“The cure to complexity is simplicity. That is why the primordial heuristic informing all heuristics is, ‘Keep It Simple.’” Flyvbjerg, 2021
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.", John Milton
Make mistakes of ambition, not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer. - Machiavelli.
“For action is indeed the sole medium of expression for ethics.” ― Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics
“People today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox of their condition. They know themselves to be the supreme end to which all action should be subordinated, but the demands of action force them to treat one another as instruments or obstacles, as means. The more widespread their mastery of the world, the more they find themselves crushed by uncontrollable forces. Though they are masters of the atomic bomb, it is created only to destroy them. Each one has the incomparable taste of his own life in his mouth, and yet each feels himself more insignificant than an insect within the immense collectivity whose limits are one with those of the earth.”, Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity
“Well, informed cynicism is merely another form of conformity.” ― Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason
“They’re talking about things they don’t have the slightest understanding of, anyway. It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.”, Franz Kafka, The Trial
“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.” Dante
“Everything is difficult before it becomes easy.”, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”, Proust
“All men are intellectuals, but not all men have the role of intellectuals in society.”, Antonio Gramsci
In this section, the balance dimensions of wisdom and complexity will be addressed.
Wisdom: Reflexive action: a balance between action and reflection in various forms, such as education, consciousness, raising (Freire, 2000), pactivity (Bornemark, 2020), and cynicism (Sloterdijk, 1984).
Complexity: Simplexity: a balance between simplicity and complexity, as a way of coping with living in a complex system marked by genuine uncertainty.
Become an organic intellectual. Being an intellectual has become something few people identify with. Gramsci (1971) argued that this is a problem and maintained that everyone should strive to be “organic intellectuals”, in the sense that one can have an ordinary job and still be an intellectual and strive for intellectualism in one’s thinking. However, there are several bad habits among people who claim to be intellectuals that have cast intellectualism in a negative light in the eyes of some, leading them to emphasize common sense instead. The intellectual may be an over, specialized “narrow, minded expert,” academicized without being a well, rounded “scholar,” overly confident in their conclusions, preferring confrontation over deliberation in the public sphere, and overestimating their own expertise (Tetlock, 2015), blind to their own confirmation biases that color their conclusions, sometimes to the point of pure dogmatism (Friedman, 2020), a high level of analytical skill but a lack of wisdom, a low level of education, or being “dumb, educated”, where one’s education is rather empty and pursued mainly to display cultural capital and symbolic power, a tone that can be condescending, acting as a “useful idiot,” lacking sufficient curiosity about values, which causes one’s opinions to be stuck in a particular conviction, and so on.
Regardless of all this, intellectualism is something to strive for, but it must be pursued with humility and an awareness of just how much can go wrong when we try to think. The organic intellectual has several advantages over the specialized intellectual who practices it as a profession. The organic intellectual has another job to make a living, which means they do not need to be as dependent on a particular set of views as an “opinion entrepreneur.” The organic intellectual is grounded in something more concrete than the abstraction that can arise from being merely an intellectual. Furthermore, they often feel a stronger connection to society because their work can be hard, in comparison to the well, paid intellectual who may lead a rather comfortable life. It should be noted that independent intellectuals who have sought refuge within an interest group may feel the weight of society. But for the vast majority of those who claim to be intellectuals, they can take comfort in the security offered by a media company or interest group.
To be an organic intellectual, one must elevate intellectual life as something good. This includes various forms of reflection, reading, writing, conversations, discussions, and debates. It includes striving to educate oneself, in other words, embracing a life of intensive learning. Many people present themselves as intellectuals but lack epistemic humility. One of the biggest problems is that once you’ve learned something, you become too certain that you have the solution and have seen through the world, a phenomenon known as “naive technocratic realism” (Friedman, 2020).
