The “making sense” manual

This manual is a curated version of all the teachings Athene portrayed through his
YouTube videos, real talk streams and podcasts.
It basically condenses and organizes all the “making sense” related information in a single
place that you can refer back to, any time you want.
Index

I – Introduction
II - Look at yourself from a 3rd person point of view
III - An overview on how to deal with emotions and beliefs
IV – Wrap-up of the main ideas
V – The most important insight
VI – Reese’s take on “making sense”
VII – How to subconsciously change a core value

Addendum - How to change your core value to “making sense”

I – The ability to draw the “making sense” map

II – How to make sense when your life doesn’t make that much sense

A list of core values – why they aren’t as effective as “making sense”

Real Talk Q&A – Questions from the viewers

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I – Introduction
a) The need to belong
A lot of the ideas and concepts that define who you are today have been social conditioned, have been
learned. Consequently, what drives you and what you desire is, for a big part, defined on a subconscious
level (depending on your experiences throughout life).

As human beings and organisms, we want to thrive and doing so requires us to survive. Surviving manifests
itself in different ways. When we go back 2000 years, being part of the group was crucial to subsist (rejection
would most likely mean death). As a result, by inheritance from generation to generation, our DNA has this
“urge” hardwired in us.

Even though it has become less and less important to be part of the tribe – because our survival is not so
much defined by others –, some people can experience external opinions, and consequently a need
to fit in and to impress, as extremely important in their life. On a subconscious level, we really desire
to be part of a bigger group and that’s why we feel highly connected to family, relationships, and friendships.
All these longings that we very fundamentally desire are fully defined by how we grew up and how that on
itself has been a big part of our ability to survive and to thrive as a species.

I’m explaining this because it’s crucial to understand these dynamics in order to overcome them.

b) Every emotion has a reason

All the emotions you experience right now have a reason. They can all be explained, no matter how crazy.
Even certain fixations (some of them highly dysfunctional) resulting from the way you grow up and learned
things can be explained.

They have a reason why they happened.

A lot of our core drives (fear, warmth, the need to fit in) that are part of us have a reason because they
allowed us to adapt to reality and, as a result, grow as a species. As we grew and became more self-aware
and self-conscious, we were the first to develop the ability to speak and think. From there we started to
develop ideas and thoughts and we eventually gathered the capacity to constructed even more advanced
concepts in the brain. Today, when we look back to try to understand all these core mechanics, we can
use that newly created capacity to realize that everything actually makes sense.

Take fear as an example:

 Fear played a very big part on surviving and on being able to thrive. The way how we dealt with it and how it
directed our actions was important to ensure our survival.

When you go back (~2000 years), every time we were confronted with an existential fear or natural phenomena
we couldn’t explain, it brought about a lot of fear. To cope with it, we created certain concepts in order to
understand what had happened. Whether based on religion or more advanced spiritual ideas, we always
found an idea that explained it to us because being able to do so allowed us to get rid of the fear.

Two examples on how we seek to understand the cause to cope with fear:
 When you see a lion and you perceive danger (he might attack you!), you experience fear. However, if you
then realize there’s glass in front of you, you don’t mind. The fear is suddenly gone.

 If someone points a gun at you and after some time you realize it is just a toy, you all of a sudden don’t care.

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And that’s the thing: you have the ability to override your fears if you understand and can explain
what the cause is. However, if you don’t know the reason, you will try to find another concept that can
cope with it, merely to be able to process the emotion that comes about.

c) We are still quite primitive

As I said previously, as we evolved, we started acquiring the ability to think and speak. Furthermore,
although we experienced a lot of fast developments in the past hundred years (with technology redefining
life in a very drastic way), we still didn’t have the knowledge to understand why we had all these existential
fears.

Fortunately, we had a very big exponential growth in the last century, as science became a part of
people’s paradigms and thinking logically started to emerge in an attempt to understand reality.

But the problem is that, on a fundamental level, we are still quite primitive. If, while growing up, we are
conditioned and exposed to narrow knowledge, the only thing we are aware of is what we are exposed to
(and that becomes our world).

Therefore, if most people aren’t aware of evolutionary biology and this long road of what we are, it will never
become part of their neural network, of their awareness. They won’t think about these things, there won’t
be a bigger picture and they will miss a lot of useful knowledge that would greatly enrich their lives.

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II – Look at yourself from a 3rd person point of view
If you live very unhealthy, don’t have so much cognitive power, are caught up in the more primitive parts,
think more impulsively and thus are too much wrapped in your own world view, the information in the next
chapters will go past you, meaning that you won’t be able to process it.

Basically, you don’t have the more advanced parts of the brain active in order to be able to reflect and
course-correct neural pathways and connections that have been linked wrongly. To do that, you need to
look at yourself from a third person point of view. You really need to focus and take distance from your day-
to-day world.

Note: Working out and eating healthier are the two most important things that you can start doing right now
to be more clear-headed.

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III – An overview on how to deal with emotions and beliefs
a) Why neuroscience is important
Since there is no natural instinct or already built-in “programs” that tell us how everything works, we always
had a lack of understanding about ourselves.

Opportunely, trough neuroscience (that it wasn’t even a field a couple of a hundred years ago), we were
able to go through crazy paradigm shifts that really redesigned and restructured how we look at our brains
in a way that is much more in line with reality (and much more fulfilling, as a result).

b) The role of our subconscious and conscious parts

When we follow the path of evolution and observe how single cell organisms evolved into what we are
today, we realize that our very primitive brains developed a lot throughout the years.

You can really observe it physically: the more primitive parts are in the center (where the subconscious lies)
and, as your brain grew, the more advanced parts (like for example, the prefrontal cortex, that allows you
to process language) have developed on top.

Our subconscious expresses itself as feelings and emotions but because it doesn’t have the ability to think
and speak, doesn’t know how to explain the causes of those feelings.

But the thing is: the more advanced part of the brain has the ability to spot and control those
emotions as long as it can comprehend the causes.

Our more advanced part speaks to our reason.

Just like the “gun” example I gave previously:

 You first experience the fear (because it comes from the core to the edges), then you start to become aware of it
and when you realize it’s just a toy, you basically have a conscious communication explaining what the cause is
and fear is completely nullified.

This process is called psychological mindfulness: being able to understand where your emotions come from
and either address them or come to acceptance.

c) Everything actually makes sense!

What is also very important to realize is that everything you experience – all the emotions, all the
dissonance, all the things that are crazy, all the stuff in your life that makes no sense, everything that
happens that makes you pissed, the anxieties, the fears, the emptiness, why are we here, all the questions
– is happening on a primitive level.

And there is a scientific reason for everything! You can trust that it makes sense.

That is a very powerful insight!

Because suddenly you realize:

“Wait, it’s not me that is flawed! I’m not the one that is unworthy, I’m not a failure! No,
no, no! It is just this emotional cocktail that I don’t fully understand that makes me feel
that way. But “I” myself, my idea of who I am, my awareness is not the one that is

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 responsible for any of this and instead is the one that allows me to understand and
course-correct it.”

And the only thing you need to know to be able to tackle all these issues is understanding where they come
from and why they work how they do.

d) You rationalize the emotion afterwards

As I said previously, knowing that we first experience the emotion and then our rational part tries to
contextualize and understand the cause is a very important process.

