Welcome to Non trivial. I'm your host, Sean mcclure. The modern narrative frames structure and systems as oppressive as though we should never be held back by systems that interfere with our ability to express our unique selves. But being ourselves at all times with no system to govern our behavior is its own trap. The unfiltered and unstructured life is an unproductive and unfulfilled one.
I argue that there is a difference between the real you and the true you with the latter being realized through a system of ideals and made possible through things like ritual. In this episode, I talk about the importance of structure and how it paradoxically leads to more freedom. Let's get started. Most of us would agree that it's good to be our real selves, right? To kind of pull back some of those everyday filters and express ourselves the way we want to express ourselves.
We all have unique lived experiences and we want to be able to give that to the world. We want to be, you know, be able to say what's on our mind. We want to not have to go through life constantly, you know, keeping everything in check and, and, and having to always, you know, second guess what we're saying. We just want to be, we just want to live, we want to express ourselves, we want the unique us to come through and most of us would agree that that's, you know, a pretty good thing.
I mean, I think a lot of good things can come in life by being the real you. And wouldn't that be a more purpose filled life? Wouldn't that be, you know, have more meaning in our lives. If we could be ourselves, we don't want to go through life, you know, constantly under the guise of some, some, you know, restriction or constraint or some, you know, kind of system that, that, that holds us back or holds us down. We just want to live, we want to be ourselves.
And I think most of us would agree that, you know, at face value, you know, that seems like a pretty good thing. And that pretty much is the narrative of modern life today is to be yourself. Right? And, and we kind of are almost told that the systems that are in place, even though they're kind of a fact of life, they're kind of constraints, right?
Whether that is, uh, you know, the education system, uh whether that's the government, the set of laws that are in place in society, um uh religion, maybe whatever it is whenever we look at that set of, of that that those systems or those constraints, we tend to view them as things that almost get in the way of just us being ourselves. Right. We just want to be ourselves. I mean, most of us would probably agree on a lot of the legal constraints. Right. We understand why there are speed limits.
We understand why there are laws against violence against other people, for example. But when you get into things like the education system and religion and uh you know, a lot of policies that are put in place, you know, these can almost seem oppressive, they seem to get in our way. And I think there is some truth to that because not all systems are correct, but it's also true that complete autonomy and complete freedom can be not such a great thing. There are problems with that.
We can't just take it at face value that less constraints and less systems in place is necessarily a good thing. So let's use some examples, let's say we are going through life in a way that uh is just completely unfiltered and unrestricted. Is that a good thing? I mean, is it really good to have just kind of that complete autonomy and complete freedom?
So think about getting drunk, for example, most of us probably have experienced at least one point in their life uh or more of being more drunk than we should having too many drinks, right? And that's a good example, maybe an extreme example, but a good example of just having all the filters essentially gone removed and whatever is left is kind of the real US, right? Because it's not filtered, it's not constrained. We can just do what we want.
We know that when we have social situations, we're talking to people a few drinks and feels good for that reason. Right? We can be more talkative, especially if you're kind of introverted and not used to being very social. You, you're, you're more relaxed, you're, you know, you're saying what's on your mind, but there's a point where this can kind of become problematic, right?
Maybe we're talking to coworkers or, or, or even best friends and then we start to really say what's on our mind and then that could actually be a damaging thing. That could be something that when, you know, you get up the next day you start to regret, right?
Maybe I shouldn't have said that and yet it was the real you because it was in you, you were obviously thinking it but saying it still kind of had this damaging uh result uh potentially damaging or at least something that you tend to regret.
Uh You can imagine, uh you know, uh maybe anger is another example, maybe you're not just drunk, maybe you're just angry and you fire off a really angry email in the workplace and then maybe about 4.2 seconds later, you're like, oh crap, you know, maybe I shouldn't have done that or the next day, you think that, or you just say something in, in the heat of the moment and then you tend to regret it later.