Find ways to engage with the debate. To engage with the research debate, you need to become a reader. Read academic literature and magazines that report on research. Reading student, level literature and textbooks is something most people can afford to do, one or two books a month instead of a streaming subscription, but for everyone, the library opens up a wealth of opportunities.
Communicate with others who don’t think like you. Political scientist Bo Rothstein has said: “A surefire way to become narrow, minded is to only talk to people who think just like you.” This insight reflects how the research community is structured, it can be described as “organized doubt.” What enables researchers to arrive at new insights isn’t that they themselves are so smart, but rather that they are forced to engage with other researchers who think a little differently, with different perspectives and abilities, which compels the researcher to sharpen their own abilities. This is an example of human distributed cognition; we reach our potential as thinking beings when we are challenged in the right way. The problem with today’s public discourse is that many debates are so focused on winning that they fail to become a space for learning together and supporting one another’s thinking. To get the most out of the discussions and debates you find yourself in, approach them with the mindset that the other person can teach you something, whether about the weaknesses in your own thinking, the lack of clarity in your own reasoning, or that you were wrong or missed part of the complexity. This may feel unfamiliar, since it’s normalized to give the impression that you’re completely certain of your position. Another problem in today’s public discourse is that people confront one another as if in a “trench war,” where they do indeed engage with the other side’s arguments, but they do so with an attitude of conflict and a desire to win rather than to learn.
Curiosity about values and curiosity about science. Dan Kahan has shown that in the U.S., people with higher levels of education tend to become more polarized on controversial issues than those with less education (2017). This pattern may not hold true in all countries, but it highlights the risk that even those with extensive education can be strongly polarized on various issues and may use their ability to think to affirm their identity rather than to learn about the issue (Kahan, 2017). Kahan suggests scientific curiosity as a remedy, in which one strives to take greater pleasure in being surprised by new information rather than feeling threatened by it, as it may lead to the realization that one is wrong. Even those who cite research may not be scientifically curious; rather, the research is merely used strategically to confirm their own beliefs. Scientific curiosity allows us to be humble about not knowing exactly and to recognize that the process of learning something new can be exciting. Value curiosity is a similar openness directed toward values and ethics (Berglund, 2026). Value curiosity allows one to be open to discovering different values, weighing different principles against one another, discovering how values and principles can be understood in different ways, and how they can be combined into a coherent whole. One of the greatest sins committed by many intellectuals and others in society is being completely entrenched in one’s own values. Some even believe that simply stating that they adhere to a certain ideology is sufficient, as if that were enough.
Intellectualism focused on one’s own search for the good life. Some people are intellectual about everything except their own lives, which means they may have wise thoughts about other things, yet at the same time their own lives may be in shambles. If you have a problem in life, you can find support in philosophy, literature, culture, and science to help you deal with it. This can lead to the realization that you are not alone in your problem, it is a societal issue and often a universal human experience. Thus, when we grapple with our own problems, we can learn about the problems of others. An inward gaze can become an outward gaze; caring for oneself can become caring for others.
A common problem is experiencing intrapsychic conflicts. This can stem from conflicting cultural ideals (Illouz, 2013), from placing reason on a pedestal, which leads people to overthink, resulting in doubt and inner conflict (Archer, 2007), from excessive pressure at work, or from being subjected to power structures that cause one to internalize the belief that one has problems in life (Scheff, 1990). These intrapsychic conflicts are, in fact, external conflicts present in society; when they accumulate in the mind, they can create pain and other negative emotions. Through intellectualism, we can analyze these societal problems to give ourselves the space to create challenging chains of thought and discourses of resistance. These discourses are often found in culture, philosophy, and science.
