“ Peter, you’re going to die in that stupid costume. ”
We all have our own set of mental frameworks, they guide the way we think and process information. Quite often, they change. These frameworks could be described as implicit behaviour, or as a computer scientist would say, a mental software.
What is a mental framework? I think of a mental framework as the one that filters our inputs and outputs. It helps us understand reality and determines how we respond.
A popular choice for a mental framework is the stoic philosphy, where one must not react to input; self-control as a means of overcoming emotions, the becoming of an unbiased thinker. A mentat, as Herbet would put it.
Stoicism claims to allow one ot understand the “universal reason”, described by the Greeks as logos; pure logic itself. However, for almost everybody else, a complete mental framework must be far more complex than taking all input and outputting nothing.
Stoicism is a form of “Guarding” mental frameworks, frameworks designed to protect yourself. These “Guarding” mental frameworks typically act at the highest encompassing level. Each individual will have a unique and complex “Guarding” mental framework. This is due to the fact that everybody has different pursuits.
I believe that a strong guarding mental framework should provide one with mental stability, as it allows me to properly cope with the constant changes in life.
However, this kind o stability is not something that simply exists from birth. It is often built through trials and tribulations, through periods of instability, confusion, and constant internal adjustment. In many ways, the framewoirk is only understood once it has already failed quite a few times.
Nowadays, access to revelating information is almost unrestricted, yet people still fail to act on it, demonstrating a profound lack of agency. When faced with mental challenges, many people will look outwards, towards books, philosophies, essays, or the thoughts of others, in an attempt to understand how the mind should be structured. The complexity of a guarding framework, that acts like a firewall, arises when parts of these external frameworks are selected and integrated into everyday life.
This is where the real difficulty lies. Many people can consume revelating knowledge, but that does not mean the knowledge reveals anything within them. Information can be understood intellectually while never being absorbed philosophically. It can be admired without ever being integrated.
But although this process ofintegrating new concepts into a philosophy does nto seem disadvantageous at a surface level, it can expose flaws in the foundation. Sometimes a revelation can be so deep, so embedded within the mind once understood, that it demands a complete reworking of everything that was already there. Not an adjustment, but a rebuilding.
This is what could be called “nuking”. The complete destruction of the previous framework in order to rebuild something stronger. But in doing so, a vulnerability is exposed. If the framework can be dismantled so easily, then perhaps it was not truly guarding anything to begin with.
During this rebuilding phase, emotions can become overwhelming. Panic, sadness, anger, and instability begin to surge because the system that once filtered reality has been deemed unfit. The mind is left exposed while the architecture is still being reconstructed. That is the danger of relying on a framework that cannot survive revision.
This tendency is paralleled beyond philosophy and mental life, it appears in external affairs as well. Restarting a project many hours in, reinstalling an operating system, rebuilding a code editor from scratch just to remove “bloat”, all of these come from the same instinct. We will see this same instinct continue to fetter with the rise of “vibe coding” where humans no longer understand the fundamentals of the system. Within lies a desire to return to foundation, to elimate imperfection by beginning again.
A guarding mental framework, then, is not about constructing an impenetrable fortress. It is about designing something that can survive collapse and still retain its essence. Something that shifts, reforms, and learns. Perhaps a living system of thought, one that breathes alongside its creator.
Every breakdown and every reconstruction becomes a recalibration. Each time, the filters through whcih reality is understood become more refined. To guarding the mind is not to prevent instability entirely, but to build in such a way that instability can be absorbed without total destruction. That is where the real strength lies, not in resisting the storm, butin learning how to continue building while it passes.