And so if we think about, you know, the fact that, well, what, you know, if you're drunk or if you're really angry, you are saying something that is the real you, I mean, it was in you, you said it, you must have had some of these thoughts before and yet the removal of those filters is not really all good. There's something bad about it. So right away, we can say it's not true that just complete freedom is a great thing. There seems to be a role to play when it comes to systems.
When it comes to constraints, constraints seem to have a benefit to them, right? But there's something even deeper than that there. So if we look at the regret that we have when the filters are removed and we can say, well, maybe you regret it because you know, you like your friendship and you don't want to ruin the friendship. Maybe you are regretting it because you don't wanna uh you know, be fired, right? And you don't want to miss the opportunities that this, this job gives you.
Maybe you said something to your boss. Maybe you sent that angry email and the reason why you're regretting it is because oh, it's gonna have this after effect it's kind of like somebody who maybe, um, isn't, uh, you know, has infidelity in their relationship and you say, oh, maybe they're only regretting it because they got caught and other, you know, if they didn't get caught, it would have been fine. Well, I don't know about that.
I think the regret that comes from the things that we do, even when they are the real US, uh, we regret them because they don't align with who we want to be. So I'm gonna make a distinction here. Uh I think there's this realization that there is a difference between what I'm gonna call the real you and the true you. OK. The real you is who you are right now. So if you remove all the layers, you remove all the filters, that's what's left. OK?
So if you just spoke your mind and you were just totally, you were being yourself and you took all your lived experience and just expressed it on a regular basis and you didn't care what people thought. That's the real you, but being the real you has consequences but not just in terms of, you know, maybe you'll lose a job or maybe you'll lose friendship or maybe people will judge you too severely.
You also look upon what you do as the real you and realize, well, maybe that's not the person I want to be, maybe that's not the person I'm working towards and that is what I'm is what I'm gonna call the true you, you can come up with your own labels, but I'm just gonna call it the real you versus the true you because I want to use these labels to create what I think is an important distinction.
The real you is here is, is who you are right now, but who you are right now is not necessarily who you want to be. I think all of us should admit that whoever we are right now is not really who we're, is, is not the end game, right? Like there's more to learn, we want to grow, we want to develop. Maybe you want to be someone who reads more books. Maybe you want to be someone who learns a 2nd, 3rd or fourth language. Maybe you want to be someone who uh has better morality, right?
When we regret something like saying something to even a best friend when we were drunk or when we were mad. The reason why we regretting it is not just because maybe we're damaging the relationship. It's, it's, I think we're looking at it and realizing that's not really who we are as a true self. That might be the real me now because I removed the filters and that's what I ended up saying. But maybe I don't like that, maybe I don't like that about me.
Maybe there's a higher ideal that I would like to live up to maybe a better morality maybe uh uh your addition, maybe a higher education, not formal education necessarily, but just I wanna know another language or I want to be more well read. I want to know more about this topic. Maybe I want to be more analytical, less analytical. Maybe I want to be better at logic. Maybe I want to be better at spotting fallacies. Maybe I want to approach argument in a more rational fashion.
Uh Maybe I'm too rational and I want to be able to get more in touch with on an emotional level. But whoever we are right now, the real us is not necessarily who we want to be. In fact, it shouldn't really be. There should be a lot of good things there don't get me wrong. I don't think you should go hating yourself, but there must be a lot that you want to improve and grow all the way to your deathbed. Really, right.
We should constantly be in a state of adaptation and constantly be in a state of growth. So I want to make that distinction between the real you and the true you, the real you is who you are right now. And if you removed all those filters, you would see who that is. But I think that that would cause a lot of problems, not just from the fact that you're ruining relationships and maybe, maybe getting fired and judged and, and, and obviously we have, you know, filters in place for a reason.
But also because it, it kind of exposes who we are right now, which is not exactly who we want to be. And so the reason why I'm saying this is that I think that the constraints and, and the systems can exist for a reason, constraints can be a good thing because they can be ideals that we want to live up to. We can purposely not just go off and say whatever the heck we want because it's good to have filters in place.