Learn to identify logical fallacies, biases, statistics, rhetorical tricks, and emotional manipulation. Often, when we communicate with others, the is riddled with mistakes that can build upon one another until we ultimately lose touch with reality entirely. If we are familiar with various fallacies, biases, and rhetorical tricks, we can trace where the errors originated in the communication. We become like archaeologists in our own lives and in the public sphere when we can sift through layers of different errors in thinking. Flaws in communication are often psychologized, attributed to various explanations such as childhood trauma or defense mechanisms. This is said to be the explanation when it’s impossible to engage with someone rationally in communication. Another explanation is that there’s a normalization of the idea that it’s acceptable to use logical fallacies and rhetorical tricks. While it’s true that there’s an imbalance in that some people are disconnected from an emotional dimension when they communicate, another imbalance is the over, emotionalization of one’s opinions. You feel a certain way, and that makes it right. Emotions become a form of truth that can dominate communication. Emotions are an important aspect but also need to be interpreted to understand what they mean. Emotions are not a definitive answer but rather a support for the search for meaning. Furthermore, the emotionalization of communication is often carried out with a lack of emotional and moral sensitivity. One example is how the sense of being masculine and feminine has made a comeback, which is completely unfounded in research or philosophical thought.
Go beyond “common sense” and naïve technocratic realism. Most people rely too heavily on an arbitrary, socially constructed notion of common sense in their thinking (Watts, 2011). Furthermore, they often believe they can see right through problems and come up with obvious solutions, assuming that experts would agree with them (Friedman, 2020). Instead, we need to embrace the fact that the world can be counterintuitive; however, some fall into the opposite trap of being overly drawn to the counterintuitive and always believing it to be true simply because it goes against widespread intuition. We need to embrace the complexity of the world and live with it. The pursuit of the good life is a complex problem, one that has even been called insidious.
A large portion of the population has attended university, which has exposed them to the scientific method. When they graduate, they apply this knowledge with varying degrees of success. Rather than imparting “technologies of humility” (Jasanoff, 2016), their time in university may have made them less humble and more complacent in their thinking. We need routines to avoid this lack of humility and laziness. One might believe they have “earned” the right to be dogmatic because they feel they know how to think and no longer make fallacies. At the same time, others may put doubt on a pedestal by “just asking questions,” when they should be doing more research themselves.
Dealing with false consciousness and enlightened false consciousness. What creates false consciousness in you? What creates enlightened false consciousness in you? Because naive realism is so dominant, people do not believe they can be deceived and have a false consciousness or a false understanding of their reality or a part of reality. It is, therefore, a widespread overconfidence in one’s own rationality. False consciousness can be “thin” or “thick” (Scott, 1990) in the sense that we can be partially or completely misled. Furthermore, one may have perceived the truth in a certain way yet still act as if one has not, a phenomenon known as “enlightened false consciousness” (Sloterdijk, 1987). We may experience a sense of insight when we believe we have seen through something. The pride that can arise from this may be so great that we remain stuck in that way of viewing the world. After gaining an insight, we may become fixated on our understanding of the world. Some may discover a certain ideology, a particular perspective in research, or a way of thinking that they believe leads to many positive experiences. What we need to continue doing is recognizing that there is always more complexity than we first thought. Looking behind the curtain, behind the mask, behind “the matrix” is a never, ending process; there is always more to uncover because the truth is so complex.
Analyze discourses, chains of thought, regimes of truth, and narratives. We are steeped in discourses and narratives. These can become internalized as chains of thought that make it difficult for us to maintain distance from them, and they can be perceived as truths. We may submit to these regimes of truth, leading us to places that do not support the good life. There are discourses on happiness, emotions, trauma, psychology, relationships, potential, choices, health, the body, politics, and economics, all of which can influence us in different ways. By analyzing these discourses, we can gain some distance and externalize what has been internalized. We deconstruct a discourse to examine its components and determine whether they are true.
Discourses are centered around text. One way to create new dominant discourses that we internalize is through journals where we reflect on new discourses and chains of thought. This can become part of a rhythmic “self, entrainment”, saying things to oneself to activate certain chains of thought and rhythms (Collins, 2004).
