient ourselves to the pain we face. The more we appreciate that pain exists to serve us, the more we can orient ourselves to make that pain serve us. And not let it compel us to serve it. That’s the problem with modern messages about the easy life. Buy this item and you will supposedly be happy. Take more of those and you will finally make it in life. Present just the right image and all will be okay. Such popular generalizations suck us into a life of more pain. There must be a better way. And there is! Need-response Perhaps it would be easier to appreciate your pain if there wasn’t so much of it. Need-response aims to both improve your natural tolerance for enduring pain and to remove cause for pain, especially the kind resulting from powerful others. Reactive Problem Despite the promise of modern conveniences to make life easier, we find ourselves struggling with a mounting load of emotional pain. Then we too easily blame ourselves, which takes our eyes off the real problem: social structures that coerce us to prioritize pain relief over need resolution. Here’s the thing. The more we avoid natural pain by taking comfort in material things, the less our needs resolve. The less those needs resolve, the more they grab our attention with increasing pain. Perhaps only a dull pain at first, but enough to hold you back from your life’s full potential. Anankelogy calls this “symfunctional strain ”. Symfunction refers to a less than optimal level of life. Instead of living up to our full potential, we get by with impersonal support from others. We put up with growing dependence on other who don’t know us. We rely on impersonal laws to make sure our basic needs get respected. Or higher needs typically go unheeded. Over time, we reach less and less of our full potential. This strain on our ability to fully function gradually builds. At first, it’s typically tolerable. Then it creates a growing level of manageable pain. Well, manageable for now. Eventually, symfunctional strain can become more painful than the originally avoided pain. Responsive Solution Need-response gets to the sources of your pain. There is no such thing as pain apart from unheeded warnings about apparent threats . The more we address those threats, the less cause for pain. Need-response identifies four levels of human problems provoking our pain. Think of any problem as a situation of persistently unresolved needs. The more you can resolve such needs, the more your pain slips away. 1. A personal problem : any problem you can resolve fully on your own. E.g., you could create more value on your job simply by being more engaged with your coworkers. You can remove any cause for pain on your own. 2. An interpersonal problem : any problem that can be resolved with someone of equal social power. E.g., you have a dispute with a coworker that you could settle with mutual cooperation. You can remove cause for pain by addressing those needs together. 3. A power problem : a problem resolved only by someone of higher social power. E.g., you settle for less-than-optimal work conditions to avoid losing your primary means to pay your bills. You can remove cause for pain by incentivizing those in power to respond better to your affected needs. 4. A structural problem : a problem resolved by transforming cultural norms like laws. E.g., your employer reports there is little if anything they can do about your situation as they are bound by law. You can remove cause for pain by supporting leaders to change problematic norms so they can better serve your needs and the needs of others similarly situated. Need-response addresses all four sources of your pain. It can help us all to stop habitually avoiding our body’s warning system of possible threats. It can help us all to relate better to those likely threats. It can help us all to stop causing so much pain in others. Need-response can help reorient you to embrace your naturally occurring pain while severely reducing others types of pain. It can help you to appreciate your own naturally occurring pain as nature’s lease appreciated gift. The more you appreciate this natural gift, the less of it you will face in life. 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 can’t imagine myself appreciating any of the pain I am suffering now. It would help to hear from others how they appreciate their pain. How does appreciating my pain result in less of it? If I had to appreciate my fear, I could perhaps be grateful that 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

< Back 12. Balancing masculine forcefulness with feminine gracefulness Do you prioritize one gender side over another? Or do you integrate both? Masculine focused If you're more rational than emotional, your needs best met with a more emotional emphasis naturally seeks some balance. One way nature prompts you to fill this void is through sexual energy, to compel you to pursue the complementary emotionality you currently lack. Whether stereotypically in a woman or perhaps in an emotionally attuned man. The less you integrate your rational qualities with emotional maturity, the more prone to swing between extremes of irrationality and unemotionality. For example, _________ The more you blend your rational qualities with emotional maturity, the more needs you can resolve and remove cause for pain. For example, becoming both reasonable and intuitive enables you to _________ Feminine focused If you're more emotional than rational, your needs best met with a more rational emphasis naturally seeks some balance. One way nature prompts you to fill this void is through sexual energy, to compel you to pursue the complementary rationality you currently lack. Whether stereotypically in a man or perhaps in a rationally minded woman. toward balance Cyclic balancing of these gender-associated traits Vacillating between opposing extremes Balancing complementary sides Oscillating toward a balanced center Encountering the holistic center Transspiritually compelled holism Conventional reaction to transspirituality The more attached to conventional norms, the more one tends to guard the comforting familiarity of pragmatism creep . text text Saturday, November 1, 2025 at 8:58:14 PM UTC Previous Next