It's good to have systems in place that, that are composed of a set of ideals that maybe we aren't right now, but that we want to work towards if that makes sense.
So constraints, if done right or systems restrictions could be restrictions on moral behavior, they could be restrictions on uh you know how to speak in front of people and, and maybe putting a smile on your face on a regular basis, even if you're not always happy, trying to approach arguments in a rational fashion, even if you're really angry and you don't want to be particularly rational in this moment.
In other words, the true you is kind of uh being governed if you will by a set of restrictions because you know, it's the person you want to be, even if that's not the person that you feel like in the moment, even if that's not actually the person that you are right now.
The real, you has a lot of great stuff about it, but there's also this other stuff, there's other crap that kind of gets in the way because, you know, it's not the true you, the true you is actually reflected in the system by which you live your life, the ritual if you will, which we'll get into in a bit by which you live your, live, your life, the structure that might seem like it's imposing, it might even seem like it's a bit disingenuous if I meet someone.
And let's say they're, uh, you know, they're always kind of romantic with their wife or something and it kind of comes across as a bit fake and it's like, well, come on, you know, you know, isn't that kind of corny or someone who is always, uh, seems to be maybe a bit dispassionate, maybe when they go into arguments, it's almost like you're trying to get something out of them and trying to get a rise out of them and you just can never get a rise out of them because they're always approaching it very logically.
And you might see, well, that's kind of disingenuous. Are you really that logical, uh, maybe someone is very pious in life, right? Maybe they, they come across as always taking a religious view on something and you kind of, you know, rolling your eyes like, oh, come on, you can't always be religious, right? And, and in some ways, it is kind of disingenuous because you're right.
Not everyone can always be logical or rational or, or, or, you know, spiritual or religious or, or atheist even, or whatever the thing is. And yet I think what they're doing if they're doing it right is they're living a targeted based life. And what I mean by that is it's not that they're trying to be disingenuous. It's that they're, they're setting up a set of targets for their life as a structure. They're putting a number of constraints in place because they know that's the true them.
That's what they're trying to work towards right now. There is such a thing as being disingenuous. Obviously, people can be very fake, but there's a difference between being disingenuous and, and living a life full of uh a good structure, a good ritual, a good set of targets that you try to do every day. Maybe that person smiles every day, not because they're actually happy, but also not because they're being disingenuous.
But because they know that uh you know, smiling on a regular basis has a really good byproduct in their life. It tends to lead to good things and it's the true you, you know, not because I think I'm supposed to be happy all the time, but because I think it's a good thing to work towards to just be amicable, amicable around people.
I'm not talking, talking about being super, super happy and having a ridiculous you know, some of these servers, uh, you know, these, these waitresses or waiters that come to you at the restaurant and they're super, super bubbly and it's kind of like eye rolling and annoying. Like, that's kind of disingenuous.
But if it's someone who just always puts a general smile on their face or someone who has a certain amount of healthy dispassion about them because they try to be rational if it's somebody who, uh you know, maybe they're being spiritual or maybe they're being atheist or whatever their structure is, but it's their true self. It's a thing that they're working towards. So let's just step back a little bit. So I said at the beginning, uh you know, we all want to be our real selves.
I get that and we should be the real selves. There's lots of good, unique things about us that we want to bring to the world. But if you just take that at face value and you remove the filters, we see that there's a lot of problems with that, it can get us into trouble, we could lose our jobs, we could lose relationships.
There's a reason that we have filters in place and more to the point if you really remove all the restrictions in life and you just have pure autonomy, there is what I, what I would call like a trap of autonomy or even uh the trap of authenticity, meaning that there's this self dampening aspect to when you remove everything and you don't have systems and you don't have structures, you don't have rules, you're not governed in any way. It actually really, really holds you back.
It has a lot of damage in your life and you don't end up doing what I think is working towards the true you. And so that's what I want to talk about is how do you work towards the true you, how do you realize that there are good structures in life, good restraints to have. And then if you do that, you can be, you can everyday work towards, uh you know, a better version of you and we all have better versions of ourselves, right? Imagine watching a series on television.
