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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 . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

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

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 . 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 good nor bad except for need. < Back C01 General Principle List of all principles There is no good nor bad except for need. Image: Pixabay – 12019 (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you fully satisfy what you need, the more you label this as good. The less you resolve a need to the point you’re left in some degree of discomfort, the more you characterize this as bad. Anything you ascribe as good points back to what helps you function. Anything you ascribe as bad painfully detracts from your ability to function. Judgments of good or bad apply only to what we do about our needs, never the objective fact of the needs themselves. If no bearing on your needs, then no moralizing. Description Which do you think is more likely? Any judgment of good or bad is always subjective and arbitrary. OR Good and bad can be linked to the objective facts or our needs. Anankelogy While morality has its arbitrary side, anankelogy recognizes it also includes an objective dimension . For example, while you choose how to react to feeling threatened in a conflict, your life objectively requires to remove any actual threat to your ability to fully function. You do not choose to have your defenses painfully provoked, only how you interpret and act upon your triggered defensiveness. Anankelogy distinguishes between the objective fact of unchosen needs and our subjective chosen responses to such needs. It calls this moral distinction . While we can disagree about how to morally respond to our needs, there is no point in disagreeing with the objective phenomena of the needs themselves. If I tell you that I am thirsty, or must find my own purpose to excel at my job, it remains pointless for you or anyone to disagree. These needs exist amorally. The morality judging things as good or made serves as code for need, in more ways than one. First, in the obvious sense that morality outlines a code of conduct to guide our need-impacting behaviors. Second, in the less obvious sense that moralitysymbolically represents what you and I require to function, personally and interpersonally. And more specifically to what we choose to act toward each other’s unchosen needs. Labeling something as good categorizes it as beneficial to our needs, and to our capacity to function. Good friends provide for our objective need for social support, for companionship. A good road provides for our need to get us to our destination. A good private space provides for our need for solitude. Apart from such needs, there is little to categorize as good or bad. Yes, we often regard something as “good” or “bad” in a purely aesthetic sense. “Good food” may taste great but not necessarily good for you. Our aesthetics serves our need for appreciation, for beauty and potentially for meaningfulness. The more something appeals to us, and we view it as good, the more it satisfies some emotional need. What satisfies one need may be less satisfactory to another. Bad food may be stale, for example, but still sufficiently nutritious. Anytime we label something as bad , we are categorizing it as objectionable to our needs and to our capacity to function. A bad friend is one who betrays you. A road full of potholes that could damage your car you naturally regard as bad. A private space easily invaded is not so good, or maybe even bad for your need for solitude. After all, you didn’t choose to have these needs . If every core need exists as an objective fact , then anankelogy suggests there is an objective side to morality . The less you can resolve your objective needs, the more your capacity to function objectively declines. Bad. The less you can resolve your objective needs, the more your capacity to function objectively declines. The more you can resolve your objective needs, the more your capacity to function objectively improves. Need-response Need-response clears up a lot of moral relativism. Morality is relative to the absolute of unchosen needs . You can adjust what you do about your needs, and others can change what they do or don’t do in response to your apparent needs. But no one can relativize the natural needs themselves. When anyone compromises your need for self-efficacy , for example, your wellness suffers independent of your subjective awareness of the experience. The less you can freely do for yourself, the less you can fully function. Your body then warns you of this diminished level of functioning in the form of emotional pain. Your pain subjectively follows the objective drop in your ability to fully function. Existentialism reminds us that we have far more choices than often assumed. But apply this only to our chosen responses to our unchosen needs . Once the objective fact of a need occurs, it is then too late to circumscribe it with moral options. Reactive Problem The more we assume others can change what they need to suit our own expectations, especially if coercing them to suppress their needs to honor ours, the more their