You don't exist for human authority; human authority exists for you. < Back F03 Authority Principle List of all principles You don't exist for human authority; human authority exists for you. Image: Pixabay – Pexels (click on meme to see source image) Summary The longer institutional authority exists, the more it tends to shift from primarily serving its founding purpose to increasingly serving itself at the expense of its founding purpose. When trying to coerce you to serve its ends at odds with your inflexible needs, you understandably acquiesce to avoid its wrath. But the more authority creates the conditions for its own necessity, the less legitimate it can be. Description Which do you think is more likely? You must submit to every authority positioned over you. OR Authority must respond to needs for us to legitimately submit to it. Anankelogy This echoes the documented words of Jesus : “The Sabbath rest was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath rest.” Goes to show you that even in biblical times, authority tends to drift from its founding purpose to increasingly serve itself at other’s expense. Often at the expense of that founding purpose. This is known as mission creep . Every authority emerged from a situation in which someone had to take charge. For example, when confronted by an enemy tribe or reacting to a sudden flood. Someone or some group was trusted to coordinate the larger group away from harm. If this incipient authority proved trustworthy in this initial crisis, then it often remained in a position of social power to continue overseeing the needs of the larger group. An ad hoc committee can evolve into a professional force wielding considerable influence. Sociology observes how authority tends to shift from primarily serving its founding purpose to increasingly serving itself. In a general sense, this given power corrupts those in charge as their priorities swing from sacrificially serving the urgent needs of the larger group to professionally serving in a role with certain privileges. Over time, such authority posits itself as essential for the people’s wellbeing. Privileged authority tends to coerce individuals, now vulnerable to their influence, to unquestioningly accept their power. Authority may then invert the relationship, when demanding the served people now serve and submit to it. Need-response Authority operates from its recognized legitimacy, to be trusted to lead or influence others. The more a trusted authority undermines the needs of those they impact, the more they lose that trust. The less they are trusted, the less legitimate that authority. Need-response recognizes the possibility of a new authority emerging to replace another that has lost its legitimacy. That effectively occurred with the American Revolution, as the U.S. Constitution emerged in response to the failing legitimacy of the 18th century British authorities. As history appears to repeat itself, U.S. hegemony appears to privilege U.S. authority to act with fewer accountabilities for its impactful actions. Need-response counters with “responsive authority” that earns its legitimacy by measurably enabling society’s members to resolve their needs, remove their pain and restore their wellness. Reactive Problem Authority figures don’t know what they don’t know. Those under their care typically do not go out of their way to tell them. The influenced don’t know what the influencers don’t know, nor think to ask. The influenced naturally avoid the risk of any retribution. They will at least appear to honor the authority figure’s apparently reasonable demands. An inherent adversarial relation keeps them alienated from each other. Authority figures feel many of the same needs as those under their influence. They too need such qualities as empathy, kindness, grace, trust, and patience. But those of us under some authority rarely if ever think of the vulnerable needs of those in powerful positions. We generally assume they must take care of those needs on their own, or with higher authorities. We rarely if ever consider how they need us to be patient with them, or gracious to them as they make some harmless mistake, or gentle with them when they lose resources to adequately fulfill their role. They hurt as we hurt, yet we typically expect them to not feel and just perform their professional role without complaint. Responsive Solution Authority figures typically seek to serve the needs of the people under their care, but lack awarenessof their actual impact. They require impact data . They could design their own survey to gather such data. But they unlikely know what to properly ask to effectively serve your vulnerable needs . The less their questions speak to your needs, the less likely you will respond . Need-response bridges this chasm of normative alienation with mutual regard . It’s how need-response incentivize powerholders to respond to the relatively powerless like you. It equalizes power relations . You need to speak your truth to power, but you also need them to listen and effectively respond. They need your impact data to remain competitively competent, but they also need to answer to all their constituents. POWERLESS NEEDS – POWERHOLDER NEEDS SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER - LISTEN TO THOSE IMPACTED Each side needs each other. Need-response creates an environment for both sides to honor the other’s sides needs to everyone’s benefit. Powerholder’s engagement with those impacted melds with the impacted providing social proof of their effectiveness of leadership. Each side does their part to counter the disabling problem of avoidant adversarialism . Each side incentivizes the other to appreciate authority’s effectiveness stretches no further than each other’s affected wellness. Each side ensures authority faithfully serves our wellness instead of coercing our wellness to serve authority. 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: Does this apply only to government or state authority, or to other “authorities” as well? How can need-response check the powerful from overreaching its authorities? What about overbearing authority of written laws? Honestly, it’s not easy to realize when authority coerces me into going against my actual needs. 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

