The salients of Mind are Struggle, Discipline, and Nuture.

  • Struggle — Despite negative connotations, accepting and using struggle as a positive force.  In life, pain is inevitable while suffering is optional.  Understanding the difference unlocks agency.

  • Discipline — The force in life that pushes you towards something that is good for you but you don’t like

  • Nuture — The force in life that pushes you towards something that is good for you and you like

The point of Mind is to know which direction is up.  What are the baseline forces that pull you up no matter how much you wobble between chaos and order?

I argue that accepting and embracing struggle is necessary for the advancing in life, and that the twin ramps of discipline and nurturing are your keys to navigating upward.

A problem:

All truth is fiction.  I don’t mean this to equivocate or to to disparage capital T ‘Truth’. I mean to cement your idea of truth, one that will be continually refined through this book and likely for the rest of your life.  We must dispel the notion of capital T Truth being common. It does exist, there are a precious few simple Truths, things that are black or white, unmarred by the shades of gray we find everywhere else. We desire a Truth and that what is true for us is the one true Truth. Unfortunately for us, there are many competing truths, overlapping truths, and opposites in a debate can be (and often are) both true in different ways.

Picture Truth as a shiny cube floating in the air, you and your best friend are standing shoulder to shoulder looking at this glimmering shape of Truth.  Just by necessities of physical space you will be looking at Truth from different angles.  You will see slightly more of one side and he another despite looking at the same object.  Even it was your lover and your heads were smooshed as close as could be you would still catch different reflections.  Now you’re standing across from someone you just met and the cube of Truth is between you. You and the new acquaintance are asking metaphorically, “How do you see the cube? Do you see the way the light shines brightest at that corner? Oh it’s dull for you?”.  Jump ahead a bit, pack 1000 people as closely around the cube of Truth as you can, they’ll still need to be a good distance away so that everyone can have a view.  They’ll be far enough away that they can’t see the details of the reflection, but whole groups will see the same face of cubed Truth and not understand what people are seeing on the other side.

Thus Truth is a luxury product, one produced at great cost and at great risk.  Getting a clear view of Truth means you must get up close, experience it as directly as possible to avoid resurfacing and parroting others thoughts and views. will Rare is the relationship where the whole Truth is warranted and welcome, as soon as their is a second person there is a second view of Truth.

So Truth becomes a negotiation and we as humans are meant to be naturals at negotiation.  Our truth is another’s BS so we ask not “How can I avoid all of it?” but, “What is the optimal amount to put up with so I can still function in a messy and imperfect world?”

Because Truth is a form of might, but not the only form, and it still can and often does lose. But the leader, persuasive in nurturing his vision of truth he becomes and arbiter of Truth that maintains the discipline of the idea

Start with yourself.  You are your own leader, we’ll worry about the rest later. What are negotiations we can make with ourselves to generate Truth?