338 - Decades Wrapped in Words

Every person that you've ever met likely has a handful of words, upon which they have built decades.

"The ability to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it."

One of the frequent questions I've encountered over the past decade has been curiosity about my name. It was more than a year ago when I discussed this briefly with Lasse Rindom on his podcast, The Only Constant, noting that I had crafted mine specifically to serve as a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier), optimally searchable, with meaning and history wrapped around the choice of it.

For most people their name is never changed from birth to death, or only as tradition within marriage, but never intelligently reshaped to reflect that handful of most important words, and the concepts that they convey. The concepts of mine are Game Theoretic, Stoic, and follow ecological principles (as well as computer science), such as:

The Law of the Minimum: "Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount. And, naturally, the least favorable condition controls the growth rate."

Stoicism in this context is particularly useful for avoiding the trap of M.A.D., Mutually Assured Destruction, not because destruction may not occur, but because when one side Stoically accepts that possible outcome they retain absolute control through the acceptance of it. The mutual understanding of this remains, and is readily apparent, leading to the marked absence of such destruction for decades at a time, as demonstrated. There is always the risk of it, but when one side moves stoically forward the other may easily move to avoid critical points, and the two operate symbiotically within an ecology.

All of this begs the question, what are the handful of words that you've wrapped the decades of your life around?

What words did you add to them over the years, in what order, and why?

What words have those around you wrapped the decades of their own lives around and within?

The first two questions are measures of self-awareness. The third is a much more difficult challenge, but an opportunity for those who rise to it.

Cognitive Biases make it easy to misjudge those around us, as well as ourselves, with weak and often negatively correlated proxies, causing cumulative drifts in prediction due to the human bias for favoring narratives. This can also be used to great effect for those aware of it, either as "Influencers" do to hijack and bolster, or as I did to erase, poison, and decohere the same, that I may do my work in peace.

For the past 20 years I've had more absolute control than anyone should, and I have worked according to my handful of words, quietly, patiently, and absent destruction. Though I couldn't hope for the next 20 to be as quiet, it is my hope that they will be absent destruction, and with far less centralized control. Most don't know this about me, nor do they know the person beside them any better.