Communicate better with yourself and others through writing, reading, conversation, culture, etc. Wisdom is mediated through communication. Communication shares the same root as “communion”, “communicate” and “communion.” Communication takes place within communities with others; even when we communicate with ourselves, we do so through cultural technologies such as words we have learned in social contexts. Communication can flow more smoothly, and we can think on a grander scale, the more diverse the languages through which we can communicate. This applies not only to languages associated with specific countries but also to languages such as mathematics, various fields of research, and philosophy, which introduce new concepts and ways of expressing ourselves. The power of reading is underestimated today, even though there is talk of a “reading crisis” (Furedi, 2015). The power of reading is central to channel all dimensions of balance, for example, citizenship, autonomy, struggle, adventure, simplicity, and so on. In an era of a lack of ability to collaborate (Sennett, 2013), communication is central to improving collaboration. This is achieved through various conversations and discussions. One aspect that is often missing is a willingness to embrace curiosity and adventure in conversations. Conversations become merely a hedonistic practice for entertainment or to “communicate” that one belongs to the group (Illouz, 2008; Riesman, 1950; Mestrovic, 1996). Do not debate to win, but debate to learn from one another. Debate to play, not to become enemies.
The crisis in writing runs parallel to the crisis in reading. Writing takes place in short messages, but longer, more challenging writing is practiced by fewer people. This means we miss out not only on the therapeutic effects of writing itself but also on the ability to think more clearly in general, which can be therapeutic, since clarity allows us to better handle our problems.
Sociological problem, solving. Problem, solving supported by sociological awareness allows us to broaden our understanding of the causes of a problem we face, enabling us to find multiple solutions. Problem, solving within CBT can be too limited because politics and morality are underestimated as part of the problem, solving process. An example of how psychologically oriented problem, solving can overlook important aspects is in relationship problems. Many relationship problems arise as imbalances in various dimensions of balance, such as citizenship, adventure, flourishing, and struggle. The relationship is actually very dull because neither person is living an adventurous life grounded in a moral way of life. This makes it difficult to have a genuine friendship, since friendship becomes part of one’s lifestyle and a private sphere disconnected from civic struggle or morally significant adventures. Problems with depression, anxiety, and loneliness are similarly an effect of imbalances in the aforementioned dimensions. Sociological problem, solving opens the door to a “virtue, based” understanding of one’s problems and their solutions. Instead of “exposing oneself” to reduce anxiety, we can view ourselves as moral agents who are, in part, cowardly and in need of more courage in our lives. We are not “impulsive”; rather, we have made a habit of lacking patience and thoughtfulness. We are not “avoidant”; rather, we lack courage, the ability to be mindfully present, and care for others and ourselves.
Exposure in the form of behavioral experiments is categorized as psychological, but as mentioned, it is also a philosophical exercise dating back to antiquity, which could just as easily have a sociological emphasis. We can try out new forms of sociality to see how they might shape us. Put ourselves in new situations. Engage with new forms of sociality preserved in books and culture.
A fundamental problem, solving exercise involves the current state, the desired state, and the “how” state. From a sociological perspective, the current state can focus on what the problems are within the social contexts one is part of and how they affect oneself. The “desired state” focuses more on how social contexts should change, whether in small or large ways. In the “how” stage, we use social practices, cultural technologies, sociological heuristics, and so on to move closer to our desired state.
Instead of a psychologically oriented Socratic dialogue, we can imagine a sociologically oriented Socratic dialogue. Socratic dialogue aims to evoke or draw out truths, to which the client has access with a little support, through well, posed questions.
Combating Stupidity. What kinds of stupidity surround you? One aspect of thinking more clearly is to use negative reasoning to remove what causes us to think less clearly. This has been playfully termed “combating stupidity” (Alvesson & Cizinsky, 2023), which encompasses both our own and others’ stupidity. Why do we do what we do? As Nietzsche put it, the most basic form of stupidity is forgetting why we do something.