It’s the notion that every single idea or thought that comes within emotion is backwards rationalized.
It is rationalized afterwards.

What happens a lot of the times is that we wrongly rationalize certain emotions due to a lack of
understanding (although it happens less and less often as we get access to more knowledge).

Today, being able to recognize that our emotions get triggered as remnants of the past (that once allowed
us to be more effective with reality and survive), gives us the opportunity to understand the relationship and
start labeling them in a more effective way.

Fully absorbing this insight not only will give you a sense of relief but it will also enable you to be more
compatible with reality (which it was what permitted singular cells to evolve to what we are).

e) Don’t resist emotions, let them go at ease

Since emotions are first experienced and only afterwards they are contextualized, a lot of people become
very angry about feeling a certain way.

They think:

“Why can’t I talk with this girl?”

“Why am I so frustrated?”

And create an idea of:

“I’m inferior.”

“I am nothing.”

“I’m worthless.”

In reality, the reason you have all these ideas is because you don’t understand the mechanics of what it is
going on in your brain. You just don’t understand the sequence. Because I assure you that if you realized
that you experience these emotions even before you are aware of them, you wouldn’t beat yourself over it.

Your emotions just “are” and understanding that brings in a relationship with your core self that is much
more in line with what you are. As a result, rather than creating dysfunctional beliefs or trying to
suppress your emotions, you basically let them go at ease, which allows you to process and tackle
them in a much more effective way.

At the same time, that’s also why it is so important to work out and eat healthy since your more advanced
parts of the brain are only able to get fully activated when your brain is in a better condition.

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Rest assured, as long as you argue:

“This is my reality! You don’t understand me!”

… and you can’t take distance from your subconscious, you will always be trapped in it.

f) Detach emotions from concepts

We are emotional beings; therefore, everything is quite emotional. All your thoughts, ideas, incentives or
desires start in the more primitive consciousness and then it gets contextualized by the aware part of the
brain.

Whenever you experience an emotion, you try to connect it to an idea. In the same way, whenever you look
at an object or a person, you also connect it with an emotion. So, basically, emotions and concepts go
hand in hand in your brain.

If you understand that concepts are connected with emotions and your emotions are what drives all your
thinking (at least, on a subconscious level), you realize that almost all of your actions are intuitive and
impulsive. You might think you have all the awareness and insights but you are actually completely
directed by your cocktail of emotions.

The same happens with me: I am aware of these processes and yet my ability to put these thoughts into
words has started on a subconscious level and then I just rationalized and explained it.

(That’s why you also have psychologists talking about to which extent do we even have choice when
everything happens firstly on a subconscious level and then gets interpreted by the conscious part of the
brain.)

Below, I present two examples:

Example I
 A lot of the times, when people think about concepts like “God”, “freedom” or “choice”, they all have an emotion
connected to it. What ends up happening is that they don’t reflect with the abstract concept; they reflect with the
emotion.

As a result, when you have a conversation between two people with strong opposing feelings connected to “God”,
they think they are talking about the same “God”, but in reality, they talk about the feeling. What it is actually
happening is: first they experience the emotion and then they theorize around it.

And the funny thing is that, often times, both might even agree about the concept but the conflict emerges due to
the attached emotions.

Example II
 Similarly, if throughout this conversation, I had said something that triggers you, your ability to process the
information, and consequently understand the message, would decrease.

For example, if I had used the word “spirituality” and you have a very strong emotion connected to it, you instantly
react: “No!”, and you just discard everything I said.

Only because I triggered the emotion connected to “spirituality”, which immediately numbs your ability to process
the information.

Understanding this relationship really allows you to recognize how important it is to look at concepts from
an abstract level and to detach yourself from the emotions.

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 g) Detach emotions from beliefs
Your ability to detach from beliefs on an emotional level is also very important to grow as a person. It gives
you the ability to discard flawed beliefs and replace them with stronger ones.

Nonetheless, if you have a very strong emotion connected to that belief and you are confronted with him
being flawed you will, since on a subconscious level that is what drives your desires, immediately feel:

“I can’t let it go!”

But it’s not like you can’t let go of the concept. Your problem is that it’s connected to an emotion.

If you are aware of this mechanism and look at it from a 3rd person view, you can actually detach the emotion
from the belief.

There’s a process called “memory reconsolidation” in the neuroscience field that explains how this actually
works:
 Whenever you experience an emotion, you load it as a memory and it basically becomes a label. When you
experience the same emotion, the previously consolidated memory is recalled and then you have the ability to
reconsolidate it (or write it back) and you’ll never experience an emotion the same (well, maybe similar).

This process is used in therapy, where they retrieve the memory (which is basically a belief attached to an emotion),
they use different strategies to relieve or detach those emotions and then they load it again as a reconsolidated
memory.

That way, when you think about a traumatic experience, the emotion doesn’t get triggered as hard because it was
relieved.

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IV – Wrap-up of the main ideas
Understanding all the mechanics outlined in the previous chapters will allow you to control the direction of
your consciousness, which can give you a lot of strength, insight and growth.

And as hard as it is to understand your experiences, feelings and emotions and as hard as it is to
comprehend the world around you, you need to fully realize that:

 everything does make sense, on a fundamental level.

For a lot of people back in the days, they were like:

“God!”

… and that was their way of coping with fear because they knew on a certain level that they could trust
God. The beauty of science (and our current knowledge of the brain) is that we can have that same trust in
the fact that, on a scientific level, everything happens for a reason.

And I am not going to say:

“Oh, we can be our own God!”

… because some people might get really triggered by that. But in a sense,

 you actually have the ability to rewire yourself and the only thing you lack is knowledge and
understanding.

Rather than acting in an impulsive way – where you don’t really have control or understanding of what it is
going on –, you can direct all your dissonance and frustration into a will to comprehend the reason of your
dysfunctional emotions and beliefs. I assure you that in the process of aligning them with reality, you’ll
experience immense growth.

You also need to realize that it’s not your fault,

 that it’s not the aware part of your brain that it is responsible but it is exactly the one that
can do something about it!

This insight should give you a sense of empowerment!

It’s also very important to understand that if you feel worthless (because of social conditioning) or if you feel
like you really want to fit in, it’s going to be harder to comprehend what I am talking about because you
might be very trapped in what you think.

And that’s why…

 working out, eating healthy and putting yourself in a position where your more advanced
parts of the brain have more neural activity.

… is essential to absorb this information and put it into practice.

I know that it may be very hard because emotions can be very strong. But if you fully understand and adopt
these insights and if you tackle and overcome your dysfunctions one by one, you will feel a very strong
sense of purpose and relief.

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V – The most important insight
Everything that I explained before was a sort of grounding work to introduce the most important insight, one
that can change your life. People have come to me and said:

“This insight has changed my life.”

In a few weeks, they went from someone emotional to a much more stable, rational and insightful person.

a) How your core value was formed

While growing up, every single person defines on a subconscious level what they find the most important,
what they value the most. It can be “family”, “money”, “relationships”, etc. It all depends on how their
“emotional cocktail” have come to value something depending on their experiences (this is something that
happens impulsively).