capacity to function will objectively decrease. Anankelogy recognizes this conflating of unchosen needs with chosen responses as moral conflation . The less they can fully function, the less they can capably honor our needs. The more one pressures another to respect one’s own needs, in the name of what one deems as “good”, the less capable the other can respect that need. This easily leads to anger, to a risk of emotional abuse, and sometimes results in violence. The more you rationalize your need to defend yourself at any cost, for example, the more you easily overlook the other side’s inflexible need to defend themselves. This applies also to wars between nations or between different ethnic peoples. The selfish standard applied gets easily replied in return, easily inciting cycles of violence that blinds each side to the other side’s inflexible needs . When failing to first affirm another’s unchosen needs when confronting their actions affecting your own needs, you risk provoking their pain. They naturally dig in their heels when you trigger their defenses over something then cannot possibly change. Just as you naturally get defensive when confronted by another. Anankelogy recognizes this rush to label something good or bad as a component in need-response conflation or moral conflation . That’s when you assume unchosen needs and chosen responses are the same thing. The more you provoke mutual defensiveness with such self-serving moral stances, the more you easily provoke pain that all would prefer to avoid . Once you go down that pain-normalizing path, you tend to moralize pain as bad . Your “good” sinks to the level of avoiding pain more than resolving the needs causing your pain . Your “bad” sinks to the level of suffering the pain your own behavior provokes. You sink to the level of discomfort avoidance that traps you in painfully diminished levels of functioning . Responsive Solution Need-response carefully distinguishes between your unchosen needs and anyone’s chosen responses to them. This can help you deescalate many conflicts. The more you affirm another’s unchosen needs before you bring up their chosen behaviors, the less you get yourself in trouble. Need-response offers a simple communication format for this. You may recognize it as the “praise sandwich ” that sandwiches the “bad news” of how they negatively affect your needs between two pieces of “good news”. Consider this example: Good news : “I affirm your need for self-determination, and prefer to avoid doing anything that could restrict your right to choose your own destiny to reach your life’s full potential.” Bad news : “However, I must point out how your recent actions can threaten my security. I don’t see how you can reach your full potential while limiting mine.” Good news : “I will assume you mean no harm. I trust you intend to do your best, and together we can find ways to mutually respect each other’s affected needs. Thank you.” This praise sandwich approach points to the anankelogy principle that wellness is psychosocial . Modern frameworks tend to reduce wellness to its internal biological and cognitive elements . This needlessly stigmatizes those requiring support after suffering damage from socioenvironmental threats to their wellbeing. Research now exposes the oft-overlooked harm of our norms of hyper-individualism . Watered down philosophies of existentialism allow the powerful to blame the relatively powerless for the threats and suffered harms these powerful folks repeatedly cause. While you individually experience the bad of such threats and harms, it is not entirely good to expect you to do all the therapeutic changes. Especially if those bad socio-environmental threats keep damaging your wellbeing. Need-response exist to address such external contributors to your wellbeing. Instead of relying on alienating norms that pits us against each other, or assumes powerholders are inherently bad , need-response addresses the unchosen needs on all sides. Need-response provides you the tools of responsivism , to cut through alienating norms to incentivize others to support your wellness needs. You can then challenge the “bad” of unresolved needs with the increasing “good” of resolving more needs, reducing and even removing the cause of pain, and restoring more wellness. 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: Can a need be “bad” because it only occurred from a bad behavior? Good tasting food can be bad for you, so maybe it’s how we used those labels. Good and bad remains distinct from right and wrong, so how does that apply to all this? My good could be your bad, and that relative side of morality is not covered here. Relieving pain feels good, but you’re saying that this is not actually all that good? 