This is a distillation of my explorations into AdequateLife and GainedInSite, as well as general guidelines I live by.
Abstract
There is philosophical truth, and the most meaningful truths veer into the religious, but most people don’t like to talk about it because it makes people uncomfortable.
Bitterness and conceit are the two most destructive forces to the human soul.
Understanding
While knowledge is power, wisdom transcends knowledge through good purposes.
All perception begins with feelings, but good principles must guide them for the feelings to matter.
All perception is a biased, interwoven superset of stories. Facts are the stories with plenty of references. Data is stories that are lobotomized and heaped into ordered piles.
“Now” is all that exists. Tomorrow is a concept, and the past is a memory.
If the past hurts, thoroughly capture and accept it.
Only compare yourself to yourself.
Find things to be grateful for, then focus solely on those.
Every created thing is messy at first, but typically better than nothing. Instead of completely reinventing it, expand on the first successes.
What you don’t know right now is more important than what you do.
What we consume shapes us.
When you don’t know something’s value, it probably has value you can’t see.
Beyond the domain of the religious, nothing is truly permanent or endless.
Action/Purpose
Be as precise and brief as possible, and choose brevity over precision unless it needs it.
Never leave an idea alone, and constantly find new ways to use every known-good idea.
Action is more long-lasting than the image of the action, but the image is what everyone judges.
Success requires focus, failure, accepting failure, learning from failure, fixing what you broke, and trying again.
Kindness and success always depend on small things, so the things that matter are always small things.
Fear shouldn’t deter us, but we shouldn’t take unnecessary risks.
Details define all results, and theories never fully capture details.
Well-done things are never unimportant, even when they’re small.
Opportunities always exist when people are hurting or responsibility is neglected.
The only constant in life is change, so life requires endless rework, and this is inherently humbling.
The deepest meaning we can find comes from loving God, others, and ourselves, in that order. However, most people would rather not hear this.
We only find meaning in something when we like something about it, even if it’s that thing’s absence.
Beyond a very fine line, complexity is the enemy of utility.
Interaction
Treat others like yourself, and treat yourself like others, at least until personalities differ.
Stay honest, both with yourself and others.
All conflicts start in human minds, so good conflict resolution always involves self-awareness, reasonable expectations, and clear communication.
People are always more important than things, and an information shortage always makes other people more important than you.
Everyone else knows things you don’t.
When you’re not sure what other people are thinking, bet on their goodness. It’s the moral high ground and provokes them to be their best selves.
Those who live by litigation die by litigation.
If it looks free or says it’s free, the payment is something else.
The large print hides what the small print can take away.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Family/Friends
To make other people significant, trust them by asking them to do small favors for you.
The only healthy choices for conflicts are disagreement and avoidance.
Friends come and go, but they’re always worth the experience, and good ones are always worth preserving.
Expecting injustice increases its chances, and good preparedness stops when behavior and expectations become unreasonable.
Children are simply fragile, highly inexperienced, highly curious adults.
Don’t let people do things that cross your boundaries, and empower others to do the same.
Society
Work on yourself before working on society.
Feelings define understanding, and we can never really feel large-scale things accurately.
Every aspect of civilization improves life, but also makes everyone weaker.
All things require some form of faith or trust, and the secret to life is knowing which things are trustworthy. Trusting insufficiently leads to desperate and dangerous actions.
Reach out to institutions before condemning them, and only publicly criticize precise elements unless you’re entirely certain the world would be universally better without them.
Everyone should do what is right, which will love others. Everyone should be free to do what they want, until it hurts others.
In a conflict between the elite and the unwashed masses, choose the unwashed.
People lie about something proportionally to how much it may affect them. Institutions lie about something proportionally to how political it is.
The more money and power involved, the more risk-averse people become.
Make few rules, enforce them well. If they’re hard to enforce, consolidate your list of rules.
About 3-10% of people destroy everything for everyone else, depending on how much grace that culture permits it.
The faster a trend is adopted, the quicker it’s abused, and the quicker it phases out.
Don’t count your thieves before they’ve snatched.
Nothing is new under the sun, so all creations are well-veiled plagiarism.