Stupidity identification (Alvesson & Cizinsky, 2023, 218). Alvesson and Cizinsky list several points to evaluate: what is the knowledge base, is there duplication of effort, are there hidden costs, are there crowding, out effects, and does the activity make sense to anyone (2023, 219). They also list various “ailments” such as: uniformity, lack of imagination, silo thinking, reluctance to take responsibility, fear of conflict, plan fetishism, information overload, or the use of clichés (2023, 220). They point out that blind spots easily arise for those involved, and especially for those in management. Expect stupidity, it’s more common than you might think, but don’t expect everything to be simply foolish; there is still a great deal of thought that has gone into many things, and much of it is meaningful in both its goals and means.
Articulating Stupidity (Alvesson & Cizinsky, 2023, 222). Articulating a problem identified within an organization requires doing so in a way that minimizes the risk of a defensive response. Richard Sennett suggests that one approach is to use the principle of least resistance as a heuristic (2013). Alvesson and Cizinsky put it this way: we should not “go further than necessary” to avoid resistance, which requires good timing and tact. Another way to reduce resistance is through humor and self, deprecation (2023, 230). Point this out in a way that opens the door to discussion and curiosity, and consider how your words will be perceived. The authors continue by advising that you should expect not to be heard right away. This is understandable because the foolishness that is allowed to continue exists for several reasons, and often part of the problem is that the framing of the issue is something new or unfamiliar to those involved.
Madness can be a resource. The Stoic Seneca wrote: “There is no genius without a touch of madness,” and Burton wrote: “Who is not mad? Who is free from melancholy?Mad reason” as a practice or state captures the idea that what is reasonable to others may be seen as “mad.” It takes intelligence to end up in positions where one can do foolish things on a large scale (Alvesson & Spicer, 2016). Those who are seen as mad often have no power, but those who do have power can simultaneously do “mad” things on a large scale, such as relentlessly pushing fossil fuel companies forward even though we are in the midst of an environmental crisis. Alvesson and Spicer also argue that critical thinking can paralyze action (2016). A certain degree of functional stupidity is thus something that can be productive, as Nietzsche also pointed out earlier. Nietzsche also argues that madness is always part of human existence, as evidenced by the fact that all groups have different voices pulling in different directions.
A high level of balanced “mad reason” is cynicism, as practiced by Diogenes, who was a truth, teller (Hadot, 2015). Madness also involves a lack of control over the body. At the same time, madness can be seen in everyday language as the overly routine lives that many lead. Madness is linked to the “adventurization” of life, where life and what happens in it are not entirely under our control. Madness is often associated with not placing importance on physical appearance, something that is more sensible than the “madness” found in the fashion industry and our culture’s fixation on appearance, which serves no purpose beyond the pursuit of status. “Crazy reason” as an ideal thus draws on the activism and research conducted to reevaluate madness, as well as how people use the word “madness” today. Madness is always there, even if we don’t categorize everything as mad, just as suffering is inevitable. Let’s use it instead and domesticate it rather than suppress it.
Take reason down from its pedestal. We can sometimes be dominated by hyperreflexivity or overthinking. Part of this stems from having placed reason on a pedestal, which leads us to trust that it will provide the solution. Sometimes, however, the solution lies in relying on actions, the social sphere, and paying closer attention to what is happening in order to think differently from the outside. Hyperreflexivity can also be reduced by writing things down or by engaging with new ideas through reading.
