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It is against the grain of law to fully resolve needs. < Back G04 Law Principle List of all principles It is against the grain of law to fully resolve needs. Image: Pixabay – JonnyBelvedere (click on meme to see source image) Summary Laws remain rather vague to apply widely, often focusing on harm reduction. The more dependent on laws to reduce harm or a perceived threat of harm, the more you become a legalist instead of responsive. You then become less attentive to fully resolving needs. Only by properly resolving each other’s needs can we remove threats of harm. The more you acclimate to laws, public policies and social norms to deliver familiar forms of comfort, the more you resist the more responsive who endure the natural discomforts of fully resolving needs. The more the responsive go beyond minimal standards of law to fully resolve needs, the more legalists push back to protect their familiar pain-avoidant norms. Description Which do you think is more likely? Hold accountable anyone defying social norms. OR Better understand why some violations of norms are better than kneejerk compliance. Anankelogy The “law” does not exist to apply to every specific need you have. No law requires you to breathe, or dictates you must first show appreciation for others before you expect their appreciation of you, or obliges you to sleep laying down instead of standing up. Laws apply only to general situations. Covering too many details risks making a law inapplicable or unenforceable. No law requires you to put your keys somewhere you can remember. No law requires you to submit an itinerary to local authorities stating what you specifically expect you’ll be doing every minute of next Tuesday. No law requires you to know exactly when you’ll be using the restroom in the course of the next several days. No law requires you to be healthier a year from now. Anankelogy recognizes how laws must remain vague, impersonal, and adversarial. Laws are kept vague to apply to almost any situation. Which risks being too general to apply to you and your specific needs. Laws are kept impersonal to avoid partiality. Which risks alienating you and your specific needs. Laws are kept adversarial in their enforcement to punish offenders. Which risks premature hostility toward you and your specific needs. Anankelogy’s answer to these built-in limits of law is need-response . Need-response Need-response prioritizes our inflexible needs over our flexible laws. The needs came first. And laws can never keep up with our every need. Nor should they. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pointed out: “I have spent all my life under a Communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is also less than worthy of [humanity]. A society based on the letter of the law and never reaching anything higher fails to take advantage of the full range of human possibilities.” In other words, legalism impedes human flourishing. The opposite extreme of lawlessness is legalistic tyranny, which ironically hinders your capacity to faithfully oblige every rule. Reactive Problem Anankelogy identifies this excessive role of rules as toxic legalism . You either respond effectively to needs or settle for legalistic norms… to avoid dealing with people’s specific needs with comforting generalities, to ease discomfort of vulnerably relating to messy needs, and then expect established norms to provide an easier path to easing the pain of our unmet needs. Motivated reasoning biases legalists to preserve the familiar yet stifling status quo. To maintain this easier path, legalists tend to resist… any belief-disturbing nuance, discomforting engagement, and then prematurely oppose others outside of their norms of legally privileged pain avoidance. In short, norm-compliant legalists frequently resist those with the wisdom and answer to remove causes of pain . They’re often trapped in a zone of mounting pain , and dare not rock the boat lest they risk more pain. Such legalists easily slide into the creeping normalcy of managing their gradually increasing load of emotional pain. By not recognizing the reported needs behind these uncomfortable emotions, they ironically suffer more emotional pain as those unmet needs painfully insist on some attention. But the more they overlook the needs that their pain exists to report, the more they’re prone to fall back into their managed levels of pain . Legalists tend to resist full wellness. The pain required easily triggers discomfort they feel they must avoid. To them, good is defined generally as avoiding pain. Painful wellness efforts seem bad . They often react to painful norm-transgressing efforts to fully resolve needs. Responsive Solution While no one sits above the law, no law sits above the needs for which they exist to serve . You cannot easily change your inflexible needs to fit flexible laws. The more can directly resolve needs, the less dependent on norms or authority . Need-response holds us to a higher standard than mere legal compliance: resolving needs to improve measurable wellness outcomes. Such as reducing anxiety and depression. And enabling more our potential to be reached. Need-response can inspire us to stretch our comfort zone , to equip us to resolve more needs. So we can courageously endure the discomfort of stepping outside of comforting norms. Instead of selfishly trying to avoid the mounting pain of our unresolved needs, need-response incentivizes us to honor each other’s needs as our own. The more we step outside of ourselves to meaningfully help others to resolve their needs, the more empowered they are to honor our needs. You can call this 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 we tell the difference between selfish norm-violating and responsive norm-violating? What do you say about those who get punished by legalists for trying to resolve more needs? How can we measure legalist efforts and responsive wellness efforts? How can you resist the government authorities who enforcing stiflingly anti-wellness norms? 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

There is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs. < Back D01 Pain Principle List of all principles There is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs. Image: Pixabay - Barbara-Iandolo (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more your needs fully resolve, the less your body must painfully warn you of threats. Emotional pain like depression and anxiety only exist to warn you of threats to remove. Once all threats get removed, it is impossible to feel pain as your body has no remaining cause to report any threats. Persisting pain points to lingering perceived threats. Fully resolved needs remove cause for pain. Description Which do you think is more likely? Life is so painful that you must continually suffer some level of physical and emotional pain. OR Pain only exists to warn of unresolved needs, and once you satisfy all your needs you will find it impossible to experience pain. Anankelogy Nature-based anankelogy demystifies your pain. Your pain only exists to warn you of threats. Without any perceived threats, your body has no cause to warn you with this unpleasant feeling. Any pain, any level of discomfort, points back to some apparent threat holding back your ability to fully function. The less you can function because of it, the more intense the pain. A mild threat evokes only a mild discomfort. When someone failed to meet with you on time, this threatens your ability to function. You were counting on them to be punctual so you would have enough time to cover matters you rely on to function. The pain of disappointment conveys the upended expectation to continue functioning at the anticipated level. Let’s say the person arrives just a few minutes late. And you get a text message letting you know the