I will give “family” as an example:

 The reason why you adopt this core value is because, on a subconscious level, you feel safest. As explained
in the first chapter, this reason is actually quite primitive:

“My family allows me to feel warm, to be safe, to tackle fear and it gives me a sense of being
alive, of being able to grow”.

Your subconscious will direct the emotions to your pre-frontal cortex signaling that it is what it desires the
most.

If you reflect on it, you will be able to figure what you value the most in life. It’s not a thought; nor an aware
thing. It’s just a gut feeling “thing” and everyone has it.

Note: Depending on where you are in your evolution, your core value might also be trying to fit in or impress
your friends.

b) What if your core value is not in line with reality?

Even though you find these values important, most of them are not always in line with your rational part or
your experiences. Occasionally, they don’t make sense which can cause a lot of dissonance and inner
conflict.

Likewise, some insights (like the ones portrayed in The Power of Now) can also lead people to a catharsis
when they suddenly figure out:

“Oh, identity and all this ego stuff is just a façade.”

They discover that it’s all about what you purely are. That their story based on remnants of the past was
not really functional and they are able to let go of all the baggage they carried around day in day out.

So, basically, whenever you have a strong catharsis or the inner conflict you experience is too big
to deal with, you go through a paradigm shift – you adopt another core value subconsciously (and start
looking at things from a different perspective).

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You might be wondering:

“But why does my core value change? How that exactly happens?”

Well, from an evolutionary point of view, it is what your subconscious is designed to do: it is always seeking
a core value that makes sense. One in which can trust, one that allows to cope easily with fear and makes
it feel safest.

c) The “making sense” core value

Fundamentally, the most important insight is: if your subconscious turns “making sense” as its main
core value, it will allow you to:

 Achieve anything you want more easily;

 Fulfill any value that you already have;
 Rise above any conflict you have experienced in your life;
 Turn all the dissonance into a drive to understand the causes;
 Cope with these feelings and conflicts (in a way that will turn your life upside down);
 Grow like crazy.

And that is the key to what has made me successful. If you look up to me and wonder:

“How can this guy grind 24 poker tables, 16 hours a day?”

“How can this guy be so successful at everything he does?”

“How does this guy do that?”

I’m not a machine or a robot, I’m just like you. The only difference between me and you, is that my core
value, on a subconscious level, is to make sense.

My desire is to make sense, out of everything.

When there’s something I don’t understand (because I have a certain conflict), I don’t suddenly go into
dysfunctional cognitive beliefs and get stuck in my head.

I experience stuff and the first thing I subconsciously do is to try to make sense of it. I just automatically
desire to make sense, and when something doesn’t, I don’t want to do it. It’s unattractive!

Let me give you a simple example:

 The reason why you procrastinate is because of your core value.

Let’s say your core value is “comfort” – of course, what you desire is comfort (or sitting on your ass). Even
though at one point you might think:

“But this is not what I want!”

… you still do it. Because on a fundamental level, that’s what you crave.

If your desire is to make sense instead and you completely adopt it, you wouldn’t be able to procrastinate
anymore because it doesn’t make sense. You will want to take action!

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 You might say:

“But that’s crazy!”

Well, that’s how it works. That’s how you work.

Since reality follows mathematical patterns, everything is logical. In the same way, it’s also reasonable to
align your beliefs with reality since that’s what nature has done for millions and billions of years.
Comprehensibly, you are much abler and compatible by ingraining “making sense” as a core value because
by doing so you literally align your belief system and your “programs” with what reality is.

Note: The reason why we haven’t had the ability to do that on a conscious level is only because now we
start understanding the brain.

But if people fully understand what I just explained, it can potentially cause a psychological revolution where
people start making sense by course-correcting their beliefs and actions. On a fundamental level, that’s
what they desire to do.

If you change your core value, you start desiring that instead.

And if you realize how much of an avalanche of insights “making sense” can bring, you start grasping how
a simple idea adopted on a fundamental level can be so powerful and how much of a ripple effect it can
have on yourself and on the world.

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VI – Reese’s take on “making sense”
a) Your operating system
Whether you want to or not, “making sense” is the operating system of your consciousness. It is where your
consciousness comes from and how it works now.

You need to realize that when you were really young, “making sense” was your core value. Before
you could even conceptualize what a “core value” was, your conscious parts were just trying to make sense
of everything.

And that’s the operating system; the basis of your consciousness! Otherwise how would it even hold up? It
is just what holds it together.

What generally happens with that operating system is that you install malware on it (which are basically
flawed beliefs), and you try to make it work no matter what. But it won’t because guess what: it’s a f*cking
virus.

Still, you have the possibility to come to grips with it and realize:

“You know what? I’ll just install whatever programs that actually make sense, that my
consciousness can resonate with and that I can find no flaws in. Programs that are
logical, that are in line with what I observe and analyze.”

And if it’s all aligned, then there are no conflicts. And when there are, you just try to understand
where they come from in order to do a better job at making sense.

b) Making sense implies context

I see a lot of people confused going like:

“Oh, is it the same as rationality? Is it the same as truth?”

No, it is not. The reason why “making sense” is much more accurate and complete than “rationality”, “logic”
or “truth” is because it implies context.

 You should make sense from the given framework or setup, from the reality that you can
observe, learn and extract knowledge from and also from your consciousness that you
can observe and study.
And this should make a lot more sense to people.

On the other hand, everybody has different opinions when it comes to other values:

“Ah, I don’t like rationality, I am not a machine!”

“Ah, the absolute truth is “I think, therefore I am.””

“Ah, the absolute truth is that God exists.”

But if you set “making sense” as your angle, your core drive, motivation and main priority, then everything
else is compatible. Things don’t clash when you say:

“Ok, what am I experiencing? This is the data on my experience, I’ll just make sense of
it.”

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Simple, straightforward, taking the context into account and, in the end, you just try to do what it is most
sensible.

c) Why you struggle and how to go about it

The reason why the “making sense” concept can be a strong course-correction to a lot of people is because
they are relatively close to it. They already have some sort of values that make a little bit a sense and
therefore only need some tweaks to start resonating even more:

“Ok, holy shit. They all align and work much better if “making sense” is my most (or
only) important value.”

But there’s people who struggle because it sounds very threatening.

“Man, I don’t want to agree with this. If I put “making sense” above everything else, …
No! No! No!”

And they go into all kind of rationalizations to try and fight it because they fear they have to give up or
change a lot of things.

“I don’t want that. I really value my family. Do you want to take my family away? Making
sense? No! My family! No! My family comes first! No, no!”

And they might experience the same reaction with “romance” or “love”.

“No, my partner! My partner! “Making sense” is not going to be between me and my

love!”

Or “money”, “prestige”, “success”.

And they are just too unsettled by the idea of displacing their current core value of that shrine of the thing
that they deem the most valuable.

So, how do you go about it?

If you struggle with certain issues you’re having (like self-esteem, for example), you don’t have to beat
yourself over it because they make sense, they have a reason. And if you accept that, “making sense”
suddenly becomes the most powerful problem-solving, empowering core value that you could possibly have
because it’s the only one that it’s going to make you compatible with fixing or accepting any issue you might
bump into.