Sociologists such as Mestrovic, Bell, Paulsen, and Reisman highlight a theme in contemporary modernity: that people think far too much. Nietzsche viewed reason as a tyrant following the Socratic revolution. We often overestimate our thoughts, which, as we later realized, were closely tied to the situation or stemmed from a misunderstanding. One could say that reason tricks us into thinking that reason is always reasonable. It is difficult to see oneself as unreasonable. Mestrovic and Reisman observed that in modernity, the connection between thought and action has diminished. Why increased reflection can easily lead to hesitation in taking action can be explained by Collins’s theory of thoughts. Collins argues that we have low emotional energy because our thoughts are fragmented, scattered, and unfocused (2004). We have so many different things to think about and so many perspectives that we can become fragmented and scattered (Archer, 2007). All these thoughts become different aspects to take into account. Emotional energy stems from a charge directed toward a specific idea that we become passionate about. We can build this focus on an idea ourselves. As Nietzsche writes, to build emotional energy, we need a “will to foolishness.” Anyone who, in the moment, starts thinking about something else, no matter how important it is, will lose focus and, thereby, the energy directed toward the task at hand. Or, with an endless focus on reasons for action, there can be too many steps leading up to action, and it’s easy for us to get sidetracked and find reasons not to act. Collins shows that this is part of thinking quickly and creatively. The “will to foolishness”, focusing only on a few things, allows us to create the focus that’s required.
Act more wisely.
View action as an opportunity to learn from. Test, experiment, practice, and see what happens by taking calculated risks. Actions lead to close contact with reality, which can support our reflection. Cultivate curiosity about what different actions will lead to, rather than worry. This increases the likelihood that you’ll be focused on the present, not the future, when you actually take the action.
Practice taking action. Most people do not practice purposefully to improve their ability to act. Practice to turn an action into a routine that makes it easier to perform and requires less energy.
Be a modern kynic, not a modern cynic. Sloterdijk has emphasized that ancient Cynicism prioritized action over theory (1987). The modern cynic suffers from a sense of depression stemming from knowing what they ought to do but failing to do it anyway. Cynicism directs us to practice resisting established norms that are arbitrary but have been naturalized by those who refined them (Hadot, 2015). A central exercise is to place oneself in a humiliating situation in order to create distance from existing norms. The cynical practice of being a parrhesia, that is, a truth, teller, also involves a high degree of reflexive action, because the Cynics, like Diogenes, viewed acts of resistance of various kinds as essential for demonstrating and influencing what one did not agree with (Hadot, 2015). Cynicism involves acting in strict accordance with one’s own views, the opposite of today’s modern cynicism, where one knows what needs to be done and what one believes, yet behaves as if one believed something else, an enlightened false consciousness (Sloterdijk, 1987). The truth, teller can also be seen as a troublemaker challenging the status quo. In his defense speech before he was sentenced to death, Socrates described himself as Athens’ gadfly, one who irritated and bit the others. The impulsive person needs more reflection; the overthinker needs a stronger connection between will and action. Don’t just try to understand, try to bring about change, but do so with the support of various virtues.
Develop your skills and abilities. Your life is worse off because your upbringing, education, and the rest of society have given you fewer skills than you could have had. Viewing yourself as “skill, deprived” (Sennett, 2013) has the advantage of allowing us to focus on increasing those skills. There are societal processes that have limited your competencies in various areas, but you can overcome this by prioritizing time spent practicing different abilities rather than engaging in passive leisure activities. Recognizing that we have weaker competencies and abilities in various areas, such as virtues like courage, humility, communication, and the ability to collaborate, allows us to work on them with humility. How do you find the energy for that? We need to start small to build momentum through small wins (Collins, 2004).
Alternate between action and reflection. Reflective action also involves alternating between periods of greater thinking and learning, and periods of greater application and action. There is a time for education and training, but we must not get stuck in training; one example is the massive self, help industry, which has had a major impact in terms of increased sales of self, help books, but the effect appears to be unclear and even negative according to some researchers (Illouz, 2008).