commitment you had after this meeting has been canceled. Your feelings of disappointment dissolve. You may still feel the unease of broken trust, but now that you can confidently cover all you came to the meeting to address, that threat to your ability to function has been removed. Once removed, your body has no cause to alarm you of that threat. If all threats suddenly went away, you would suddenly feel no pain. If you suffer an overbearing load of pain, then you’re facing an overwhelming load of threats. Removing all these threats removes all your pain. Apart from a need to connect more deeply with others, you feel no alienation . Apart from a need to reject some apparent threat, you feel no anger . Apart from a need to make sense of something, you feel no confusion . Apart from a need to redirect your energies, you feel no depression . Apart from a need for others to be trustworthy, you feel no disappointment . Apart from a need to remove something offensive, you feel no disgust . Apart from a need to cover something exposed, you feel no embarrassment . Apart from a need to handle something menacing, you feel no fear . Apart from a need to have things go as planned, you feel no frustration . Apart from a need to adjust to a deep loss, you feel no grief . Apart from a need to restore your respect for others, you feel no guilt . Apart from a need to avoid any risk of harm, you feel no insecurity . Apart from a need to enjoy what another enjoys, you feel no jealousy . Apart from a need to connect with someone, you feel no loneliness . Apart from a need to control your situation, you feel no powerlessness . Apart from a need to rethink your actions, you feel no regret . Apart from a need to promptly get something done, you feel no restlessness . Apart from a need to deal with some loss, you feel no sadness . Apart from a need to guard your social image, you feel no shame . Apart from a need to meet some high expectation, you feel no stress . Easier said than done, right? Exactly! That’s where need-response can help. Need-response No current option helps you resolve all of the needs creating the conditions for your pain. Only need-response is designed to fully remove the cause for pain by fully resolving every need. As James Hightower put it, “The problem isn’t that people fall through the cracks. The problem is that there are so many cracks.” Need-response fills those cracks with improved responsiveness to every type of need. Reactive Problem Our legal systems, such as the judiciary and politics, do not help you resolve needs. By design, they primarily try to ease the pain of the winning side in a court battle or ballot contest. The losing side gets to keep their pain. The needs on both sides typically remain unresolved. Their pain persists. While the winning side enjoys some relief, their functioning potential gets compromised. They may blame the losing side, but that will not restore their wellbeing. As Dr. King put it, hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. We are so accustomed to this lower standard of win-lose outcomes that we don’t even look for a win-win alternative. What if there was an option seeking to identify, address and ultimately resolve each impacted need? Then the pain would finally clear up, and allow all involved to reach more of their functional potential. That’s what need-response is for. Responsive Solution First, we readjust your orientation to be more open to the natural pain occurring in your life. Then we invest your improved resiliency to thoroughly address the sources of unnatural pain , such as power relations. The more you’re equipped to process your natural pain, the better positioned to take on unnatural sources of pain. With a team of supportive need-responders , you will gain the courage to speak truth to power . And do so in a way that incentivizes them to listen to those impacted . In the alternative, you invite a qualified need-responder to advocate for you. Once they agree, they advocate mostly for all the needs affected by the power relationship. Not only does this help you resolve your impacted needs, it helps the powerholder in the relationship to more responsibly resolve their needs. In the process, the powerholder identifies and addresses their need to be more responsive to you. Their professional reputation depends on their demonstrated leadership skills. We incentivize them to support you in resolving your impacted needs by linking the results to their measurable leadership skills. Eventually, there is much less pain to go around. 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 a life without all the continual pain I endure. Maybe this offers some hope. I want to envision a life without as much pain. I want to explore this option. I am disillusioned with adversarial justice/politics and am open to considering this alternative. After resolving my needs I still feel some pain. So what’s that about? 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

There is no greater human authority than resolving needs with love. < Back H03 Love Principle List of all principles There is no greater human authority than resolving needs with love. Image: Pixabay – PublicDomainPictures (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you can effectively resolve your needs while supporting others to resolve theirs, the less cause for human authority to intervene. Such authorities typically emerge to address those needs not already resolved. The more you can stay atop of your needs, while engaging and supporting others to resolve their needs, you negate the role of impersonal authorities in your life. Description Which do you think is more likely? Since no one is above the law, we all must submit to every authority. OR The ultimate authority stems from being able to function well enough to respect each other. Anankelogy The more your needs fully resolve, the less of any role authority plays in your life. When social love incentivizes you to respect the needs of others in ways inspiring them to respect yours, you fulfill the purpose of authority. You model a greater authority. The more your internal motivation of love enables you to fully function, the less you require any external motivating pressure of authority. Rational-legal authority typically assumes an extrinsic motivation . You’re expected to respect the requirements of law out of fear of punishment if you don’t. Once drawn to a situation, authorities typically doubt your respect for needs that laws exist to serve. If they must get involved and you’re assumed to violate some rule, then you must deserve some kind of harsh treatment to motivate your conformity to law and order. Consequently, law enforcement typically overlooks intrinsic motivations . Such authorities generally presume that you only respect the needs of others if facing a reprimand. Such a presumption gets baked into law enforcement culture. Which easily blinds them from your intrinsic love-incentivizing motive to treat the needs of others as your own. Need-response Need-response seeks and encourages need-responders with a love-inspired intrinsic motivation to more fully resolve needs. Especially among lawyers and counselors disillusioned by the shortcomings of law-based and psychological-based services and institutions. If you’re motivated more from a platonic love to honor the needs of others as your own, you’re naturally less concerned about minutia of laws or arbitrary demands of authorities. You see beyond mere cognitive processes or social order. You habitually fulfill the purpose of laws—which is to serve needs—by how you routinely and properly respect the needs at hand. The purpose of authorities then gets intrinsically fulfilled. With intrinsic motivation of your love, you likely rise above the minimal standards of law. You stretch beyond the law’s emphasis on harm reduction to resolve unmet needs