Looking for all your flaws, hardships and struggles and accepting the fact that it all makes sense can be a
really big source of relief.

You are going to experience a lot of frustration when you’ve got all these issues and your core value is
“family” or “love” because then what do you do? You obviously fall into very desperate situations where
your girlfriend doesn’t want you anymore. You experience existential despair then. But what if your core
value is “making sense”? If it is, the situation, the issue, the dissonance arises and you just look at it and
say:

“Ok, how does this work, how does it make sense?”

And if you don’t figure it out, then the frustration of the dissonance doesn’t get translated in creating
dysfunctional beliefs but rather in trying to discover why you feel that way.

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You start looking at it from a more scientific point of view. The dissonance that originates from conflicting
ideas or beliefs creates a will that is translated into pure action of trying to learn and grow your knowledge
rather than fighting it.

And that is why this core value is so powerful: you know deep inside that as long as “making sense”
is what drives you, you just lack the understanding to solve any issue you might encounter.

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VII – How to subconsciously change a core value
A lot of people misinterpret that in order to turn “making sense” as their core value they have to rationally
assimilate it. They think that it will suddenly click if they reflect on the value (it might work for some people
but not for most).

In fact, adopting “making sense” on a subconscious level is, fundamentally, an emotional process.

a) How your values were formed as a child

When you were a kid, you didn’t have the intellectual parts of the brain as developed and therefore, your
neural activity was for the most part subconscious. And that’s why you spent most of the time wondering,
asking questions, just trying to make sense of stuff:

“Why this, why that?”

Most of you got slapped in the face here and there and, as a result, started drifting from the idea of trying
to understand the world.

Some people got “God” shoved up their mouth (others got different values) and, as a result, you started
adopting these flawed and dysfunctional beliefs that caused a lot of contradictions and paradoxical conflicts
in your mind.

But as you didn’t have the ability to answer all of your existential questions, you just took them for
granted to cope with it. Consequently, you started creating a very big pile of inconsistent foundation, in
which you couldn’t really stand on.

What it is important to realize is that when you adopt the concept of “God” or “spirituality”, you don’t do that
because you thought about it. It just comes and happens naturally through education or social conditioning.

In truth, most of the stuff in your life, if not everything, happens subconsciously. You don’t really have so
much control over your thoughts, your desires and your will to do things. Most of your actions are being
pushed subconsciously and that’s why sometimes you go like:

“But I don’t want to procrastinate, why do I do it??”

For the reason that your core subconscious most valuable thing might be “comfort”, “freedom” or, even,
“happiness”. Then why would you do something else if at that point you feel comfortable by just sitting in
your ass?

b) Explaining it to your inner child

If you have the ability to understand that your subconscious is governed by emotions and not rationality,
you might find a better way of absorbing the core value of “making sense”.

Your subconscious dictates what you think, what you want and what you really desire. Your consciousness
just tries to make sense of it.

And your subconscious is your inner child, your more primitive version. Just like when dealing with a
child, if you come up with reasons, it won’t click because your primitive self doesn’t understand it.
It can only relate to feelings so you got to communicate it in a passionate way (in order to really set your
inner child at ease).

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The moment your inner child absorbs it and your drive is to make sense, you experience a euphoric feeling
and immediately start absorbing information to deeply understand everything.

So, as a wrap-up, I would say the biggest takeaways are:

 You need to adapt making sense on a fundamental emotional level, rather than on a rational one.
 You need to convey to your inner child that it can trust making sense, it has an answer to everything
and, in the end, everything is going to be all right.

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Addendum - How to change your core value to “making sense”

I – The ability to draw the “making sense” map

a) Neuroplasticity
To be able to explain how to change your core value, I’ll start by describing another neuroscience concept
that I haven’t brought up yet: neuroplasticity.

Basically, your consciousness is merely the result of all your neural circuits that are active at any given
moment. Depending on which neurons are active, the neural pathways become wider or smaller. The wider
they get, the stronger they become and the more they are represented in your consciousness. Therefore,
the parts of your brain that are more active will be more representative in who you are.

b) You got to draw the map

Initially I thought that in order to figure out what “making sense” meant for each person, they would need to
discover a map that really clicked. A map that would enable them to pinpoint a strategy on how to turn
“making sense” their core value.

What I’ve started realizing is that it’s the other way around. It’s not that you have to discover the map in
order to find the treasure. You basically already have the treasure, which is “making sense” but you
have to draw the map.

“Drawing the map” is basically strengthening the neural pathways within yourself that already do make
sense and as a result, weaken the parts that don’t.

There will be two types of person:

1. Let’s say you’ve lived a life where a lot of things don’t make so much sense.
a. Then adopting the core value of “making sense” might be quite a big challenge and you
will most likely have a longer journey ahead. Still, it’s important to realize that it’s not an
“on and off switch”; it’s actually something that you can work towards.

2. Let’s say you’ve lived a life that already makes quite a lot of sense.
a. Then it’s very easy to adopt it. Some core values that are more compatible and aligned
with the “making sense” framework are, for example, “knowledge”, “wisdom”, “moving
forward”, “growing”, “right action” or “helping out humanity”.

It’s still important to acknowledge that each core value has parts in it that do make sense! In that regard,
using logic and rationality to strengthen those neural pathways will, over time, change the way you look at
things. To do that, learning and growing your understanding about things can really help you quite a bit in
restructuring (meaning that it’s not something that happens overnight).

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II – How to make sense when your life doesn’t make that much
sense
Understanding how neural plasticity works can really help you realizing how important it is to just look at all
the values you have (“family”, “friendship”, “money”, “romantic relationship”) and figure out what parts do
make sense. You strengthen them and, as a result, the ones that don’t make sense get weaken.

By doing so, you become a person that, bit by bit, starts making more sense of things.

a) Always stimulate what already makes sense

You are merely the result of the neural activity in your brain.

It’s important to realize that you’re the product of your neural activity. As it shifts all the time, you’re basically
every single moment a different entity, an ever changing unit without center (you’re actually never the same
person). This is what most neuroscientists agree that consciousness is.

Being aware of that allows you to understand that there’s certain moments where you can have a lot of
clarity (what some people call “being in the flow”) – the parts of your brain that make sense are active at
that point.

Sometimes, you suddenly lose all the clarity from one moment to another – you start shifting to the parts
that don’t make so much sense.

As a result, you start wondering:

“Why in one moment I am so sharp and afterwards I do so much stupid shit?”

And the reason is because your neural activity just shifts!

Being aware of these mechanics can really allow you to always re-stimulate the parts that do make sense.
And slowly but surely, you start restructuring yourself.

You might be asking right now:

“Ok, so how do I figure what makes sense?”

When you look at your core subconscious values (that are really very emotional), the routes of your drives
and desires have to be looked all the way back. You need to go back to your childhood and understand
why you’re doing what you’re doing.

As an example:
 Some people’s motivations are built upon a desire to prove themselves towards their family. Others
experienced a traumatic experience and want revenge.

Being able to confront yourself with these deep desires (that really define a lot of your motivations) and
understand why they are there in the first place, really allows you to recognize the parts that might make less
sense in you.