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 safest generalization is to love. < Back H01 Love Principle List of all principles Your safest generalization is to love. Image: Pixabay - Mylene2401 (click on meme to see source image) Summary Our understanding of anything naturally begins with a generalized overview. Then we drill down to specifics the more relevant to our needs. Or we latch onto comforting generalizations to ease the pain of our unmet needs. We then trust unsafe generalizations, which dodges the specifics essential to resolve our needs and remove our pain. Love liberates us. Love upholds your innate value to fully resolve your needs. Love inspires us to honor the needs of others as our own. Love remains your go-to generalization to thrive. Description Which do you think is more likely? The higher standard to love one another is merely an aspirational ideal that no one actually meets. OR Loving others simply requires the bold step to honor another’s needs on par or more than our own. Anankelogy Here is where we explore this principle in relation to academic anankelogy. For now, this serves as placeholder text. When I find the time, I will post the full deal here. Need-response Need-response positions itself as the only profession to prioritize platonic love over laws, over medical or cognitive processes, or over anything unable to promise measurably improved wellness outcomes . With the safe generalization of love, we can peel back the popular myth of popgen self-interest. You can replace its inclination toward rationalized selfishness with mutual regard for each other’s affected needs. You can replace its inclination toward rationalized self-righteousness with humbling get to know how each other impacts one another’s inflexible needs . Legalism spurs you to generalize. It prompts you to cling to your assumptions as defensible facts. Which easily pulls you down into painful falsehoods. And trap you in dark caverns of myopia. Love inspires you to be specific. It encourages you to use your initial generalizations as stepping stones to relevant nuance. To step beyond fleeting concerns to see the big picture and embrace the deeper value of us all. Anankelogy recognizes a range from a healthy kind of generalizing to a deeply problematic kind. provisional generalizing – when you recognize your generalities include unidentified specifics, ready to replace them with applicable specifics. popular generalizing (popgen) – when you accept popular generalities as fact, ignoring any disconfirming specifics and rationalizing exceptions to what’s apparently widely supported. relief-generalizing (relief-gen) – when your trusted generalities crystallize into hardened beliefs you rely upon to relieve you of the pain of your unmet needs, trapping you in pain. oversimplification – when you extremely exaggerate, often to the point of believing as indisputable fact the oppositive of what is accurately true. The more you anchor your trusted generalities to the steadfast generalization that all lives possess innate value, the easier it can be to transition from questionable generalities to relevant specifics to more fully resolve needs. Reactive Problem The less your needs resolve, the more drawn to relying on questionable generalizing to cope. Your ability function starts going down. You go from what anankelogy calls “peakfunction” to “symfunction” that compromises your wellness. The less you can function (i.e., the less well you are), the more you opt for alternative that partially eases your needs. Whenever what you specifically need cannot be accessed, you settle for the next best thing. You then slide into what anankelogy identifies as “symfunction capture ” in three gradual steps. Symfunction creep : you go from fully resolving all needs to partially easing some needs. Symfunction strain : you go from partially easing some needs to partially easing most needs. Symfunction trap : you go from partially easing most needs to fully resolving only a few needs. This slippery slope helps to explain how many of us suffer dysfunction . The less your needs can resolve, the more they alert you with emotional and physical pain to compel your attention. We often cope by trusting comforting generalities. When we can full function because our needs resolve more fully, we can recognize most generalities include unseen specifics affecting our lives. As we lose our capacity to function fully because of fewer resolved needs and mounting pain, we start accepting watered down versions as fact. These things must be true, we tell ourselves, so I can avoid further suffering. But the more we cling to our generalizations and miss relevant specifics to resolve our needs, the further we stay in pain of our unresolved needs. It becomes harder to recognize and affirm the innate value of all life when losing confidence in our own value if tied to our ability to function. Responsive Solution Affirming the innate value of another has a way of pulling you out of your shell. When consumed with agony from feeling overwhelmed by your own unmet needs, try doing what you can for what someone else may need. No matter how small. You may find the results refreshingly liberating. You may not have the specifics necessary to make any significant impact. But starting with the generalization that they are worthy of your attention and care brings out the best of humanity. Their appreciation can do wonders for taking a weight off your shoulders. Need-response instills this discipline to first generalize the worthiness of others before trying to call attention to your own. You address others using a format of positive-negative-positive. Positive: You a ffirm the inflexible needs of the other. Negative: You b ring up how their actions affect your needs. Positive: You c lose by pledging to continue this good faith mutual approach. You generalize in both senses of the word. You keep it on the simple side. Skip any complexities. If relevant, save those for later. You apply to another what you apply to all. You apply it to yourself. You show you’re fair. You let the power of love open doors and solve more problems. To resolve more needs. To remove more pain. To restore more wellness. Let love serve as your safest generality. 