Maybe there's, you know, it's a, it's a fictional series and uh maybe there's a character in that show that you almost kind of look up to.
Maybe they have this, uh you know, maybe it's the way they approach the debates or arguments and maybe they have this resolve about them or maybe they have this kind of morality which is almost unrealistic and yet still kind of cool because it would be neat to, to have that as a target in your life to work towards maybe the true you wants to have that kind of resolve or that kind of morality.
Uh Maybe the, their world view the way they approach situations, uh maybe their erred, maybe their, their, their knowledge, maybe they seem very well read whatever it is, even though it's kind of unrealistic because, well, sometimes people are gonna get angrier, you can't know everything or there's no way you can be that rational all the time. But that doesn't mean you can't structure your life around those set of ideal ideals and live.
Not because you're trying to be disingenuous, but because you're trying to live what I would call a targeted based life, right? You have those targets in place, you have good restraints, you have a ritual if you will a system that isn't oppressive, but that keeps you adapting to something that, that, that, that, that's better than you are right now if that makes sense. So we want to be real, but a complete lack of filters and restraints is actually its own trap because it gets you into trouble.
You can, you can ruin relationships and exposes kind of not necessarily, it exposes who you are today, but that's not necessarily who you want to be. So I think when you look at the difference between uh the real you and the true you, the true, you says we should have some structure in place. Those can be based on a set of uh ideals that we want to live up to. And it can make sense to structure your life in that fashion.
And so I think there is actually much more freedom to structure than there is to a complete uh removal of, of, you know, a structure of ideals that you want to live up to. And that's what I want to talk about now is that mechanism of um why structure actually leads to freedom? So, I, if you just think of the definition of freedom, you might think, well, it's a lack of constraint, right? It's like a full autonomy. It's a lack of filters. It's a lack of laws, it's not being governed.
I don't think that is freedom because AAA as per the conversation I just had, you know, those points I was just making. If you do that, it holds you back, it constrains you, there is this trap of uh of, of uh of authenticity. There is a trap of autonomy, meaning that if you just totally release the filters and you have no structures and you have nothing governing your life, you end up not really going anywhere. You end up in this very kind of self dampening state. It keeps holding you back.
You can't make connections, you can't make relationships, you can't get what you do out the door to be free is to take your unique creativity, to take your unique ideas and your unique lived experience and be able to get it out the door. What I mean, when I say get it out the door is to build things, to create things in life that actually bring fulfillment to your life.
And that can only happen is, if you can rein in all the chaos, the beautiful chaos that makes you, you, you know, it makes the unique you and, and anchor it in a way that gets it out the door that converts it into something that people can use and can see and can enjoy. Maybe that means writing on a regular basis in a blog post or maybe that means writing a book. Maybe that means producing art. Maybe that means uh literally creating uh you know, physical sculptures in wood or clay.
Maybe that means architect something new, maybe that means putting social programs together whatever it is we are meant to create and to build. I mean, if you really want to feel free, you need to be able to rein in your beautiful chaos and anchor it onto a system onto a structure that's going to allow that to happen. So I don't think freedom is, is the lack of constraints. I don't think the freedom is a lack of structure. I think freedom is bred by structure.
Freedom is made possible by structure is made possible by having systems in place that enable us to get our beautiful chaos out the door if that makes sense. So we need to rethink about how about the definition of what freedom is and realize that structure is good. System is good. Now, I'm not saying all systems are good. I'm not saying there's no such thing as an oppressive system. I'm not saying that, you know, as long as you have a structure then, then you're good to go.
That's definitely not the case. So we're gonna talk about how to put something effective in place. But I wanna, you know, again, just step back, we want to be our real selves. We know there's a lot of good stuff to that, but at face value that is not actually a good thing because it causes all kinds of problems. I think there is the trap of uh uh of, of um being yourself too much.