that cause harm. You intuitively realize how resolving needs more fully removes cause for harm. The more incentivized by love, the more compelled to transcend those social norms that limit full human potential. If necessary, you risk transgressing some social taboos to properly resolve needs. You may even be willing to risk jail to stand up for a cause of systemically overlooked needs. Love compels you to a higher standard than mere law and order. Reactive Problem Shortsighted authorities abound. Confirmation bias and tunnel vision easily blinds them to their own projected ethical issues , projected moral failings , projected cognitive biases , projected cognitive distortions , project logical fallacies , and their own projected extrinsic motivations . Nature compels balance wherever imbalance creeps in. The more a society slides toward imposing social norms, the more nature compels some within that society to counter such repressive norms. They find some proactive way to respond more effectively to the needs those norms exist to serve. Wellness compels it. Shortsighted authorities may easily misinterpret these norm-defiers as lawbreakers, and totally miss their higher commitment to transcend imposing norms to directly serve our needs. Instead of appreciating the deeper love motivating this fulfillment of law’s purpose to serve needs, such authorities may seek to punish such need-serving nonconformists, to coerce them into line as they expect others would force them into fearful conformity. Their rush to squash need-serving nonconformists blatantly squanders the human capital to develop more of our full human potential. The lawfare against Julian Assange despite the lack of evidence that he ever induced Chelsea Manning to leak provides a clear example, after he helped alert us to U.S. war atrocities in the Iraq . Fully resolving needs often goes against the grain of law . Responsive Solution Anankelogy recognizes many need-serving nonconformists as “transspirits ”. I am one. A transspirit intuitively transcends divisive social norms to connect at a deeper level, to resolve needs. Even if resisted by the authorities. History provides many examples. Dr. King. Ghandi. Saint Paul. Jesus, Siddhartha Gautama, Lao Tzu, Hillel the Elder, and many more. Each transcended established norms to connect deeper with life, to address needs more fully and directly. Even if risking retribution from the authorities. As Jesus put it in Matthew 5:27: “I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” To properly resolve the inflexible needs which laws exist to serve presents as a greater authority than merely complying with arbitrary social norms. To resolve needs incentivized by love works far more effectively than placating authorities out of fear of possible punishment. Such transspirituality prioritizes love to resolve needs that supports improving wellness over law to relieve pain that risks perpetuating unwellness. Need-response asserts the higher effective authority of such transspirits, of those mastering love over laws. It assesses authorities’ responsiveness to our needs. It accredits authorities with “earned legitimacy ” when their impact results in improve wellness outcomes among their constituents. Need-response empirically rates any involved authorities at the lowest level of earned legitimacy , which is offensive illegitimacy . If processed in a need-response action , this could warrant a more severe response enforcement . Any self-righteous reaction, no matter how violent or nonviolent, can be deemed as validation of need-responders dedicated bravery to resolve needs over power-hungry self-serving authorities lacking legitimacy to impact the public. By sharp contrast, the transspirit seeks to properly resolve needs with love. Properly means they make sure resolving one set of needs does not negatively impact other needs. Love means they honor the needs of others as if they were their own needs—recognizing we are all connected, so the needs of others ultimately are their own needs. In short, there is no greater human authority than properly resolving needs with 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: The more I try to respect others, the more some offensively disrespect me. While some authorities may indeed by shortsighted, I hate to be in a world without authorities. How can I tell the difference between a need-serving nonconformists and a selfish lawbreaker? I’d like to see how this works for others and the reactions they get before I stick my neck out. 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

Resolving needs improves wellness. < Back B01 Basic Principle List of all principles Resolving needs improves wellness. Image: Pixabay – Bessi (click on meme to see source image) Summary Wellness is another word for function. All needs exist to serve function. The more you resolve your needs, the better you can function. The more you eat well, the better you can function. You eat, breathe, connect with friends and enjoy moments of solitude all for the sake of being able to function through life. The less your needs resolve, or the less you attend to your prioritized needs, the less you can function. Or the less well you will be. Where there is no function to serve, there is no need. Description Which do you think is more likely? Your ability to function has little to nothing to do with your needs. OR Your ability to function has everything to do with your needs. Anankelogy This unique understanding of your needs recognizes that your every need relates to your ability to function. The less your needs resolve, the less you can function. And the closer to being unwell. The more your needs resolve, the better you can function and be well. Accessible anankelogy refers to your level of functioning simply as wellness . Recognizing your wellness exists in gradient levels provides us with a deeper understanding. Anankelogy identifies four key levels of your ability to function . Peakfunction : When you prioritize to promptly and fully resolve your needs. You reach more of your full potential. You enjoy sustainable wellness. Symfunction : When you prioritize pragmatically easing your needs with help from others. You can sufficiently function. Just not at your best. Dysfunction : When you prioritize relieving the pain of your many unresolved needs. You can hardly function. You typically cope with something addictive. Misfunction : When you prioritize survival from too many unresolved basic needs. You barely hang onto life. You find yourself repeatedly at death’s door. A need can be appreciated as a kind of metaphor for function. The more your need for water is satisfied, the better you can function. The less your body’s requirement for water can be satiated, the less you can function. If you cannot satisfy your thirst, you will find yourself obsessing for something to drink. While you experience these subjectively, they begin from the objective reality for your life’s requirement for something to function. This applies equally to your emotional needs. If you cannot satisfy your longing to be understood and appreciated by those closest to you, you will find yourself obsessing to be accepted. You must receive some social connection to function, or you will remain in the pain of loneliness. Anankelogy recognizes a range between illness and wellness . Instead of suddenly becoming sick, you gradually lose the ability to function. You regressively shift from wellness into illness when your needs do not or cannot fully resolve. Need-response This new profession of need-response applies this central anankelogy principle. It can either complement or compete with other service institutions. Need-response can complement the psychological focus of psychotherapy by adding the essential dimension of responding to the needs that the mind processes. Need respond can complement law enforcement