Pain is not the problem as much as the threats your pain tries to report. < Back D04 Pain Principle List of all principles Pain is not the problem as much as the threats your pain tries to report. Image: Pixabay – jplenio (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you react to your pain instead of addressing the needs behind that pain, the less you can address the source of that pain. The less addressed, the more it festers and can grow into a terrible problem of its own. The more you promptly respond to the warnings your pain seeks to report, the quicker you can resolve the underlying needs and remove its cause for pain. Description Which do you think is more likely? If you can get rid of your pain then your life will be much better. OR Improving your life by resolving more needs gets rid of your pain. Anankelogy Anankelogy isolates for types of pain. 1. Organic pain . Or “natural pain” or “natural discomfort”, this is the immediate displeasure reported by your body to warn you to remove some apparent threat. It’s usually sharp and instantaneous. 2. Residual pain . This type emerges after your natural pain fails to result in removing the threat. It continues to alert you to the threat. If partially removing the threat, you feel this as a dull pain. 3. Biostructural pain . This type emerges after your body seeks a different route to report the threat. You feel a headache or stomachache. If residual pain cannot get to remove the threat, maybe this will. 4. Metapain . This type emerges to warn you of the threat of too much pain. Your body complains it cannot adequately function when there are too many alarms going off. It warns of the threat of unheeded threats. Each type of pain serves as a messenger. Shooting the messenger leaves the threat or threats in place. Ignoring, suppressing, repressing, or trying to shift it onto others almost guarantees the threat to persist. The more your senses register a persisting threat, the more your pain comes back again and again. Only by addressing the needs behind those threats can your pain be fully removed. The more your needs resolve, the less cause to report threats in the form of pain. The more resolved your needs, the better you can function to remain responsive to new threats. Need-response Your level of functioning exists as an objective fact. Any subjective experience of your needs arises after the objective fact of something impacting your ability to function. That includes your pain. Feeling depressed, for example, may be a subjective experience. But it results from the objective fact of your inability to fully function as before. The pain of depression is less of a problem than these objective limitations crashing into your ability to fully function. Instead of offering you relief from depression, or from any other painful emotion, need-response helps you get to the sources of your pain. Instead of reacting to pain, it equips you to respond more effectively to the needs prompting such pain. Resolving those needs naturally clears up the pain. Need-response emphasizes a shared response to our needs, to get to the root of our pain. Reactive Problem Modernity promises to provide a life full of comforts. Pop philosophies suggest a pain-free life is our innate right. Ideologies imply that we should be able to reason our way out of suffering pain. Or take some medication to make the pain go away. These passive approaches to pain easily lead down the rabbit hole of addictions. You can only do so much to ease the pain of threats, of trauma, of agonizing problems, and a host of other sources of pain. A huge reason we get trapped in passive pain-relief stems from feeling powerless to do much if anything about the threats. If the threat comes from a neighbor whose actions remain privileged by law, you understandably feel pressured to cave. If the threat comes from a giant corporation backed by better paid lawyers and the elected officials they help elect with their campaign donations, then you understandably feel you must resign to your fate. If the threat comes from established norms cooked into the DNA of our daily lives, you may not even notice the source of such pain. Since you cannot change others but only your reactions to them, you typically feel pressured to adjust to these untouchable sources of your pain. You can mount protest, complain online, and write to your local officials. But as these tactics fail, you become increasingly accustomed to a growing level of residual pain, emerging biostructural pain, and intensifying metapain. Responsive Solution Need-response fills the gap missing in our legal systems by addressing the needs on each side of a conflict. The legal systems of the judiciary and politics only offers pain relief to the winner of a court or election battle. They fail at ensuring all sides can improve their levels of functioning. Indeed, a purely legal approach easily results in more suffered pain. Need-response first reacquaints us the point of pain, to alert us to remove threats. The first development program walks you through an exercise that can restore your ability to endure discomfort long enough to address its underlying needs. Instead of habitually avoiding your pain, you can be equipped to remove the causes of your pain. And enjoy more peace. Need-response then provides tools to help you turn from provoking more pain to creating an environment that reduces or removes pain. The second development program helps you replace harmful norms of reactively opposing others to engaging their inflexible needs . Instead of habitually opposing apparent sources of pain in each other, you can be equipped to mutually address each other’s needs to remove the sources of pain. Then enjoy more peace between each other. Need-response then equips you to speak truth to power. In a way that incentivizes the powerful to listen to you. The third development program invites those in positions of power to realize their leadership brand relies on how responsive they are to your exposed needs. Instead of remaining aloof under shield of impersonal law, you engage them to help them improve their impact by first positively impacting you. More of your pain, and their pain, will then automatically slide away into oblivion. 