There is that trap of authenticity if you will um that trap of autonomy where just that alone gets you into all kinds of trouble holds you back. Doesn't really allow you to be free. It's actually a trap, it constrains you. That's the real constraint is, is the naive belief that a lack of system, a lack of uh a lack of structure, a lack of ritual is going to somehow free you. It's not, it's gonna trap you when you put a system, a good system, a good structure, a good ritual in place.
That is what enables you to reign in your, your beautiful chaos and get things out the door and produce value and really give you a very free feeling of fulfillment. OK. But why does that work? I mean, why would a set of constraints allow you to build more, produce more, to actually feel free? Well, this comes down to what I would consider the tractability of very hard problems.
You know, I talk about solving hard problems, non-trivial problems, hard problems being problems that have a lot of epidemic uncertainty. You know, real world complexity, right? Things that don't have obvious solutions to them. You can't just use deduction to whittle your way down to the answer. Um You can't, you know, just, just use analysis to try to figure out the best path. And that's very much the real world situations that we face every day.
Well, the only way to make those tractable is through trial and error. We have to um, vigorously embrace trial and error, which really means that you have kind of three main ingredients, right? And you see this in natural selection, you see this in nature, you see this in any kind of tractability to hard problems, which is, you have to have a lot of variations. You have to try a lot of different things. You have to have a lot of iteration, you have to try it again and again and again.
And then you have to have a kind of selection where you select the best pieces and you select them for it and you move the best pieces forward. Well, the only way to do that is is to basically focus on just the process itself, meaning instead of trying to say, well, what should I do with them in my life? You know, what are the tasks I should specifically work on. How much time should I work on it? What is that going to lead to instead of doing all that kind of lower level analysis?
What you should just focus on creating variation, doing many iterations and selecting for it, just focus on the high level process itself and the more that you can do that, the more benefit uh beneficial kind of second order and third order byproducts, you're gonna have the more benefit that's going to bring your life, the more freedom you're gonna have, the more uh you're going to be able to reign in your chaos and, and be able to produce many things because again, the only way to go through life and to figure out, you know, what to work on and how to produce a lot of things, you know, what you're doing is you're solving problems, you're regularly solving problems and these problems are hard.
They, they, they are not subject to deep analysis, they're not subject to deduction. You can't whittle your way down in this kind of logical, purely logical fashion. You have to embrace the ass. You have to have a lot of trial, you have to have a lot of error and only through massive trial and error can you get there. So how do you get a lot of massive trial and error in your life?
Well, this is where structure comes in when you have a structure in place it allows you to embrace the chaos because it anchors it, and it anchors it in a way that works, it anchors it in a way that is commensurate with how nature happens. In other words, a good system, a good structure exists for a reason it exists because it has stood the test of time.
It's because people have realized that this particular structure or a structure like it tends to rein in a lot of the chaos and, and anchor it in a way that allows it to be funneled towards something productive. So it's not a system that's trying to oppress or to hold people back. It's a system that works. Only certain structures in nature are commensurate with the, with, with producing outputs that are actually feasible, that are actually tractable, that actually produce good things.
So when you get a good structure in your life, what you're doing is you're finding a set of anchors that reign in the chaos that facilitate the trial and error that allow you to have a lot of creative and in and, and ingenious ideas that, that, that allow you to bring your unique messy self to the situation. But to do it in a way that gets things out the door. That's why structure works. Good structure. A good system works because it anchors the chaos. It, it doesn't get you away from chaos.
It doesn't get you away from expressive, expressiveness or expressing yourself. It doesn't get you away from all that beautiful mess. It allows you to leverage the beautiful mess. It allows you to take the trial and error and the more you just focus on just the process, the more trial and error you will get. Because what holds you back when it comes to solving hard problems is the analysis is when you try to create these causal stories.
Well, I want to know how this leads to this and this leads to this, that robs you of the ability to embrace high levels of trial and error because it gets you fixed on one thing or few things and you think you're going down the right path, you need to let go of that, embrace the uncertainty, do a lot of trial and error on a regular basis and uh and have and, and the way that you do that, the only way you can do that is with a good structure. OK? So we want to be our real selves.