and the judicial process, and even politics. Or it can compete with these institutions by creating better results when addressing the needs for which they ostensibly exist. Reactive Problem These service institutions of law and psychotherapy tend to follow the popular norm of relieving pain over addressing the needs prompting such pain. The more a court battle or ballot contest offers mere relief for the pain of publicly affected needs, the less we can function. We tend to accept such relief is the best we can get. We accommodate to lower levels of being able to function. We cope with the increasingly pain of these unmet needs. We also get angrier and angrier at each other. Responsive Solution The more inspired to endure the discomfort of working through the painful portion of fully addressing our needs, the more we can fully resolve them. Pain is not the problem as much as the threat such pain exists to report . The further you can remove the threat prompting the pain, the better you can function. The more your needs resolve, the more your wellness improves. Once your functioning gets restored, the more capable of removing other threats. You then become less vulnerable to coping habits like addictions. As your wellness—your level of functioning—improves, the more your anger can shift toward grace, peace and love. The more your needs resolve, the more wellness you enjoy. 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 this apply equally to a physical need and an emotional need like the need for love? How long do I have to put up with the pain before I can enjoy restored functioning? Isn’t short-term pain relief okay, or is the only path toward better functioning is costly pain? If I’m already trapped in addictive patterns, how can this insight help me climb out of them? 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

Big changes may seem stronger. But small changes often last longer. < Back C10 General Principle List of all principles Big changes may seem stronger. But small changes often last longer. Image: Pixabay – MartinStr (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more gradual an adjustment to resolve some need, the more likely the change will remain. Too drastic of a change tends to disrupt patterns serving other needs. Those affected needs push back to undermine the change. Crash dieting can swing back to binge eating if the sudden change upends or ignores other needs. Slow change allows other affected needs to also be satisfied in their own way. Description Which do you think is more likely? Lasting desirable changes only occurs when immense in scope. OR Meaningful change only lasts when integrated with other things we need to last. Anankelogy If only you could quickly solve your problems, right? A big solution may seem like just what you need to fix a big problem. But too general a solution often brings with it a set of its own problems. For example, indulging your hunger too quickly with a big meal can lead to overeating. Or how throwing money at a problem likes to spark new problems. Desperation to ease pain can tempt us to miss the small steps necessary to create sustainable solutions. Smaller steps have time to integrate with other areas in your life. Too immense of a change can quickly unwind and send you back somewhere worse than before. Progress is not always linear. Two quick steps forward may jerk you back a step. Changes in one area disturbs other areas you likely do not want to change. Sometimes in ways you can’t even see, at least not at first. For example, consider the consequences of ending a relationship too abruptly. You fault the other, but then the same problem pops up in your next relationship. So you quit that relationship and start another, only to see the same problem. Coincidence? Quitting a relationship may seem like your only option. The more your intent is to avoid life’s natural discomforts, the more drawn to seek drastic changes to try to get back to your comfort zone. The bigger the jerk in the opposite direction, the more likely you end up vacillating between extremes. Need-response Anankelogy understands you must address your self-needs and your social needs to faithfully attend your many other needs. Consider your need to get from one place to another. You must have the initiative to provide for the means for travel where no one else is going to raise a finger. You must also seek supports to provide the vehicle you can never produce completely by yourself. Life presents a mix of these inward-looking self-needs and outward-focused social needs . Life also presents barriers to equally resolving your affected self-needs and affected social needs . Life can pull you toward being able to resolve more of your self-needs than your social needs , or more of your social needs than your self-needs . The more you can resolve these complementary sets of psychosocial needs on par with each other, the more you can enjoy psychosocial balance . The more your life eases your self-needs more than your social needs , or social needs more than self-needs , the more you naturally slide into psychosocial imbalance . You end up vacillating between generalizations to address the resulting strain. This is when you most likely opt for “big” changes. You feel a need to quickly get to the other side. Such vacillation can easily become a painful trap holding you back from reaching your life’s full potential. Reactive Problem Once trapped in this self-defeating vacillation cycle, swinging wildly between extremes to claw for some kind of relief, the more your “big” changes set you up for more painful problems down the road. You react to problems, you overcompensate, you exaggerate, and may even slip into despair. Once routinized into a daily norm, you naturally develop a psychosocial orientation toward one or the other. If your self-needs routinely resolve more than your social needs , you tend to gravitate toward what anankelogy identifies as a “wide ” orientation. This predisposes you to politically left leaning views. If your social needs routinely resolve more than your self-needs , you tendto gravitate toward what anankelogy identifies as a “deep ” orientation. This predisposes you to politically right leaning views. The more you try to ease the resulting tension with the big changes of ideology, the more problems you find. The more you generally react instead of carefully respond to your underserved needs, the less likely the changes you make can grow roots and remain. Responsive Solution Need-response provides Responsive Depolarization to cultivate small adjustments from psychosocial imbalance into psychosocial balance . Need-response supports meaningful adjustments by integrating character traits like grace and empathy , to help support sustainable growth. You can also apply these character “refunctions ” in the need-responsive tool called Personally Responsive . You melt norms of alienation by personally addressing what others may need of you. Which can spark a meaningful dialogue of what you specifically need of each other. You can then let go of that desperation for making big changes as you relate better to where each other is honestly at. The Relationally Responsive tool helps you appreciate how nature continually pulls you toward psychosocial balance . Let it show you how you naturally go through seasons to identify and address your strained self-needs on one season, and then your affected social needs in a later season. Each smaller adjustment integrates the miniscule details bringing meaning to your life. Nature produces the many needs you experience. So let nature guide you toward deeper balance. Then you can let the smaller positive changes reach deep to establish solid roots. Then your desirable changes will definitely last longer. 