Experiment. Behavioral experimentation is part of this, experiment with life and test things out, fostering curiosity about experimentation, recognizing that trial and error is part of life. Action as an opportunity to learn, rather than trying to learn through reflection. This fosters curiosity about what different actions will lead to, rather than anxiety. This increases the likelihood that you’ll be focused on the present rather than the future when you actually take the action. Much of life is simply about exposing yourself to new experiences. Roland Paulsen shows how construction workers who labored without safety harnesses high up on New York’s skyscrapers had grown accustomed to this and weren’t the least bit afraid of heights (2020)
Some people believe that creativity is something only a select few possess, but creativity, at least with a small “c”, is something everyone has access to, can cultivate, and needs. Creativity and innovation can be directed toward various goals. Creative citizenship involves being creative within various domains to build a better society. This creative work needs to involve experimentation and tinkering (bricolage), as practiced, for example, by Jane Addams and others at Hull, House, which launched the Settlement movement (Trost & Levin, 2010). This experimentation is central to a high degree of reflexive action because we operate within a complex system where it is difficult to devise an exact plan; instead, we build and learn as we go. Entrepreneurs in the marketplace and in politics are prime examples of this.
Complicate. Simplify is a balance between complexity and simplicity, meaning that if one merely tries to maximize how simplified one’s life is, it will not support the good life. Complexity, variety, and surprise are things people are drawn to and need to some degree in order to navigate the complexity of the good life.
Manage and create. When we manage something over time, we encounter the complexity that exists in society alongside other people. When we create something, we understand how difficult it can be to create, especially something new. The complexity of creating, compared to consuming, often forces us to engage more deeply with the skills we possess, which in turn helps us realize that they need improvement.
Tackling insidious problems. The world’s problems are complex and require a long time to fully grasp. One of the biggest problems with today’s public discourse is the belief that one has personally understood how problems should be solved and that the solution is easy to see (Friedman, 2020). If you look out at the world and believe you’re facing easy problems, you will in all likelihood contribute to increasing the complexity of the problem in the future, by becoming part of the problem yourself, since you’ll vote for oversimplified solutions both in the marketplace and in politics.
Engage in various relationships. One way to oversimplify life is to withdraw from human relationships. While this makes things easier in the short term, it quickly leads to increased complexity, such as deteriorating mental health and greater difficulty in solving the problems one faces, both in one’s personal life and, above all, in civic life.
Embrace ambiguities, paradoxes, and dilemmas. ABT posits that people need to navigate ambiguities, paradoxes, and dilemmas across various dimensions of balance (Berglund, 2026). Those seeking eudaimonic balance must address and resolve these challenges to achieve a higher state of balance. It is common for people to oversimplify their lives by failing to acknowledge these challenges or by shifting them onto others. The ability to handle ambivalence and ambiguity makes it easier to think through complex issues and avoid black, and, white conclusions. If one fails to acknowledge th n paradoxes within a dimension of balance, one may become stuck in problems. For example, someone who strives solely for authenticity may end up in an authenticity crisis because they eventually discover how difficult it is to be “truly” authentic in all situations (Moehller & D’Ambriaso, 2021). Those who fail to acknowledge that they face dilemmas may find themselves dissatisfied with whatever they do, rather than accepting that certain dilemmas are inevitable and may require trade, offs and balancing acts.
Exposing oneself to complexity in culture, thought, history, and surroundings. Part of the reason nature is revitalizing is that there is a certain degree of wildness, variation, and level of detail to which humans have become accustomed through evolution, which makes us prefer nature over a highway (Taleb, 2012). By exposing ourselves to greater cultural complexity, we can grasp more of what life itself is. For example, a more complex literary work can help us develop a higher level of emotional sensitivity. Education as a process transforms us by incorporating the complexity found in human history.
Eliminate oversimplified aspects of your life. One form of oversimplification that dominates many people’s lives is entertainment and sports. It’s “fun or not,good versus evil,win or lose”, all very simple dualisms. However, this oversimplification is masked by an artificially created complexity. Sports are analyzed at the same level as geopolitics, and often even more deeply by many, because the competition in sports dominates the struggle of citizens.