Being aware of this will allow you to let go of your past and your story (a lot of people still carry it around).
But if you realize that the past is just a source of information that makes you more compatible with reality
and can help you move forward, you are able to easily let go your narrative.

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 b) But I am afraid of “making sense”!
I still see some people approaching “making sense” as something that has to be feared, that it can take
things away but that’s a big misconception. This core value, when implemented, gives you a very clear
direction to improve your life.

Let’s say you play games and you go like:

“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense that I play games all day.”

You start feeling bad and eventually start beating yourself up over it (the same might happen with
procrastination).

You’re going about it in the wrong way.

What makes sense is not to beat yourself over. What makes sense is trying to figure out why do you play
games or why do you procrastinate. If you go straight to the route of the cause and you try to verbalize it to
yourself – why you do what you do –, you can much more easily tackle these issues in a constructive way.

That is what the power of “making sense”: you know, on a fundamental level, that by aligning your
beliefs with reality, you will always come out better. If you have that trust and feeling of safety, it will
really allow you to just start looking at all the parts in your life in a more structured way.

“How do I make sense out of it?”

Maybe you’re a gamer and you can do something positive about it. If I play games on the stream or do
events for charity, it makes sense. It’s not because a certain habit doesn’t make sense that you can’t turn
it into something that it does.

c) You can actually make sense every single moment

It’s very important to understand that you can make sense every single moment of the day, even if you are
resting or taking a break; it does make sense, just like eating and sleeping.

BE AWARE: “Making sense” doesn’t mean “working hard”, but instead “being the best version of
yourself at any time”.

If it means resting in a more efficient way by watching Cosmos or reading a novel, then that is the most
logical action.

I think that’s quite important because sometimes people can create a duality. They have a part in
themselves that says:

“This makes sense.”

And then once they screw up, they feel like:

“Oh, now I can’t make sense anymore.”

… and at that point they sort of fall back to that comfort or “vacation” mindset.

But it isn’t right to have that kind of duality! You need to be aware that you can make sense of everything.
Even your flaws do make sense and being able to see them for what they are can really allow you to tackle
all your issues.

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By getting rid of this flawed belief that you don’t make sense already, you’ll feel more confident,
clear-minded and you will also experience less “noise”.

As time goes by and as you use logic and rationality, your intellectual parts will start resonating with your
subconscious because they start making more sense.

You’ll also be able to outperform yourself because a lot of working memory becomes free (you don’t need
to use processes to try and sort out this duality). You’ll become more and more in line with what you are,
you’ll be more optimized towards reality and as a result, you obviously turn into a more productive and
efficient person.

d) A very important insight!

Retain this in mind: it’s very important to keep the momentum going.

If you are starting to make sense, continuing do so really allows you to keep the flow going. As you shift
away to parts that aren’t making much sense, it’s really easy to lose that momentum and feel quite bad
about yourself.

Still, be aware of that and change your neural activity back to the parts that do make sense. It can help you
quite a bit.

e) Final thoughts
At the end of the day, if you want to fully make sense in your life, you need to go through the processes I
outlined before.

As your neural pathways become stronger and stronger, you’ll gradually become an individual that makes
sense and I can guarantee that it’s going to allow you to achieve anything in your life, turning you into a
more successful and happy person.

“Making sense” is an insight that has helped people tremendously, even ones that didn’t know what to do
with their lives. This core value really allows you to tackle each issue independently and give you a
meaningful direction.

Check out the subreddit:

If you have any issues, if you want to really try this out and you want to learn more about it, check the
“Making Sense” subreddit.

It is completely focused on you and how can you develop this core value to really improve your life, get
more control and become much happier. It has a lot of very interesting insights, so make sure to give it a
look.

A community of people helping each other to overcome these issues in a very practical sense is something
that I haven’t seen on the internet yet so I’m really looking forward to seeing how it works.

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A list of core values – why they aren’t as effective as “making
sense”
Happiness
Happiness is a side effect of a resonating brain, of doing what you believe is the most important. It is a
mechanism that nature has established to make you more effective within your environment – the ability to
make you more compatible. By turning that your core value, you contradict how your brain works. It
shouldn’t be your goal but instead, emerge as a side effect.

Sex
Honestly, the only reason you value sex is because you are a virgin. And I can tell you one thing: once you
have sex with a girl, you will figure that it’s not actually that big of a deal.

“Making a lot of money”

What if you have a lot of money? What then? Why do you even want to make a lot of money? Is it because
you want more and more of it? It doesn’t make sense. Is it because you want a nice house? If you think
through it, the goal is never to make a ton of money – you don’t care so much about money –, but instead
to impress other people (making money just for the sake of it doesn’t make any sense at all).

Job security
Let’s say you have job security. What now? What are you going to do then? Is your world going to crumble
because your entire life is built on an already fulfilled core value? Once that is satisfied, what is the next
thing? That’s the problem: a lot of people put themselves into a situation where they can really fall into a
black hole once they achieve what they wanted.

Romantic relationship
That is very dangerous! What would happen if that person dumps you? The biggest reason most people
have a partner as a core value is because they feel a lack of self-love and they want to fill that up. But then
again, don’t you think that it is much better to have more self-esteem and confidence (and truly believing in
yourself)? A partner is just an addition but it is not a foundation. You should be your own foundation.

Freedom
That is a paradoxical value. What if the person next to your room is free to do what he wants and enslaves
you? What then? Does he have the right to do that because he can take away your freedom? And you
might say:

“No, no, no. It’s freedom to do what I want if it doesn’t go at the cost of someone else’s
freedom.”

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Ok, so then it is not freedom of doing what you want, it’s freedom to do whatever you want in a responsible
way! But then you can start questioning to which extent you can be free at all. What if your actions go at
the cost of children in China making your iPhone? Then, your freedom of purchasing it goes at the cost of
other people so that value doesn’t hold up in itself.

Family
Family as a core value is more of a “I want to be part of something”. But the problem is the definition of
“family”. Your parents, sisters, brothers? What about other people, what about friendship? Is it because of
blood, because they brought you up? What it is the reason for choosing certain people? DNA? Is that it?
Because you grew up with them? What if they start backstabbing you? What if you have a bad experience?
Does your world crumble? It is much better to have yourself as a foundation than family or friendship. I am
not saying that family isn’t important but can cause a lot of issues as a foundation.

Purpose
Firstly, you need to define what you want as a purpose. You’ve got to define the rule set. And that’s why
making sense is so important. It allows you to define which purpose is the most in line with what you are.
Just having the idea of really wanting purpose in your life is very non-directional and empty.

Truth
There isn’t such a thing as “truth”. And if you use “making sense”, you would figure that out. If I base myself
on my experience, I can’t be sure if something it’s true or not. Am I sure of this statement? No, I am not so
sure. Am I sure about not being sure about this statement? I don’t know. When you boiled it down, you will
never be 100% sure because you just don’t know.

Improvement
You need a context to define what improvement is. As you can improve relative to a certain frame of
reference but stall or deteriorate relative to another. You can easily get stuck with:

“I am improving, I am improving!”

… but if your reference frame is flawed, then basically what you are valuing becomes flawed as well. The
great thing about “making sense” is that it is found on logic, structure, patterns and consistencies that are
directly correlated with reality. And improvement becomes a result of that.