We know that's important. It is important. It's really, really good to be the real you. But at face value, it's highly problematic. If you don't have any kind of structure in place, we see that there's this um trap of autonomy, right? There's this trap of being just the real you because it, it creates all these kinds of problems.
It, it ruins relationships and more to the point it gets you away from the true you and the true you is what you're trying to become the true you is the set of ideals that you want to work towards. And the way to do that is to have a structure in your life. And that structure is actually giving you more freedom because it facilitates the trial and error, having the structure anchors in it reins in the chaos and allows you to get your beautiful chaos out the door.
That's why you want to have structures in place. So the only remaining question now is like, well, all structures aren't good, right? So how do we create a good structure? How do we know that we're going to go through life and put something in place that can anchor our chaos and get things out the door? Yeah, we, we, we understand that we got to be the truth, the true us, not the real US, right? We want to work towards something we want to have a structured set of ideals.
Well, this really comes to putting a ritual in place every day, a structure or system in place every day that you know, is going to help facilitate this. And this comes back to something that we talked about in the last episode, which was paying attention to signals. We were doing that in a different context.
But again, complexity works by giving you these high level signals and what I want you or anybody to do if you're not doing this already is to look at your life and say what has worked and what has not worked. What is it throughout your past? If you really think about all the trial and error and the more trial and error you do, the more you're going to be able to do this. OK. So it's not about coming up with a structure and then saying that's it.
Remember I've talked about the true meaning of Ockham's razor before where the true meaning is to put something simple in place so that you can destroy it very easily and redo it. In other words, you always want to have the structure, but it doesn't have to be the right structure. It has to be tight, it doesn't have to be right. It has to be tight. It's not to be right.
The tightness is you have AAA high level rigid structure in place to facilitate the trial and error, but it doesn't have to be right. It's always gonna be revamped. It's always gonna be revamped. You should always be willing to change what that structure is, but you have to have a structure in place. OK?
So the way that you choose that structure is, you take a look at your life and you notice that, you know, when I get up five in the morning and I write for 30 minutes, it seems like I can sustain my writing on a more regular basis. That seems to work. I notice that when I try to just work out by myself. It doesn't work very well. But when I go with a bunch of friends, it seems like I'm more motivated to work out.
So that, that, that seems to work for exercise and you go through all these different things in your life and there are signals there and stop trying to figure out exactly why you don't need the exact reason why something works. You just know that when you do this behavior, this seems to lead to good results. And most of that when you look upon via introspection in your life is probably not gonna be good things.
Like, you know, a lot of stuff doesn't work, but there are a few things via signals that do work. Take those and structure that into a ritual that you do every day. And it's important that you do it every day because it's more about the process than the thing. Ok? If you write every day, you're definitely going to get either a lot of blog posts or a book published or whatever it is in the writing, I can't tell you that you can't even tell yourself that you don't know.
But you know that if you pay attention to the ritual, a lot of good things are going to happen. If you exercise every day, you could. Yeah. But I don't know what to exercise. You know, we talked about this last episode. I don't know what the exercise is, I don't know what to do it, it's not about that. That comes as a byproduct eventually, whether you work out with people, whether you work out with yourself, whether you, you know, resistance training, right.
Long distance and mix and match all that again. That should always be changing anyways. But you, the point is is that you do it every day. Right. Well, should it be an hour, should it be a 10 minutes? Should be there? But you start low, start 10 minutes. It doesn't matter. Having the ritual in place means you focus on the process. It's all about the process. You have to have variation, you have to have iteration and you have to have selection.
And if you do that and if you structure that set of constraints and it's a set of constraints because every day I get up and, and almost as a ritual, I'm going to do these sets of things. I don't know what it's gonna lead to. I know it's gonna keep changing, but I always have that structure. That structure will breed you freedom. That structure will reign in your beautiful, unique experiences and your chaos and put it into something that allows you to get that out the door.