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: Just because a change is huge cannot imply that it will not last. The better I can relate to the needs of others, the easier to mutually agree on meaningful change. I’ve made small changes and big changes and even some small ones don’t last. Change for change sake is not necessarily good, and can actually be quite bad. 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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The standard applied sets the standard replied. < Back E09 Conflict Principle List of all principles The standard applied sets the standard replied. Image: Pixabay – Hans (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you assert a certain level of moral or ethical behavior, the more likely such a level gets mirrored back to you. The more you sink to the lower standard of objectifying your foes, the more inclined they are to objectify you. The more you assert the higher standard of mutually respecting each other’s needs, the more your foes may be inclined and perhaps inspired to do the same. Description Which would you prefer? Others held to whatever standard the powerful think is appropriate. OR Others held to the same high moral standard as you. Anankelogy Anankelogy ties the equal status of one another’s needs with our measurable responsiveness to them. Not that this serves an excuse to react on par with those reacting to you. But nixes any argument you should treat them better than they’ve treated you. Let love and not compul This principle stretches back to ancient times. You can find in the sacred teachings of religions as diverse as Daoism , Sikhism , Islam and Christianity. In Matthew 7:1, Jesus is recorded as warning his audience to not judge lest they be judged. Verse 2 continues (NIV ): “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Anankelogy dares apply this standard to those in positions of power. I can see this equalizing standard mirrored in Islam. Consider a translation of the Sahih al-Bukhari hadith [6103 ]: “If a brother accuses a brother of being an unbeliever, one of them is right.” Imagine if we applied that standard to prosecutors: If a prosecutor falsely accuses the innocent, that prosecutor is guilty as an offender. Now consider this equalizing standard proactively. If I assess how responsive others—especially powerholders—are to my exposed needs, then I invite them to assess how responsive I am to their exposed needs. The measure I would have them use to constructively assess me would be the same measure I use to constructively assess them. Perhaps discern or evaluate or assess serve as better terms than judging . Not deciding who’s better or worse, but to report the impact of their actions on our needs. And to welcome them to report the impact of our actions upon their needs. Need-response We deceive ourselves if we believe we can treat others in ways they can never treat us. If my group is mightier than your group with a greater arsenal of weapons, my self-righteous and arrogant use of them to force my way inevitably provokes some backlash. But does might make right? Or does my outward show of strength betray my lack of internal strength ? Trying to impose a different standard undermines the higher standard of resolving needs with love . An unequal standard may seem powerful, but actually betrays weakness. Power isn’t really power unless it resolves needs . True power resolves need, removes cause for pain and violence, and restores everyone’s potential to optimally function. Reactive Problem The more we expect each other to act on rational choices, the more we set ourselves up for repeated disappointment. Anyone can find some “rational” reason to apply a self-serving standard. For example, the Gazans should simply accept the loss of their sacred homelands so that Israelis can claim it as their sole sacred homeland. Or the Israelis should simply accept Hamas targeting civilians as one of their only asymmetrical warfare ploys while ignoring Jewish trauma from centuries of pogroms. Most rationally deduced reasons betray some rationalizations that bias one’s own needs against the inflexible needs of others . Seeking to indulge one’s own needs at the expense of others assures a continual conflict. If you want to take back by force what you’re convinced rightly belongs to you, then you can expect others to take from you by force what they see as rightly theirs. The standard you apply they apply in return. The rational you use gets soon used on you. Responsive Solution Need-response applies this mutual standard with mutual regard . You respect their needs as a condition to rightly expect them to respect your needs. You don’t do to them the things you don’t want done to you. You empathize with them as you would want them to empathize with you. And so forth. Need-response holds each other accountable to this standard of mutuality. The more defensive you get toward others, the more you can expect them getting defensive toward you. The more you open up and learn what you can do for them, the more inclined they are to learn what they can do for you. Need-response gives teeth to this standard with its Impact Parity Model (IPM ). Powerholders of every kind can expect to be treated in the similar manner they treat or mistreat the less powerful. Need-response introduces incentives to powerholders to listen to those they impact . Need-response replaces mutual defensiveness with cultivated trust and trustworthiness. Need-response replaces mutual hostilities with incentivized cooperation. Need-response replaces mutual alienation with deep connections. Since the standard applied can prompt the standard replied , let’s apply a standard that models the support you seek from others. Give what you want to get and then bountifully receive more of what you’ve given away. Set the higher standard of 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: If powerholders impose such a low standard, how can I model a morally higher standard? This seems almost impossible to practice in real life. The problem is that some actually expect me to abuse them as they abuse me. The standard applied is sometimes low, so I endeavor to reply with a higher moral standard. 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

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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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

Your emotions prioritize your existence. < Back B03 Basic Principle List of all principles Your emotions prioritize your existence. Image: Pixabay – Cleverpix (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you sense some threat, even a mild risk to your safety, your emotions will automatically prioritize your continued existence. Without your assured continuance, little else matters to your life. Or you may no longer be around, or at least at your current capacity, for anything else to matter. Once triggered, it’s next to impossible to prioritize anything else. Description Which do you think is more likely? You only feel like you must prioritize something because you’re basically an irrational being. OR Your life includes a built-in mechanism to ensure your existence before all else. Anankelogy Your emotions typically convey the intensity and urgency of a need. If experiencing mild anxiety, for example, you can usually focus on other things. But if paralyzed by panic from a deadly threat which is about to hit you, you can hardly think about anything other than what you must do to survive. This could also occur in mild incidents. For example, you can be generous to others to a point. But if giving everything away to the point you have nothing left to live upon, your emotions will kick in to warnof this threat to your survival. Whether mild depression or encroaching anxiety, your life prioritizes your capacity to continue existing. You can feel happy in one moment and then abruptly feel frightened when threatened. That fear