“Becoming the best version of yourself”

Only if it is based on facts and science. The problem is that people’s idea about the value might be flawed.
Some people think that being the best version of themselves is to become a singer, for example. And that’s
why “making sense” is a much stronger core value because then you automatically try to grow and improve
yourself by accessing knowledge about how your brain works and how you’ve come to exist through
evolutionary biology.

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Real Talk Q&A – Questions from the viewers

1. Do you either make sense or you don’t? Is there a range?

• We make sense all the time. There isn’t such a thing as not making sense, it just doesn’t exist. You
might say:

“But that doesn’t make sense!”

If so, you don’t understand it. “Making sense” means understanding the mathematical patterns that
bring about certain realities in your environment.

For example:
Back in the days, lightning didn’t make any sense. As we became more knowledgeable, it started making
sense. The same applies to your dysfunctional beliefs and thoughts: they might make no sense but if you
understand the patterns, you can do something about it; you can fix them.

You basically understand that the emotions responsible for the dissonance come from the conflict of your
beliefs. The dissonance that people experience is just their brain trying, on a fundamental level, to make sense
(a natural mechanism to align you with reality).

2. Would “making sense” as a core value work for our ancestors?

• Not really. They would experience too much dissonance. There would be too many holes or
unknowns, due to the lack of information. And it was only recently that we have been able to
understand how our brain works; how we work. And that’s why concepts like “God” and “religion”
had so much easy gravitas back then – those concepts explained the unexplainable.

3. Why do we even have the chance to “not make sense”? Could it be an evolution
process that determined that it is fine that humans do not make sense?
• The argument that we, by default, don’t make sense is not fully accurate. We make sense all the
time. And you might wonder:

“But if everybody makes sense all the time, then why even say that making sense
should be your core value?”

Exactly! Making sense should be your core value because that allows you to optimize yourself
drastically.

If you act like a douchebag, it is perfectly sensible in your mind. And the reason why is because
certain neural pathways or processes did what they did at that given time (either due to ignorance
or lack of information). You can always explain why you are what you are. Ultimately, “making
sense” boils down to understanding why you experience these things, which then allows you to
overcome a lot of bullshit.

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4. You say that when we set “making sense” as our core value, then we can achieve
anything that we want. But isn’t it that when we do so, we would no longer desire
what we wanted before? (Since it probably wouldn’t make sense anymore.)
• Yes, and no. When you make sense, the urges that you experience will be much more easily
classified and therefore, fully understood. You would, then, just start going through what you need
and want in a more structured way.

For example:
You would try to contextualize a romantic partner in a framework that does make sense. So “making sense”
doesn’t suddenly take away your needs but it makes it much easier to manage them.

5. How long does it take to click with someone (the “making sense” value)? Can it be
instant even though the person has been affected by social conditioning or do you
need to strengthen your neural pathways?
• It depends from person to person. I’ve seen it happening instantly in people that fully understood
the catharsis.

All your dissonance has no legitimate reason to be there (the way you experienced it) and the
moment you realize that, everything you detect suddenly makes sense.

6. How should a person that wants to make a sense as a core value act when he
doesn’t have the logical capacity to do so?
• Intellectual authority would be my answer. If I wouldn’t have the intellectual logical capacity to come
up with the conclusions, I would look up the person who has the most insight into these things and
just base myself in him. Of course, if then I am confronted with someone else debunking it, I would
adopt that instead (that’s what I actually do all the time).

When it comes down to science, I am not an authority. The intellectual authorities are the ones that
are doing the experiences and come out with the data (aka, scientists). Ideally, the intellectual
authority should not be a person. It should be the source where you get your knowledge (always
make sure claims are backed up by data).

7. Don’t you think people should get a bigger scientific and philosophical knowledge
before claiming they make sense?
• Not at all. You can do it without having too much knowledge. Making sense in itself drives you to
find knowledge and as we live in an information era, it’s easier than ever. If you experience
dissonance, you try to understand it. That’s the beauty of it.

8. Aren’t you making an assumption that “making sense” as a core value is a

subjective thing?
• No. It’s a rational, logical thing. The beauty of our brain is that it is quite mathematical (even
language is).

Why do you experience dissonance when you have two contradictory ideas? Because your brain
is mathematical; it wants to make sense. That’s the foundation, what has brought about reality.
Everyone, on a fundamental level, does make sense but they just don’t understand how or why.

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9. If we turn “making sense” our core value, does that become a part of our conscious
mind?
• The change has to happen on a subconscious level, which is what ultimately drives us. It’s a gut
thing. And that’s why a lot of people don’t fully understand it because they look at it rationally. I am
not talking about making it your core value on a logical level but rather on an impulsive, emotional
level.

For example:
If your core value is “money” and you act impulsively, you have a higher chance of scamming people. If your
core value is “love”, you will drop your friends for a girl.

If you turn “making sense” as your core value on a subconscious level, your gut reaction will be
exactly to make sense at all times.

10. So “making sense” takes a subconscious decision into the conscious mind?
• No, it’s not your conscious mind making decisions. Your subconscious performs the decision and
then your conscious parts try to make sense out of it.

But if you turn “making sense” your subconscious priority, everything that is thrown at you will make
sense. And if it doesn’t, you will start wondering why. Intuitively! You will have an urge to make
sense of things. Isn’t that crazy?

11. I am still scared of it. I don’t want to lose my comfort, my family.

• That’s the normal gut reaction because your current core value sorts out a lot of fears. Once you
take that away you suddenly have a gap, a void, and all the fears come up.

But the thing is: if you turn “making sense” your core value, you will have more comfort and a better
relationship with your family. All the core values you have right now will be even more fulfilled.

Naturally, if you tell that to your inner child, he won’t believe you. He will still have fear and crawl
under the bed and say:

“No, no, no! Stay away from me.”

But if you make it very clear:

“Do you know all these questions that you’ve asked and all these fears that you piled
up? There is a reason for why they happened; an answer for each one of them. And
making sense will allow you to understand that, it’s fine, it’s cool.”

You really got to, on an emotional level, comfort your inner child. And then it’s so much easier to
try that out. I know it’s quite scary but I guarantee you: it’s going to change your life for the better.

12. So just understanding is enough to get rid of the dissonance that certain emotions
cause?
• It is! Truly understanding them on a neurological level, so you need to know how your brain works
(which is basically how and why these emotions rise).

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13. Emotions that are rational should not be tried to be suppressed. That isn’t rational.
• What you are trying to say is:

“Emotions that have a valid reason to be there should not be suppressed.”

Indeed. If you walk against a wall, the experience of pain should not be suppressed, because else
you will keep walking against the wall. So, of course, you need to figure out where that emotion
comes from, put it into words and do something about it. If it is a reality, though, then you just have
to accept it.

14. You talk a lot about rationalism. Do you think the world would be a better place if we had no
emotions? And if so, would you choose to sacrifice all living creatures, emotionless or not?
• No, of course the world wouldn’t be a better place with no emotions. First of all, we wouldn’t be
ready to think more rationally. At the same time, emotions only exist because they allowed us to
survive. It was actually nature’s shortcut to be able to adapt to reality without knowing what was
going on.