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: Not everyone is receptive to my bold offers of kindness, and some mysteriously react in anger. I find it very increasingly difficult to love those who seem unable to honestly love themselves. Life is complicated, so I have to start with my trusted generalizations just to get by. Who’s to say what is a relevant detail and what’s just to distract from what truly matters? 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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While no one sits above the law, no law sits above your needs it exists to serve. < Back G01 Law Principle List of all principles While no one sits above the law, no law sits above your needs it exists to serve. Image: Pixabay – FelixMittermeier (click on meme to see source image) Summary Constructs of law serve as a metaphor for needs. Apart from exposed needs, there are no human laws. The more enforcement of laws goes against what others inflexibly need, the less measurably legitimate that enforcement of law. Violent law enforcement that provokes you to defend your threated safety, for example, slips easily into illegitimacy when authority expects passive compliance. You cannot blindly obey any law that ultimately denies you of your ability to obey laws. Description Which do you think is more likely? Every law exists as a literal extension of authority to maintain the social order. OR Every law serves as a metaphor for the public-facing needs it exists to address. Anankelogy We widely agree that no one sits above the law, not even elected rulers nor constitutional monarchs. We widely agree that we all sit equal under the authority of law, so that no one can rise to influential power and dictate their arbitrary will to us. But taken to extremes, authorities coerce us to submit to laws to serve their own ends. If no one is literally above the law, does this allow those we trust to create, interpret and enforce the law to effectively sit above us? Can any law legitimately require you to go against your ability to function well enough to obey these laws? You could never obey a law that required you to hold your breath for five minutes, or forced you to replace drinking water with wood alcohol, or required you to defy gravity at will. You cannot make gravity go upward to fit some arbitrary law. You cannot obey any law that prevents you from being able to continue obeying laws, since you would soon no longer be around to obey laws. Law-based authority loses its legitimacy the more it undermines your capacity to effectively respond to the needs all laws exist to serve. For example, the more you get exorbitantly fined to the point you can no longer afford to survive, the less such authority serves its need-responsive purpose. Similarly, you cannot easily submit to laws requiring you to rearrange your priority of needs to fit someone else’s preferences. Yet that is exactly what toxic laws require from many of us. Laws speak to our flexible behaviors and never to the objective reality of our inflexible needs, nor to our inflexible priorities. That fuels a huge chunk of our political polarization. Need-response Anankelogy recognizes how your natural needs do sit above the law. Whatever naturally exists prior to human governance—to which laws are created to serve—sits above those laws. We cannot force the objective reality of nature to serve the subjective whims of human wants and desires, no matter how powerful the authority insisting on such demands. How we act puts the impact of our behavior under the law. But the natural needs and natural priority of needs actually sit above the law. If obeying every law prevents you from being able to fully function, then the problem is not you but the law. . Or what anankelogy identifies as toxic legalism . Reactive Problem Toxic legalism easily overlooks the subservience of flexible law to inflexible needs. Toxic legalism risks undermining the purpose of law in five key ways. Hyper-individualism . The law aptly presumes individual moral agency. Legalism expects you to individualistically obey laws while neglecting the impactful context of socioenvironmental factors restricting your full moral agency. Legalism expects you to be an island. Hyperrationality . Our laws spring from what Weber called rational-legal authority , Legalism expects you to rationally decide what is best for others without personally relating to their emotionally charged needs. Legalism incentives you to rationalize. Relief -generalizing . We keep laws intentionally vague to be broadly applicable. And the law generally emphasizes harm reduction. Legalism incentivizes overgeneralizing for relief from the pain of your unmet needs, often to the point of neglecting such needs. Those unmet needs Legalism perpetuates pain you feel you must repeatedly