prioritizes your attention to handle whatever now threatens your continuance. This spans from ensuring you do not get killed in that moment to avoiding any later risk of harm that could eventually limit your ability to fully function. Need-response Need-response counters the limits of impersonal law that often overlooks actual threats to wellbeing. Impersonal legal systems tend to neglects the objective reality of the unchosen needs of all impacted by a conflict. The more ignored, the more adversarial legal systems tend to prioritize one party’s needs over the other. Both in a court battle and at the ballot. The winner in a legal battle cannot be assured their needs resolve. Political or judicial victories do not always lead to better lives. Usually, the victory only provides some relief from the pain of their negatively impacted needs. Only by ensuring a path for all sides in a conflict can resolve their objectively prioritized needs can a sustainable solution be achieved for lasting peace. Reactive Problem The more we rely on adversarial legal systems, like the adversarial judicial system and polarizing politics, the more we tend to overlook this prioritizing force of self-continuance. No law can curb a person’s prioritized self-continuance when threatened. Legal systems suffer from a lack of legitimacy when trying to impose its will to coerce suppression of an unchosen need for continued existence. No one chooses to require security, or safety from violence, or avoidance of overwhelming pain from damage. Provoking such needs in the name of authority, especially if evoking reactions it seeks to put down, reflects poorly on its legitimacy. The more our adversarial legal systems neglect the forceful prioritization of existence, either on a personal or collective level, the more the forces of nature will overrule the forces of human authority. Resorting to violence to put down violence easily risks more violence. What such blind authority reactively resists they tend to reinforce , getting more of what they claim to seek to reduce. Familiarity bias tends to normalize the resulting cycle of violence, often displacing more responsive alternatives. Responsive Solution Need-response goes to the core of a conflict by addressing each unchosen need and each unchosen priority presented in that conflict. These are kept distinct from chosen responses to such needs. To effectively address the clashing responses to each other’s unchosen needs, need-response applies some familiar qualities it calls character refunctions . Grace : Invite all parties in a conflict to humbly admit their imperfections, to then reach them where they honestly at in their struggle to address their prioritized needs with questionable actions. Empathy : Encourage each side in a conflict to see the experience through the eyes of the other, to relate more directly to the affected unchosen needs of the opposing side or sides. Humility : Welcome each side to drop any pretense that they know best what should be done, to allow room to learn how each one’s ability to function is honestly impacted by the conflict. Mercy : Incentivize each side to let go of any right to retribution to make room to repair any damage and restore mutual respect for each other’s unchosen needs. Discipline : See that each delays any immediate gratification of their anger so they can prioritize mutual respect that can in the long term assure less provocation of prioritized self-continuance. Gratitude : Inspire each side to appreciate the generosity from the other side when they show deference to their affected unchosen needs. Resilience : Hold each side accountable to enduring the challenging difficulties as long as humanly possible to optimize the opportunity to support each other’s prioritized continuance. There are many more of these that can help resolve a conflict. And curb the extremes that can erupt when urgently seeking one’s own survival, or reduction from the risk of harm. Need-response can tailorize each one of these to apply to a specific conflict you find yourself in. In the heated moment of prioritizing self-existence, these qualities can quickly go by the wayside. Need-response can turn a challenging conflict into an opportunity for mutual support with these aptly applied qualities. To prioritize the power of love over coercive laws . Whenever someone’s prioritizing self-continuance gets provoked, need-response offers better tools than adversarial legal systems to ensure each other’s affected needs can resolve. Then to remove the cause for pain that often provokes conflicts. In the process, the improves each other’s level of functioning to ensure they can prioritize mutual support from that point forward. 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: In the heat of the moment, who can do anything but defend oneself? What about the rationalizations we use when feeling threatened by some foe? Poor judgment lets some folks feel like their survival is threatened when it actually is not. How does need-response specifically provide these responses to a conflict I am in? 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

Power is not really ‘power’ unless resulting in resolved needs. < Back F04 Authority Principle List of all principles Power is not really ‘power’ unless resulting in resolved needs. Image: Pixabay – kareni (click on meme to see source image) Summary Any authoritative power not resolving needs acts more like a coercive force. The more those in position of power serve their own interests at odds with the affected needs of the powerless, the less legitimate their influence. The power of the socially influential only exists because of the deeper power of nature shaping our objective needs. The more any social power invests their social influence to resolve nature-created needs, the more meaningful and legitimate its influence. Otherwise, it’s often guilty of coercive exploitations. Description Which do you think is more likely? We must respect those in positions of power over us to extrinsically maintain the social order. OR We must reserve “power” for what restores full wellness to intrinsically sustain the social order. Anankelogy The concept of influential power depends largely on the greater power of our underlying natural needs. Apart from needing another’s approval, for example, no one has any influential power over me. The deeper power of nature driving my need for another’s opinion of me fuels the existence of influential power. When indigenous people speak of power, they typically refer to this deeper power of nature driving our needs. Nonindigenous discourse tends to regard the “power” of social influence on par with the “Power” of nature. Without nature’s power to compel us to depend on others, there is no influential social power. The more we flow with the greater power of nature to resolve our needs, the less potent the “power”of social influence. The less our needs resolve, the more vulnerable we are to the influence of those we trust to hold things together. The more those in influential positions of power impede resolving our needs, their “power” presents more like a privileged weakness. Only when power leads you to resolve your needs can that power be respected in full. Social influence that manipulates us away from resolving needs, and coerces us to endure more suffering, lacks legitimacy . When forcing us to settle for less than our full functioning wellness, it is power in name only. Need-response The other social sciences generally accept the conventional definition of power. They see power as compelling social influence. Anankelogy’s nature-based paradigm requires a deeper view of power. Anankelogy and need-response recognize the deeper forces of nature shaping our needs. Apart from the greater power of nature driving our needs, there would be no lesser power of social influence. The more we try to control