Knowing what to do is important, but executing on the "how" is what makes the difference.
This is universal truism that everybody knows, it's boring and nothing new but somehow, a lot of our human problems resolve on this very simple quote.
It can be boiled down into, knowing what to do is important means obtaining knowledge.
Executing on "How" to do it is wisdom.
But the very essence before knowledge or rather knowing what to do, is data and data comes from observation. Turning unfiltered data into something useable or at least bind the unfiltered data is called synthesis. Making those data usable or in a sense practicality into it is the very essence of the meaning of the sentence "knowing what to do".
But knowing what to do is hard, what if we're wrong? Etc etc
I would like to boil down my personal problems into two distinct categories
- The Money Problem
- The Fulfillment Problem (Or what sometimes, most people would call it "The Belonging Problem" I think is of the same)
The money problem is a universal problem, quotes like "Worrying about income, worrying about not having enough money in the future." And at least having our worries alleviated the moment we conclude ourselves that we have enough money. Survivalish things and satisfaction or for some, materials and posession are obtained by money and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying by what I mean a "problem" it means that it needs to be solved otherwise it will give the self "unpleasurable sensations".
The Fulfillment problem or the belonging problem means that the self feels a sense of belonging in the world. It does not see the world as something grim or alien to the self, rather the self can makes sense on why his position in the world is crucial as the abscence of it, will bring unpleasurable sensations to those around the self. Abscence of it, means the self feels it's existence is insignificant and could lead to the justification of voluntary death of the self. The belonging problem greatly scales, but not just only at an egocentric sense, but also how the self is perceived to be something of value. The sense of belonging of the self is important not only when he is alone but how the self interacts with others, this is to be given by family, workplace, and sometimes how the self wants to be perceived by the world, to be of something significance for humanity, absurd as it seems, but it's a good driving force and what I sometimes romanticized as much as somehow, humanity is driven by "value".
An Article published my McKinsey in 9 January, 2024, Ten unsung digital and AI ideas shaping business
Keeping your eye on where value comes from is still the name of the game.
This might sound like business 101, but it’s surprising how often companies lose sight of it: the point of digital, AI, and tech isn’t getting better at digital, AI and tech; it’s building value. A big reason for falling short of financial targets in a digital and AI transformation is not setting the targets correctly from the start.
Ironic as it seems, what really drives the economy is the emergence of business, from the simplest of the trading of goods, then the utilization of labor in business, snowballs to the point that is untracable that shaped the modern world, but still from the business that relies on the trade of goods, the name of the game is still "Value". It's embarassing to even still call it truism anymore, but companies do still lose sight, as in companies who burnt money on employment, investment on technological advancement, but still failing short, as how the Kate Smaje from McKinsey puts it "not setting the targets correctly from the start."
The theory of "Is Humanity really driven by value or is it driven by it's own self interest?" Has been bugging me for quite a while for at least a month. But now I think it has a clearer sense that at least there's some grain of truth into it. From the perspective on how companies thrive, as how every companies need to deliver something of value to their customers, to the point that the value that they are giving is not easily replicable by other companies, is what makes great companies great.
I believed in that philosophy that just by seeing the reasons why companies fail, it's that if we are measuring value from a monetary accounted perspective and how we bind "money" and "gifts" to a sense of "value". Then it is justifiable to say companies that are able to be on a net positive cashflow year over year, month over month, is net positive value to the world.
This philosophy works from my perspective looking at "majority of companies" what I can't get around is to extrapolate the philosophy to the likes of politicians that harms their country out of their own self interest or sometimes like mistakes of the past that brought the 2008 crisis where some group of people inflate the "Value of money" laced on CDO (collateralized debt obligations) just to ruffle and fall like jenga stacks. Are those people really doing what they are doing because they believe what they are doing is providing value to humanity or they only care about the sake of themselves as they ruffle the numbers while knowing the consequences of the jenga falling down that tens of millions will become homeless and unemployed?
If we were to metaphorize this claim of a human nature to a color of a starting canvas that black is whatever the self does is out of their own self interest and white that what the self does is out of kindness and wanting to give something of value to other humans because it what makes him happy. Which is it? Is it starts off white or does it starts off black? I really think, it starts off white, the nature of conscience and knowing what's universally good and universally bad like don't murder, don't hurt other people, don't steal, and ultimately, treat others the way you want to be treated. The wisdom of acting how to treat others the way they want to be treated is coming from the ability to mentally project oneself to other people, and what better kindness that the self can do than to give something of value to other humans knowing that he finds happiness had the other person is giving them something of value the way he wants to be given happiness?
Now coming back to the root 2 problems
- The Money Problem
- The Fulfillment/Belonging Problem
I can see it that those two problems greatly intertwines if we take the theory of "Humanity is Driven by Value." If we respect this theory that we as a human being love receiving something of value from other humans thus justifies our actions to be as valuable as a human being as we possibly could, then we could have a sense of belonging to the world as the world is just composed of us and other humans alongside the products that other humans have made for us (our technology, books we read, music we listened, phones we used, electricity we used, clean drinking water that are made accesible to us) for without these great advancement of welfare, our time in living will be greatly spent on foraging and gathering clean drinking water for at least half in our every day just to make sure we can keep living biologically, then people of the past, sort of solved that problem and make it more efficient, clay tablets written in stones on how to distribute foods and through better logistics, perpetual cycle of value creation, each of tomorrow is better than yesterday, makes it as seem, the people who does not abide the value principle is outcasted in the old civilization as their nature does not synchronize to the value that the civilization expects them to be, give value to the civilization and now the self will be rewarded by money. Thus the civilization that we live in today. But value is polluted, just like how corrupted politicians can easily escape unscathed despite of the blatant corruption that they did. From value receiving (of money) comes happiness and unregulated sense of happiness from the lack of self awareness and cognition. As I believe that No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks, Heavily resemblances the nature of corrupt and harmful politicians, as much as we would like to pin them to the ground, they will always have an alibi because he does not believe what he does is evil or at least he already made up his mind that he deserved the wealth he inexcusably stole from corruption, dirty disgusting outliers.
The point of the writing of this article is to help myself. How do I position myself so I don't get jaded in life, what makes people keep living as I am in the past, was gravely suicidal, I believe that there must be a sustaining thing that comes whether unconciously or consciously through the help of cognition. To leverage with the cards that I've been given with from existing, the cards of emotions and cognition. The pleasure of love and the pleasure of belonging and the despair that comes from the lack thereof. Is it really a nature for humans to be happy when it revolves in his mind that his life and character of the self simply radiates value. People loves him as the breathe of the elixir of life called oxygen is converted to energy that is spent on doing something of value, not only metaphorically by the receival of wage but also the work that he loves doing.
Then if it is indeed true that humanity is driven by value, the it can be implied the belonging of oneself towards humanity as a solution to problem 2, then the solution to problem 1 will simply follows. What happens that appears in phenomena is that when one solves problem 1, does not guarantee the solution to problem 2. Rich people can be rich but still miserable. But people who have a great sense of belonging can be adequately poor but happy. Which way issit modern man?