avoid. Avoidance . We keep laws intentionally impersonal to curtail their biased enforcement. The more personally the enforcer knows you, the higher the chance they’ll overlook your infractions. And that’s just not fair. Legalism turns such careful detachment into careless alienation. It normalizes disengagement. It expects the law to be enough to address almost any situation. This incentivizes you to hold unrealistic expectations towards others, who likewise hold unrealistic expectations of you. Legalism avoids personally engaging each other’s ongoing needs. Adversarialism . We keep laws intentionally adversarial toward lawbreakers. Laws incentivize public respect for your exposed needs by promising to punish any noncompliance. Legalism normalizes such hostilities to the point of hindering cooperation and mutual understanding of each other. It has you continually viewing others as acting in bad faith when they actually could have good intentions toward you. You squash their good intentions when adversarialism prods you to distrust them and oppose them on a whim. Legalism prematurely pits us against each other in ways that promote mutual defensiveness. The more we mindless assert the supremacy of law, the more we objectify and dehumanize each other. Often to the benefit of law-based elites. And grave costs to our wellbeing. Responsive Solution Need-response doesn’t disregard law, but goes beyond mere impersonal laws. Need-response fulfills the purpose of law by directly engaging the needs laws exist to serve. Need-response answers the problem of toxic legalism by countering each of its five excesses. Replaces hyper-individualism with psychosocial balance . Need-response respects every individual within the context of impactful social systems and impactful environments beyond one’s personal control. Need-response balances an internal focus with an external focus to identify all contributors to a problem. Instead of objectifying you as an island, you’re treated holistically. Replaces hyper -rationality with respected vulnerability . Need-response encourages us all to acknowledge and affirm the less rational objective needs. We separate out how their expressed subjectively in our emotions. We make it safe for each other to drop their guard and honestly admit their challenging experiences. Instead of hiding behind reasoned arguments, you openly relate vulnerably to each other’s inflexible needs. Replaces relief -generalizing with relevant specifics . Need-response inspires you to let go of distracting generalizations to appreciate more of the nuance affecting your needs. It cultivates your relational orientation from outmoded generalizations toward relevant specifics affecting your needs. Instead of legalism’s overextended vagueness, you drill down to the specifics necessary to resolve needs, remove pain and restore wellness. Replaces avoidance with engagement . Need-response inspires you to benefit from the purpose of your pain, to resolve more needs that can remove cause for pain. It cultivates your easement orientation from relieving your pain toward embracing your natural pain as an essential process for resolving your needs. Instead of legalism’s overblown avoidance, you get to know each other’s overlooked needs so you can resolve them, remove their pain and restore each other’s wellness. Replaces adversarialism with mutuality . Need-response inspires you to switch from reflexively opposing your foes to intuitively distinguishing their unchosen needs from their chosen responses to them. It cultivates your conflict orientation away from mutual defensiveness toward mutual understanding, mutual engagement, and potential for mutual support. Instead of legalism’s overreach sparking perpetual mistrust, you develop the mutuality essential to more fully resolve each other’s needs, remove cause for each other’s pain and mutually restore each other’s wellness. After all, laws by themselves do not resolve needs; we do . Laws can be as arbitrary as much as the subjective ways you behave toward your needs. The needs themselves start as objective fact. And that sets our inflexible needs above flexible law. Need-response upends the norms expecting compliance to laws by asserting the higher standard of properly resolving each other’s needs. Legalism’s harm reduction standard too easily perpetuates pain by neglecting the underlying needs prompting our pain. Need-response serves the needs for which laws exist. No one’s impactful behavior sits above the law. But then no law sits above one’s objective needs behind that behavior. Accountability is less about compliance to manipulable law, and more to the bottom line of our measurable wellness outcomes. The better we can resolve our own needs without hindering others—or by supporting each other’s needs—the more the issues of law can naturally take care of themselves. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: You try disobeying a law and see what happens! Following laws seems so much easier than trying to figure out each other’s fickle needs. I doubt if Teddy Roosevelt meant the law itself must sit above human existence. The law sits above rhetorical needs; laws can govern if trusting water from a bottle or faucet. 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