nature, the more we alienate ourselves from the power of nature to resolve needs. The more alienated we become from resolving our needs, the more drawn to social influence to cope with the resulting pain. The more we settle for the lesser power of social influence to manage the pain, the fewer of our needs can actually resolve. Pain is not the problem as much as the threats our pain exists to report . The more we allow social power to distract us from our pain and needs, the more that pain likely returns . There is no such thing as pain apart from unmet needs , but we generally prefer our familiar yet dull pain of unmet needs over the sharper pain of unknowns of fully resolving a need. In other words, social power easily robs us from enjoying natural power. Reactive Problem The less your needs resolve, the more your body persists in grabbing your attention with intensifying emotional pain. To cope with that pain to address needs beyond your control, you naturally seek some kind of relief from outside of yourself. Professional pain-relievers come along and offer you hope. You latch on. You’re soon pleased by gaining some relief. Any relief will do. Now you’re hooked. Your psychiatrist hooks you on reuptake inhibitors , so you never have to resolve the needs causing you depression. Your favorite news outlet hooks you on outrage porn , so you never have to resolve the needs driving the conflict. Your political leaders hook you on indulgent side-taking , so you never have to resolve your need for community cohesion or address your painful feelings of isolation. You give them “power” over your unresolved needs. Your unresolved needs persist to alarm you with ongoing pain. The longer you feel alienated from others, for example, the more you suffer loneliness and agonizing despair. So you return to your familiar source of pain relief. You socially give “powerholders” your permission to influence you. And for some reason we call this “power”. But such social influence is actually weakness. We have it tragically backwards. We resign to regarding such potent social influence as “power” when it would not even exist if we related better to nature’s power driving our needs. Settling for the “power” of social influence exposes us to manipulation, exploitation, coercion, and settling for alternatives to resolving needs . All in the name of power. Responsive Solution Let’s now get right to how this principle can solve that problem. . For now, this serves as placeholder text. When I find the time, I will post the full deal here. How does this speak to your experience of needs? 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 1. Balancing masculine rationality with feminine emotionality Do you see yourself championing rationality to keep your emotional impulses at bay? Or do you experience yourself as emotionally intelligent, who's wisely in touch with your own feelings? 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 When locked into opposing extremes, you can be irrational one moment and then unemotional the next. You suppress your emotional outbursts to appear respectfully rational. You angrily yell at your son. Then collect yourself to sternly warn him with a straight face. He sees you act calm but likely wonders when that volcano may explode again. Immaturity traps you into swinging between extremes of emotional outbursts and hyperrationality. Maturity spurs you to complement these seemingly opposing sides. Balancing complementary sides The more balanced your life, the more you can integrate being reasonable with being intuitive . Each time you act reasonably for the situation and experience good results, the more you can trust your feelings, your intuition, to inform you of what best to do. You mature as you face challenges with both the option of being reasonable and being intuitive. You instantly temper your intuitive feelings of annoyance with reasonable ways to address the situation. You respond more to threats than react. Oscillating toward a balanced center The more balanced your life, the more you can integrate being reasonable with being intuitive . Each time you act reasonably for the situation and experience good results, the more you can trust your feelings, your intuition, to inform you of what best to do. You mature as you face challenges with both the option of being reasonable and being intuitive. You instantly temper your intuitive feelings of annoyance with reasonable ways to address the situation. You respond more to threats than react. Encountering the holistic center Your responsiveness becomes both intuitive and reasonable . You automatically blend these complementary qualities in your routine decisions. They no longer contradict. You learn you can trust your gut to express what you know is unacceptable to you. Your intuition reliably guides you to remove those threats of what's unacceptable, in ways others can trust as reasonable. You can now resolve more needs, remove more pain, and restore more wellness. Transspiritually compelled holism As a transspirit , I am spiritually compelled to transcend conventional opposites. Instead of a complementary opposite person outside of myself pulling me into balancing my reasonableness and intuition , an inexplicable force of nature within pulls me to balance these traits. This explains my asexuality. Much as the Apostle Paul described himself, I've never burned with sexual desire for another. And much like that New Testament writer, I relate to others on their own terms instead of imposing my own. I too spiritually stretch beyond the imposing divide between male and female . I am both masculine and feminine. I am both liberal-progressive and conservative. I am both complainant and defendant. I must be unitarily both, to more fully resolve needs and reach more of humanity's potential. Those insisting on one-or-the-other get easily tripped up by life's paradoxes. Their emotional attachment to a comforting familiarity of opposites tends to blind them. They often uncritically trust the veneer of contradictions, which easily obscures some profoundly complementary sides. From the myopia of their painfully unresolved needs and consequential diminished capacity to function, they tend to misinterpret every contradiction as mutually exclusive. They judge by appearances. They can't see the forest for the trees. They rely on adversarialism. Many of them oppose my transspiritual existence. They vehemently guard their familiar norms of opposing sides. They indulge in side-taking when unwarranted. They resist any discomfort of having their oppositional norms questioned. They avoid engaging me, who has the liberating wisdom that can free them from their pain. Some even project their avoided pain onto me. ...all my life... ...falsely accused, wrongly convicted, falsely imprisoned for a dozen years, lifetime sentence as a sex offender despite being asexual with no prior or subsequent history of criminality... As a sage gifted with wisdom, I reactivity of conformity enforcers (legalists) - Sf captured It's good to hold onto being reasonable and not let of being intuitive . For the one who integrates both can resolve far more needs, remove more pain, and reach more of life's potential. 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 9:18:59 PM UTC Previous Next

