1. You're human, and humans want things
We naturally move toward a handful of things: psychological freedom, autonomy, competence, physical health, resource stability, positive emotion, relatedness, and meaning.
Mortal in Time
You get one life, and it comes with no rulebook. This is one attempt to figure out how to live it well, from modern research and older wisdom.
If you’re asking what the point is, you’re not alone
Section titled “If you’re asking what the point is, you’re not alone”I started this because I was stuck on the big questions: what to do with my life, how to do it, and what the point of any of it is. Older traditions offered answers but asked for faith; modern psychology offered evidence, but in pieces. This is my attempt to bring them together into something I can live by. I haven’t figured it all out, but here’s what I’ve found so far.
The short version
Section titled “The short version”Underneath all the detail, the idea is simple:
2. Two capacities help with all of them
Mindfulness: seeing clearly and easing suffering. Caring: looking after yourself and each other.
3. Living well is moving toward what you want
Using those two capacities, in ways that don’t add suffering you don’t need. That’s it.
The rest is the details
What each of these means, what the research and traditions say, and practical tools for each. It’s a working version, and it will change as I learn.
What it’s built on
Section titled “What it’s built on”See clearly
Truth and evidence over blind faith. If an idea here doesn’t hold up against research or lived experience, it should change, including the big ones.
Be what you are
You can’t stop wanting connection or competence any more than you can stop being hungry. The question is how to pursue them without making yourself miserable.
Suffer less, live well
Some pain comes with being alive. A lot more comes from how we fight it. The aim is less of the second kind.
Hold it loosely
This is a working draft, not a doctrine. Pages will change as I learn, and as people point out what I got wrong.
The ideas draw on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Self-Determination Theory, positive psychology, self-compassion research, attachment theory, and Internal Family Systems, alongside Buddhism, Taoism, and Stoicism. Sources are linked throughout.
Start here
Section titled “Start here”Read the introductionWhat this is, how to read it, and where to go next.
Help shape it
Section titled “Help shape it”If something here seems wrong, missing, or unclear, I’d genuinely like to hear it. This gets better through good criticism.