Adults Do Exist.
You know this is not a matter of age.
I know that every day you have to deal with kids that just grew up.
They have beards, wrinkles, driver licenses, and the right to vote.
But they are just grown-ups. At least until today.
Because adults:
They wait for no one’s approval or permission.
They don’t whine about the system; they outgrow it.
They don’t pretend that reacting is the same as living.
They seek basic feedback from others, but approval only from themselves.
They can get to their flow through higher agency at will. But more than that later.
They have ownership.
Solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, 9to5ers, monks, nuns, hermits.
Doesn’t matter.They eat as much candy as they want or should.
And if their tummy aches, they blame no one but themselves.
Adults have higher agency.
The paradox here, is that all kids have higher agency as a default setting.
But then, somehow, we lose it.
It’s like a gift you have to lose to regain, so you can appreciate in full.
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Clubbed To Death
Rob Dougan’s Club to death videoclip shows exactly this pursue.
In the video clip, everyone is working backwards except giants.
Rob Dougan tries to walk forward too.
Whether he makes it or not I’ll leave it for you to discover and enjoy once more this masterpiece.
“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place.
And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”
— Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
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Higher Agency x Flow Code
This is what higher agency is. To just do things: → You take a decision → You do the thing → You pivot as necessary → You treat triumph and disaster (those two great imposters as Kipling coined) the same
But why do we lose high agency? Because we do not pursue our flow.
→ We don’t use our skills
→ We take low challenges
→ We don’t upgrade ourselves
School rewires our brains into low flow and low agency states:
You go talk to kindergartners or first-grade kids, you find a class full of science enthusiasts.
They ask deep questions. They ask, “What is a dream, why do we have toes, why is the moon round, what is the birthday of the world, why is grass green?”
These are profound, important questions. They just bubble right out of them.
You go talk to 12th graders and there’s none of that. They’ve become incurious.
Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade.
—Carl Sagan
But it’s not just school.
In modern times weird states look normal, or romanticized / idolized.
Getting burnouts. Being stoned, drunk, silly, vain, vague, dramatic, and the lot.
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Still, we have endless Freedom mediums.
An abundance of ideas, gadgets, widgets, systems, opportunities.
But, at the same time, we have endless reasons to derive from discipline.
For simplicity’s sake, discipline is what makes you, well, you.
No cold showers, meditation, fasting, or marathons if they are not your thing.
Adults do have discipline.
And they use their chaos to build order. Grow. Learn. Have fun. Live.
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No frameworks today.
If you need, here you can learn more about:
△ Flow
△ High Agency
Remember, you can just do things.
Every step forward costs skin, and adults pay it with no complaints.
Because freedom’s price is agency.
Adults do exist.
And you are one of us.
The world needs you. You need you.
Lifeward,