Systems Help Us Move Forward

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Last column I wrote about how spiritual and psychological systems are useful in many ways, but one way is seeing how kind of ridiculous we can be. When you see your flaws as part of some psychological model or flows of energy, they seem lesser, they seem kind of foolish. Not to discount the very real psychological work we need, but some issues look more ridiculous when you classify them, like realizing you could just oil that squeaky hinge.

Systems – psychological, mystical, etc. – help us see we can be better. Which is something I’d like to address.

Having a “System of Self” (I probably need to make my own term here) means that you are viewing yourself as a process. You’re not solid, not inevitable, not immovable. You’re a thing of inputs and outputs, processes and changes, evolution and decay. You can change – and will change.

You can also decide on the kinds of changes you want to make. Because you are a system – be it one of energy flows or psychodynamics – you can decide how to direct and correct that system. When you think in systems you have a way to see yourself and see where you can make changes. From releasing repressions to changing your elemental balance, you have a way to ask what do I change.

That is incredibly empowering. Your system is a way to think of yourself so you can heal, evolve, and grow. To have a good system is to have a way to rethink yourself and to develop. When you see yourself as parts, it’s easier to be whole sometimes.

For myself, the use of energy flow concepts from Taoist practice, and the psychological ideas of the Five Elements are helpful. When I really began evaluating myself, seeing myself as these changing processes, my perspective shifted into one of tweaking and adjusting.

As noted several times in my writing, I don’t even think the system has to be that good or accurate. It just has to be something to get you started so you can start thinking and learning – and something with the leeway to let you play and think. I mean there’s plenty of criticisms of Freud, but his initial ideas were simple enough to work with.

I think we all need A System to think about ourselves. We need that power to say “yes I can evolve and change.”

–Xenofact

The Joyful Ridiculousness Of My Flaws

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I’ve written several times on how having spiritual and psychological systems is useful to deconstructing oneself. Even contrived and ridiculous ways to visualize and understand ourselves at least make us think about ourselves differently. I wanted to share some recent related insights – that they also help us take ourselves less seriously.

There are plenty of psycho-spiritual systems out there. Chakras, the microcosmic orbit, Freudian models, multiple souls, and so on. I myself use a mix of Taoist/quigong (energy centers, meridians, and evolving “treasures”) and Five Elements psychology theory from the same origins. My goal is essentially psychological and spiritual health, using them as models to help me grow – and they tie into my other readings.

What’s interesting is that when you use these systems you start seeing yourself as not a stable or solid thing, but a process. My tensions can be seen as energy blockages, created by and reinforcing psychological stress. The idea of evolving “the treasures” (vitality, energy, spirit) helps me see where my growth is blocked. The Five Elements psychological theories have been very useful to see how my mind is a process – one that can be strengthened, blocked, and so on.

Yes there are centuries – aeons – of history behind these ideas. Yes, they are often profound and there’s enjoyable commentaries made on them. But also they help me realize how many of my habits and so on are kind of ridiculous.

A weird semi-conscious tension seen as an ‘energy blockage” not only gives you a way to address that tension, but “defuses” it as “just a process.” Seeing reactions to particular stimuli as “Metal weakening wood” takes a conflict and helps me see it as just another phenomena that I can adjust. In many cases it makes me ask “so why do I go on with these painful habits” as they seem silly.

It doesn’t mean whatever habit or obsession I’m examining doesn’t exist for a reason. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good reason. It may be fully legitimate and actually traumatic, something to deal with. But it’s also part of a “spiritual system,” it’s all flows of energy or forces, it’s correctable, and I might as well get to fixing it.

Honestly, I think really getting into a spiritual and/or psychological system is a way to go “time to fix this shit” and sometimes “why the hell did I cling to that?” It’s quite relieving to take myself a bit less seriously so I can move forward. I can take the origin of some of my bad habits and trauma seriously, while deciding the current manifestation is something to move on from and see why not addressing it was sort of silly.

So yes, these ways of thinking about ourselves are helpful. They’re tools. They help us re-see ourselves. But they also help us see ourselves differently, and take ourselves a little less seriously and move forward.

–Xenofact

The Madness Of Moral Monoprinciples

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There’s a book I’ve mentioned a few times here, The Unaccountability Machine. It’s a book of why things in the 21st century suck, how we changed, and how we knew better. The very short form is that businesses (and thus governments and culture) became obsessively focused on stock price/monetary value and went bonkers. We’ve normalized it, we’ve built our culture around it, but it is in the end insane.

Directing your entire life by a single measure, building a world around it, diverting all your resources to it, is a short-term thing. It will break, as we in 2026 are realizing by basically reading the news.

This is business, but let me suggest that it can happen in culture and religion. A kind of Moral Madness where One Thing Matters which supposedly serves as a foundation, but eventually goes completely mad. Call it a Monoprinciple.

The anti-abortion movement in America was my first inkling of this. I’d see politicians, pundits, preachers, and followers utterly obsessed with banning abortion. Everything swirled around that motivation without any kind of moral consistency – no care for actual living children, living women, etc. There was an air of madness about it, a spinning inconsistency, wild-eyed and disturbing – leading to bombings, murder threats and further insanity.

Of course this played to the power of various politicians and preachers, but sometimes I wonder if they ended up riding the tiger they raised from a kitten.

Confucians and filial piety were another thing that got me thinking about Monoprinciples. It’s not hard to read any form of Chinese Philosophy and see something on filial piety and respect for family roles. Anyone who’s dealt with a dysfunctional family knows that such things aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. Though my readings were mostly Taoist, I did read Confucian books and other works of philosophy and history and you can feel those moments writers had to reconcile these issues – usually very poorly.

A hint of madness over the years, trying to reconcile to the reality of some parents just being pieces of shit. A hope for a foundation that wasn’t going to ever be found.

In Influencer-infused Christianity of 2026, as AI write this, there’s a peculiarly shallow madness. Talk of Jesus, of God, of some Christian Principles that are so important. Then people are trying to sell you Bible shoes or preachers are involved in a sex scandal or some Church-scamming politician spews absolute insanity in terms of policy. There’s so many people talking about how they’re so Christian, but it doesn’t seem to mean anything. It’s an empty madness, a hollow phrase, a Monoprinciple that can’t even be examined it’s so hollow.

Everyone wants the One Magic Thing that makes it all work. Or at least lets them convince others it’ll work so they can sell merch and pass the collection plate.

But it won’t work. You can’t invoke one magic principle or one magic name that supposedly Encompasses All Principles. Life’s weird and complex, definitions play into each other, moral actions require careful measurement. Just like the “Line Go Up” madness of the business world was invoked to pay a bill now coming due, it’s the same with moral principles, trying for a single measure will crash, even if you’re no longer around to flee.

It reminds me of the Taoist idea that “having the Tao” provides morals, duty, stability. Having that unity, that sense of connection is where principles come from. But to cling to one thing is to have it all fall apart.

–Xenofact