The more an authority undermines resolving needs, the less its legitimacy. < Back F02 Authority Principle List of all principles The more an authority undermines resolving needs, the less its legitimacy. Image: Pixabay – PublicDomainPictures (click on meme to see source image) Summary Authority earns its trust the more its actions or inactions results in resolving needs. The more its actions or unexpected inactions results in unresolved needs, experienced as pain and diminished ability to function, the less it can be trusted to impact needs. Legitimacy of any authority correlates with how it impacts the exposed needs of the vulnerable. Description Which do you think is more likely? Questioning authority in the way of resolving needs can only make things worse. OR The more authority impedes me from resolving needs, the more I must speak up. Anankelogy Legitimacy can be defined as the right and acceptance of an authority , or the justification of coercive power as a right to rule, or the belief that a rule, institution, or leader has the right to govern , or widespread public confidence in the government to ensure political stability. What all these definitions lack, and many like it, is any reference to needs. Anankelogy adds the dimension of our objectively existing needs . Authority can flexibly adjust to be more legitimate by being more trustworthy to recognize and allow resolution of our inflexible needs . This effectively challenges the conventional yet arbitrary aspect of legitimacy. Since your needs exist as objective facts that you subjectively experience, legitimacy can be graded by how it measurably impacts your capacity to fully function. We shift the focus of legitimacy away from your subjective dependence upon it, which can be coerced. The less we can all objectively function because of some relatively arbitrary authority, the less objectively legitimate that authority. Anankelogy distinguishes between subjectively accepted authority and objectively qualified authority —referred to respectively as ascribed legitimacy and earned legitimacy . Legitimacy naturally declines the less responsive an authority to the needs in its care. And current systems remain poorly equipped to accountably respond to the immovable reality of our objective needs. It easily trips over its own efforts to improve its ascribed legitimacy , typically compromising its potential for earned legitimacy . Consequently, our trust in elite-led institutions continues to break down. Consider your own level of confidence in legacy media, representative democracy, polarizing politics, and the adversarial judicial system. Anankelogy addresses the widely overlooked problems these all have in common: avoidant adversarialism . Each one incentivizes you to avoid life’s natural discomforts of resolving needs by pitting us against each other for some fleeting sense of relief from the pain it mindlessly perpetuates. Need-response Need-response anchors legitimacy in responsiveness to all of our needs. There is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs . These divisive institutions lack vision for how to enable you and I to optimally resolve our needs. They instead tend to normalize the tolerable pain of our unmet needs. They rarely if ever incentivize us to endure discomforts long enough to resolve these needs, which would remove cause for pain. These divisive institutions routinely coerce us to prefer the pain we feel over the pain we fear . We come to see them as the best or only option to cope with the constant ringing alarm of our unmet needs. But letting them incite us into taking sides against teach other to ease our pain tends to leave us in more pain . Pain is not the problem as much as the threats your pain exists to report . Divisive institutions regularly leave such threats in place. Then benefit from keeping you attached to their insidious machinations. Until you eventually get disgusted and start seeing them less as a solution and more as part of the problem. Reactive Problem Legitimacy naturally declines the more it coerces us into relying upon it to ease the pain of our unmet needs over resolving those needs. The more we wake up to realize such institutions coax our dependency to ease the pain from conditions it helps create, the less we can trust them. Especially when we realize that the more they benefit from keeping us unwell, the more blind they are to their own conflicts of interest. Let’s unpack the problem of avoidant adversarialism in each mass institution. Legacy media . To attract your attention, mainstream media outlets segment you as a part of a marketable audience. They incentivize you into indulgent side-taking to avoid empathizing with each other. You get a biased perspective, which erodes their trustworthiness as a reliable source of news. Representative democracy . To attract political support, elected leaders tend to cater to what they think you want over what you actually need. They routinely avoid facing your real-life issues as potentially costing them politically. They tend to favor donors’ interests over yours, which erodes their trustworthiness as a reliable local leader. Polarizing politics . To attract voters, candidates take stances on those politicized issues they believe will draw you and a majority of others to the polls. They pit you against others with a different inflexible priority of needs , to trap you into unwinnable conflicts. As your politicized needs and the needs of others remain mostly unresolved, politician’s trustworthiness erodes. Adversarial judiciary . To win in a court battle, lawyers on each side try to manipulate you into accept their interpretations of the available facts. They expect you and the other side to remain at mutually defensive odds, avoiding relevant details that could actually resolve your conflict. Their emphasis of procedural fairness over just outcomes erodes confidence in the courts. The more these divisive institutions get in the way of letting you resolve your needs, the less objectively legitimate in the eyes of anankelogy and need-response. Responsive Solution Need-response lays out a path for authority figures and institutions to earn the right to affect your needs. You and others evaluate an authority’s reliability to impact your objective needs . You empirically evaluate their actions and then categorize them on one of five legitimacy levels . Offensive illegitimacy . Authority harms the vulnerable, provoking more needs than helping to resolve. E.g., divisive law enforcement violently suppressing peaceful antiwar protesters. Substandard legitimacy . Authority acknowledges the needs they impact but only offers to pacify the pain instead of resolving such needs. E.g., law enforcement stops a thief from stealing your property without protecting your property from further thefts. Standard legitimacy . Authority demonstrates mutual regard that openly relates to everyone’s needs as worthy of the same respect as their own needs. E.g., law enforcement officers confront apparent law breakers as they would have any other officer confront their wrongdoing. Competitive legitimacy . Authority addresses their constituents’ needs more effectively than others to improve own professional reputation. E.g., law enforcement coordinates with community support organizations to reduce or eliminate common contributors to violence, so that together they can demonstrate their community is safer than other communities with a more passive aggressive law enforcement approach. Transformative legitimacy . Authority proactively addresses needs by transforming constraining norms into something more responsive to everyone’s needs. E.g., law enforcement officers walk a beat and get to know each community member on a more personal level, sometimes going out of their way to help someone with a personal problem. You learn to incentivize authority without being adversarial. You model the mutuality that we seek from them. You develop the skills to speak truth to power by first offering helpful feedback to your peers. You nurture each other’s “responsive reputation ”. You effectively compete with the disappointing results of adversarial authority. If your actions can measurably result in more resolved needs, such as a measurable reduction in addictive behaviors, you create value we all need. And authority needs. We raise the bar. 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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