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 am outraged by the things I see on social media or online. I feel powerless to do anything about the problems around us. I want to contribute more to lowering the temperature of public discourse but unsure how. I wish I could process more of my pain to get to the source, but I don’t see how that’s possible. 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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A life full of pain is a life filled with too many unmet needs. < Back D10 Pain Principle List of all principles A life full of pain is a life filled with too many unmet needs. Image: Pixabay – FelixMittermeier (click on meme to see source image) Summary The fewer of your needs fully resolve, the more increasingly overwhelmed you find yourself with mounting levels of pain. Even if you can resolve most of your needs and must settle for less in a number of key needs, your full potential gets denied. Anankelogy refers to this as ‘symfunctionality’. It’s where you cope with your dull pain by becoming impersonally dependent on each other. Description Which do you think is more likely? You are personally responsible for all the pain you suffer. OR Some of your pain stems from situations beyond your personal control. Anankelogy We easily blame ourselves for all the pain we suffer. After all, any emotional pain I experience occurs within me and not outside of me. So I dare not attribute it to others. Not so fast. While it’s true we alone experience our pain, many limits to functioning reported by pain occurs outside of us. Some of that beyond anyone’s individual control. If I am only taking responsibility for my own emotional pain and never addressing its external contributors, I will easily get stuck suffering more pain. Need-response Only need-response as a professional service identifies and addresses all impediments to resolving your needs. Only unresolved needs result in pain. Only by addressing your unmet needs can you remove cause for pain. Obeying every law is supposed to keep you out of trouble. But the impersonal nature of law cannot promise you a trouble-free life. Just ask the wrongly convicted innocent. I’m one. Reactive Problem When our institutions prioritize pain-relief over resolving needs, it sits complicit in our many maladies. If you support pain-relief over avenues for resolving needs, you sit complicit in the resulting problems. Whenever I am doing anything that detracts from fully resolving needs, I sit complicit with the negative consequences. Need-response casts a wide net of accountability. It holds the more powerful to a higher standard of accountability. It must. Left to their own devices, they would have us settle for merely easing our needs. Then manipulates the scenery in ways that easily trap us into cycle of pain. Which perniciously ensures their lock on dysfunctional power. The less our institutions provide for the needs they exist to serve, and all means to hold them to account fail, need-response with its power of tough love may present as the last viable option. Anyone in a position of power—of significant social influence over others—either supports resolving needs or does not. There is little if any neutral ground. Any position of significant social influence (i.e., “power”) carries far more weight and responsibility than we generally accord. Not only on a personal level for such experts, but also on an institutional or professional level. To whom much is given, much is required . If checked and they agree their institutions get in the way of resolving our needs, while continuing to serve such institutions, they present as professionally but not personally complicit. But if they defend their institutions that prevent you or I from resolving our needs, they are personally complicit. The more complicit in these destructive results, the less legitimate they are. The more they cling behind their destructive norms, the more we shall levy a more loving response from them, as a condition to maintain minimal legitimacy. Otherwise we must attribute to their action or inactions our increasing levels of anxiety, depression, addictions, suicide ideation, and deaths of despair. We shall demonstrate an empirical link that could potentially crush their careers. It doesn’t have to be this way. They can learn to be more need-responsive. They could exhibit love. Responsive Solution Our leaders generally do not know what they do not know. There are far too many of us for them to personally know us. Impersonal laws keep them in the dark of their actual impacts in our lives. Need-response offers our leaders a path toward greater legitimacy, toward improving their brand of leadership by demonstrating better results. We incentivize them to respect our affected needs as we initiate greater respect for their vulnerable needs. We replace overgeneralizing with more specifics. We replace impersonal interactions with engaging understanding. We replace mutual hostilities with mutual support. Together, we shift from avoiding discomfort, with our hyperrational thinking, to relating deeper with each other, to relate better to each other’s painful needs. Together, we shift from limiting categories like “progressive” and “far right” or “defendant” and “accuser” to address the needs on all sides. Together, we shift from divisive norms, provoking anger and hate, to mutually supporting the resolution of each other’s needs, spreading more understanding and love. 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 can I tell the difference between pain I caused in myself and pain from powerful others? Won’t I suffer some kind of backlash if I attribute more of my emotional pain to others? Is it even possible to resolve all of my needs and remove all this cause for pain? I find myself vacillating between blaming myself totally and blaming others totally for my pain. 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 . 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