We tend to give emotions a bigger meaning but it is also a mechanism. Do you think the reason
you put your hand away when it’s burned just comes from some universal magical source? They
are there for a reason: they allowed us to evolve to where we are now.

Emotions are just primitive mechanisms for us to be able to compute with reality. That’s it! And now
“making sense” and “rationality” are much better instruments. We’re all machines, just quite
ineffective ones becoming more and more effective with our knowledge.

15. How do you control and avoid negative thoughts (depression, OCD, worrying)?
• You need to realize that you experience the emotion before you are aware of it. You basically
rationalize your emotions afterwards. It is extremely important to understand that, because you can
wrongly rationalize certain emotions and create vicious spirals as a result.

You have to be aware that the emotion itself is not as bad as the thoughts that get linked with it, so
if you do it in the wrong way you will enhance it (almost as the swing effect). And that’s why just
experiencing the emotion and letting it go can be a very powerful way of therapy.

At the same time, understanding where the feeling comes from is very important. The moment you
do, you can just live it in a detached away, without enhancing it. Be aware though that if the emotion
means that the concept related to it is something that needs a directed action plan, then you do
that instead.

16. How does intuition fit in the “making sense” framework?

• Intuition is a biological way of calibrating yourself without being aware of it.

Sometimes intuition can be more powerful than reason! Mostly because your reason is based on
limited knowledge and your intuition is a few steps ahead. Putting it simply, our subconscious grabs
more details than your conscious part could do and therefore, intuition communicates stuff that you
wouldn’t be capable of immediately putting in words.

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 At the same time, that doesn’t discard that “making sense” is the most powerful way to go about
things (a lot of the times, making sense and intuition go hand in hand). The more you read and
gather knowledge, the more your intuition is upgraded (in a sense).

17. “My subconscious is making choices” – can you back this statement?
• Of course. All your emotions emerge from the primitive’s parts of the brain. You basically
experience them first and then rationalize afterwards. You might think you are making conscious
choices but you don’t.

For example, when you ask yourself:

“Why am I procrastinating?”

You clearly realize that you’re not the one making the choices, it’s your subconscious.

18. So does my subconscious part say “I want money”?

• No. Your subconscious part doesn’t even know what money is. It just wants safety and translates
that to the conscious part as “Money gives me safety.” And then your subconscious connects
“money” with “safety” in a way that when you seek safety, the idea of money is triggered.

19. Can you explain exactly what a “paradigm shift” is through examples?
• First example:
Imagine you believe your romantic relationship is the most important thing in your life. You have THE girl, you
are in love and you really think she’s everything. Then one day she just dumps you for another douchebag.
Suddenly, your entire world collapses. You start questioning this “romantic relationship” core value and realize
that it’s not aligned with reality. You essentially adopt another one.

Second example:
“Money” is your core value. You get very rich until you realize you’re not fulfilled:

“This is not it. This is not improving my life, what is my problem? I’ve done everything, I’m rich.
People find me successful, what’s wrong with me?”

And you fall in a pit hole, get depressed and eventually change your core value.

These are just two examples, although I have to say that most people don’t even get to the point
where they shift their core values anyway. If they do, it would be called a “paradigm shift”.

20. I understand what you are saying but I keep going back to mindlessly acting during
my day with no real regards or applications of these insights. How can this be
explained?
• You are your neural activity! And your neural activity brings about the strength of your neural
pathways. If in your entire life you have lived a certain way, it’s very hard to move away from it. You
literally need to train yourself. Just like working out, if you ask me:

“Athene, if you tell me I can lift 100kg, why do I struggle even lifting 1kg?”

It’s because you have to train that.

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21. Do you think our senses might wrongly perceive our environment?
• The input you get from your senses is certainly incomplete or at least inaccurate but that doesn’t
mean you cannot define certain patterns from what you experience. People have the tendency to
think in absolutes. It’s not because you don’t have a complete understanding of a situation that
therefore the entire equation is wrong. It’s not a “black and white” thing, it’s not a binary thing.

22. “Being the best version of yourself”, just like “making sense”, also requires
knowledge so they are similar, right?
• You have to be aware that “making sense” is essential to even define what being the best version
of yourself is. If you are attached to that value in an emotional way, you just f*ck yourself up, while
if you use “making sense” and “reason”, that’s not going to happen.

When the core value that processes any input is “making sense”, I can literally just give you the
knowledge and the output of your actions will be very straightforward. But if its “money”, “family”,
“relationships”? Then your actions will be derailed, contradictory.

23. To me it makes the most sense to move forward because the world is unfair and,
therefore, I want to improve everyone’s life. Is there anything wrong with looking at
it in this way?
• “Making sense” is purely defined by the knowledge you have. Two people can make sense and do
completely different things because one person is more knowledgeable than the other.

As you acquire more knowledge, your action and insight that results from making sense will be
more tailored to reality. That’s the thing: the extent to which your actions are aligned with reality is
defined by your knowledge of that same reality (and that is something that only comes with
experience).

24. Why is it so hard to accept “logic” as a core value? It kind of feels giving up things
in life in order to make sense.
• It is not so hard to accept “logic” as a core value. What it is hard is to let go of the other core value
that is there instead.

If you grew your entire life with a core value like “freedom”, the issue is not accepting “making
sense” but rather to replace “freedom” with “making sense”. That’s the problem! Your brain was
conditioned to think that way, and now it requires more energy to change your values than to just
keep them. And that’s why you are stuck in this kind of thoughts.

25. Some people might have an agenda towards something and they make sense with
that thing in mind. You might have another goal and the algorithm of your behavior
is written to achieve that. Priorities matter more than knowledge.
• The thing is that, on a fundamental level, when you build a paradigm very rationally, there is only
one path and that path is defined by the knowledge you have – very simple.

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 You can’t disagree if you have access to the same information and support yourself with facts and
logic. You can only assume:

“Hum, I think maybe this is more likely or maybe that is more likely (based on the facts).”

You can have a different interpretation but that’s very rare. Most of the things are very linear.

26. We don’t even know what it is the final product we want. Is it morality? Is it peace
for everyone? Is it everyone being happy? What is the ultimate goal? We can’t
decide the path if we don’t know what the end result is.
• I wouldn’t fully agree that you need to know the end result to define the path. You just need to look
at what we are, based on our evolution, and try to grow in the same direction. And you can do that
by learning from our knowledge and our experiences.

It could be trying to figure out how to beat extreme poverty or how to improve AI but I would say
that even that doesn’t matter if you don’t have the willingness to make sense. With that in mind,
what I am doing is creating an environment where people have the mindset to do what it is the most
effective once they realize it. And you might ask:

“Ok, but what is that?”

It’s knowing yourself (how your brain works), growing, turning “making sense” into a core value and
building your paradigm as it comes. And of course, there is no laydown path that points towards
where the future goes. That’s not fully well defined because we lack knowledge. But that doesn’t
mean that therefore, you cannot go about in the most rational way with the knowledge that you
already have.

27. What is in your opinion the most damaging social conditioning most people have?
• The concept of “freedom”. People think they are free to do whatever they want, even though
“freedom” is a very flawed concept. You don’t have it without responsibility, because once you
discard responsibility, your freedom goes at the cost of someone else’s freedom. The concept starts
cannibalizing on itself. Still, a lot of people say:

“I am free to live unhealthy, I am free to waste my life, I am free to be irresponsible.”