You might not know exactly what it is. I don't know if it's a book. I don't know if it's a blog. I don't know if it's a podcast. I don't know if it's a social thing. That I create. If it's a group, it's a book club, it doesn't matter, it's always gonna change. But by having a structure, you rein in the beautiful chaos and you get it out the door. OK. So just to wrap up, we want to be our real selves. We know there's good stuff to freedom. We know there's good to expressing ourselves.
We want to be able to tap into that unique ability. But that alone is not a good thing. There is uh a trap of autonomy, a trap of authenticity. Meaning if you just have the authentic self, yes, you're being the real you, but there's all kinds of downsides to that. It's not reined in, it's not structured. There's no reason you're going to be able to get that out the door. Uh You, you, you have to be able to convert that into something.
And uh and we also notice that if you just remove those filters, you see a lot of bad things about yourself because you're not exactly who you want to be today. You're not as uh well read, you're not as speaking of many languages. You're not as, you know, rational, logical or emotional or whatever it is. You think the set of ideals that you want to work towards, we're always adapting and, and trying to be something better.
So it's not about being the real you, it's about being the true you and the way that you be the true you is by having a structure in place and structure gives you freedom, structure gives you the ability to get things out the door structure. If you do it every day, it's not about, well, what are you doing? And, and what's it gonna look like and what set of actions are going to lead to the outcomes? You don't know that.
But if you put variation iteration and selection in place, meaning a lot of trial and error, then you know, it's going to lead to things because that's how hard problems attractable. And the way that you make sure that you're always making many attempts and you're, and you're selecting for it and you're iterating and iterating to make sure the, the way that you make sure you always focus on trial and error is by having structure is by having a system in place. OK?
And you might notice over time and again, the way to create the system is you, you pay attention to signals in your life, what is working, what isn't working? Take the things that are working, connect them into a kind of ritual and do it every day. It's all about the process, right? It's all about the process. And you might notice that the ritual you create actually overlaps with other rituals that might exist in life.
You might notice that a certain exercise program that someone is offering has about a 70% overlap with what you created. And that's ok. It doesn't have to be completely uniquely your own uh system. You might say, hey, that's a good system. You might, uh notice, uh, you know, a religion has a, uh set of, uh, things that they do on a daily basis as a ritual that overlaps with half of what you discovered yourself.
And you might say, you know what, that's kind of attractive, maybe I'll go talk to people there, uh, or maybe it's atheism and maybe it's not religion. Now, I'm not here to push any particular thing. But you might notice that the fundamental truths that you discover in the structure that you put together to get things out the door to make you more productive, overlap with some timeless truths that have existed uh for hundreds or even thousands of years that other people have discovered.
And that might help you work with people that might help you continue to build your own system can build, build your own structure. Uh You look at today's economy and say, you know, yeah, I, I think maybe this aspect of, you know, democracy and capitalism is good, but these other aspects are not good. They are genuinely i oppressive, right? Uh Maybe they don't have that true meaning of Ockham's razor built in where the, the, the structure is put in, but you keep reinventing it, reinventing it.
Or maybe it's kind of like the micromanagement I talked about in the last episode where you can have a system, you can have a hierarchy in place. But if you're intervening too much at the level below, then it's actually fragile and problematic. So this is not an argument for systems at face value being good. It's that structure is needed to have the freedom that you're seeking.
And if you work towards paying attention to signals, you can create really good structures, you can create good um rituals throughout your day. And it becomes all about that all about the focus on the process. And if you do that, you can truly have the freedom that you want and bring value to the world and b not the real you but the true you OK. That's gonna be it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening.
Hey, I just want to say uh if anybody can take a few seconds to go over to Apple Podcasts and just give me a five star rating, assuming you liked what you heard, it really helps a lot. Uh It kind of helps you rank it a little bit higher, brings more attention to the podcast itself. So it's pretty easy. You just go to Apple Podcast, you scroll down on that on, on Non trivial and there should be a place to give it a five star rating if you could go ahead and do that. Thanks so much.
But as always to everybody, thank you so much for listening until the next episode. Take care.