Simplify. While seeking to embrace the complexity that supports the good life, one also seeks to eliminate the complexity that is unnecessary and obstructs the good life. Simplifying one’s life is one of the anchors available for enhancing balance across multiple dimensions. There are many activities that support eudaimonic balance across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Examples of these activities include: reading, exercise, experiencing nature, political activism, and similar rhythms. Above all, activities that incorporate multiple aspects: exercising while listening to a podcast, or exercising in a social and playful setting, such as playing amateur sports with friends. Eating healthy meals together with, for example, neighbors, family, and friends. Reading more challenging fiction and non, fiction to both exercise one’s cognitive abilities and learn about the complexity of the world. Reading and learning together with others in book clubs. Entering a state of deep focus (Newport, 2016) is a practice that helps you gain emotional energy, experience a state of effortless flow, become more productive, reduce self, focus, accelerate your thinking and knowledge, and simultaneously feel less stress.
Focus on what is meaningful in your life. Much of the meaningless complexity in life can be stripped away by reflecting on what is truly meaningful to you. The cell phone introduces complexity into life by taking time away from other activities and also fostering parasocial relationships.
Focusing on the civic struggle. Much of the unnecessary complexity stems from being too focused on and consumed by the private struggle. This can lead one to be drawn into complex status struggles that are a zero, sum game for status within the group. Focusing on the civic struggle allows one to make that the priority and to channel that complexity there, while keeping one’s private life simpler. The drama one experiences in the civic struggle can help de, dramatize the potential dramas that may arise in the private struggle, as they come to be seen as rather trivial by comparison. One can also gain some distance from the complexities that may arise in the workplace because one is grounded in the belief that the struggle for a better life can be waged more openly in the public sphere, where there is no requirement to obey superiors.
Eliminate pseudo, ambiguities and pseudo, dilemmas. Much in life can appear ambiguous if we lack the ability to analyze what we’re facing. This can lead us to believe we’re facing dilemmas that aren’t really dilemmas at all. These are artificial complexities that do not support a good life. One example is cramming too many activities into one’s free time, job, or political work. Too much of even the good things will become stressful and create a sense of time pressure (Wajcman, 2015).
Habits and key habits. Habits are a way to simplify one’s life by creating a routine that helps the individual manage complexity and chaos (White, 2008). Routinizing life helps us embrace beneficial complexity and filter out harmful complexity. Making exercise, a healthy diet, and sleep part of your routine provides a foundation for coping with complexity. Making social interaction part of your routine provides the social support needed to handle the burden of complex injustices you encounter in life. Key habits are habits that support other positive habits. A key habit can spread throughout your life, generating emotional energy and a fresh start. Read if you’re in school, exercise, go for a walk, or participate in a social activity every week.
Develop heuristics or life principles for your life and follow them. Create various heuristics to guide your life. They become ways to support your thinking. Making these heuristics explicit helps improve your metacognition. Sociological heuristics allow you to make decisions informed by sociological insights.
Civic engagement and risks. Put yourself in situations that make it easy to make the right decisions or in situations that shape you in the direction you want. For example, put yourself in challenging situations to force your body to overcompensate (Taleb, 2012).
Nature. Many things become easier when nature is nearby. Walking in nature changes the way we think compared to, for example, lying still indoors.
Reduce screen time. Social media both simplifies and complicates life. It simplifies life in that we don’t have to meet people in real life who demand that we act in a certain way (Turkle, 2011). So, with social media, we can reduce the complexity of challenges. At the same time, we increase that complexity by processing a lot of information, often highly fragmented and meaningless. We get drawn into the drama and debates in comment sections, where different online personas clash.
The 80/20 Principle. This principle has been discussed in countless self, help books and serves as a mantra for focusing on what matters most. One example is the practice of identifying the most critical problem in one’s field and trying to spend more time solving it. It was the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto who first recognized that much in life is not normally distributed, but is instead often heavily skewed in some way. What is it in your life that contributes most to helping other people? Which activities best support balance across different dimensions of balance?