And that’s just not true.

Every single action or inaction has its repercussions. You’re free within a certain framework but
outside of it? Not at all. And once you understand that, freedom is not that attractive anymore. It
merely becomes a concept that can take you away from your own potential.

I don’t feel that I am free at all, I experience choiceless awareness (lack of choice). The only thing
I care about is to do what makes the most sense and all the rest is just distraction. If I’m in front of
a situation and there’s only one option that makes the most sense, I don’t even see the other ones.
I just do it even if it means sacrificing myself. I don’t care! I got to do what makes the most sense
(and the funny thing is that’s how your cells in your body work as well).

But what is even more insane is the glorification of freedom. People can literally justify bombing or
invading other countries, on the grounds of freedom! It’s a weird abused, simple, populistic, empty
value. A toxic concept that validates a lot of shitty behavior.

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 In the end, you are not free to do what you want and you should be doing what is most responsible.

Just as an example:
If a kid is dying on the street and you walk by, are you free to do that? You can wonder and say:

“You can’t do that, you have to do something about it.”

Well, what about people on the other side of the planet?

I think we share a high level of responsibility towards all of us. We are in this together.

28. I can’t understand why we don’t have freedom. Of course, everyone is free!
• I am talking about the concept of “freedom”.

But you can actually affirm that freedom doesn’t exist on a scientific level. A lot of renowned
neuroscientists discovered that we actually make choices before we are aware of them. We can
literally question whether free choice even exists. To which extent are you free if you already made
up your mind before you are even aware of it?

29. Should we give up our identity?

• Your identity is a way to give yourself some confidence when you lack it naturally. So, generally,
someone with a big ego actually lacks a certain level of confidence because you wouldn’t need an
ego identity otherwise. It just would come out of you naturally. And you can see that clearly from
someone really charismatic – it just comes from the inside, not from a shield.

30. But identity helps me get that confidence.

• If “making sense” was your core value you’d be able to start generating that self-confidence on a
more structured way. Although, in some situations, having an identity or ego can be more practical
to grow (if you’re too young and don’t have the mental capacity to gather knowledge).

31. Considering that every action is inherently selfish, can you blame someone that
finds a more fulfilling away to live than charity? Do you ever wish you had the ability
to live in a different way?
• Your argument that “every action is selfish” is not true. That’s built on a flawed paradigm that you
believe to be the self. And that’s where the flawed logic is.

When you look at the self and you want to define it, you look at consciousness (at the brain and all
the neural circuits). You look at it from a neuroscientific point of view because the way you see it
as identity and ego doesn’t exist. It’s just a concept, a mental image. In reality, the self actually
embodies all of your experiences, including your environment.

So, you can deduce that there isn’t such a thing as external when you look at it from a
consciousness perspective. Me explaining this to you is all taking place within your consciousness.
Right now, I am part of who you are. And through concepts, you are able to make a distinction.

Once you deeply understand what I’ve just explained, you conclude that taking care of the self,
includes taking care of your environment. And instead of looking at yourself and all your life in a

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 primitive and narrow-minded away, you realize you are much more than that - you are the product
of billions of years of evolution.

32. If you say that the individual is the only variable and that one can only control their
own subjective experience, is the life of that subject of more value than the constant
of another subject?
• Well, it’s all about reference frames. If you are the reference frame, then you are the only variable
in your own reality. Which basically means that you are the only variable that actually has influence
over your actions and can inspire other people as a result. But that doesn’t mean that therefore you
are the most important thing in the world. If you are fully aware you also understand that you are
part of a bigger organism.

33. I’ve read that machines could be above humans if they become aware. Does that
mean that we as humans, self-aware beings, can become aware that we are actually
machines and be much more effective?
• Damn straight! You can become a thousand times more effective. It’s fascinating that we look at AI
and think:

“If just AI could improve itself…”

But we are the same thing! We understand neuroplasticity, we understand how beliefs work, we
understand how the brain works. We are in the same spot as AI! We can grow so much it’s insane
and people just don’t think about it.

34. Does reality always make sense?

• Yes, it does.

You can make an argument that:

“Quantum mechanics doesn’t make sense!”

And still, that’s not true. Our current paradigm and knowledge don’t align with it because they are
flawed and that’s where the disconnect happens.

35. You said: “Reality always tries to follow the path of least resistance”. Then doesn’t
it make sense to be lazy all day?
• Yes, exactly. That’s why you do everything as effectively as possible to avoid wasting energy. And
because of that, we are where we are.

When you look at life, you have to look at it from the grand scheme of things. From an evolutionary
perspective, where cells evolved into what we are. You can’t look at life from an individual
standpoint. And we’ve come a damn long way, one that made us much more effective than our
primitive versions of life. That’s why we survived and took the entire planet.

If you look at technology and how it propelled growth, our lives have become easier and easier to
live. Because we became more optimized and aligned towards reality. And that is because of our
scientific knowledge, that has grown like crazy.

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 Of course, it was not adopted on an existential level and that’s why I think the “making sense”
concept can cause a psychological revolution if people fully grasp it. And that’s also why I’m working
so hard lately to try and phrase it properly because if there’s a way to make people click into it
(even a small amount), it can really have a drastic impact in how it ripples through society.

36. If you wouldn’t have the knowledge that there is mathematical laws or logic, could
you still figure what do you value most in life?
• The extent to which you can answer that question is directly correlated with the amount of insight
you have about the world. If you don’t have that much insight (or if it is very small), then your answer
to what you value most in life will also be very limited. Therefore, the extent to which you can
answer the question is almost directly proportional to the extent you can give the question all the
gravitas that it needs to be answered. If you ask someone that only knows black and white:

“What is your favorite color?”

… you will get a much more simplified answer than if you ask someone that have a complete pallet
in their mind.

37. So that would mean that we are an organism that interprets patterns to the
capability of our species and that we also have the ability to process the information
that creates those specific patterns?
• Well, it’s going further than that because the organism itself obliges to the same patterns as the
patterns that is capable of observing. You yourself are brought about by those same patterns and
that understanding is what allows us to be even more capable. So you can say that comprehending
these patterns is my goal but I go even further because the pattern itself is even more important
than the understanding of it.

38. How do you explain why is it normal to help one another and not to rape? Based on
evolution?
• By seeing to which extent one is more aligned with reality. And you may ask:

“How do you define that?”

By just looking at how the world evolves and learning from the patterns that emerge from our
knowledge, culture and insights.

Evolutionary biology presents us with a lot of insight of where we came from but it doesn’t give us
a full understanding of what we should do. That is something that we adapt based on our trial and
error. When we look around and see how we managed to take over the entire planet, we understand
how taking care of each other has been part of our success. And specifically, how taking care of
the weaker has also been part of our ability to flourish. That feedback loop gives you a lot of
knowledge on how to act and grow effectively.

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39. What if the best mathematical solution is mass suicide?
• I wouldn’t fully agree with that because mass suicide would contradict the essence of our purpose,
to begin with. When you look at a certain concept like “stealing”, you got to apply it in the context
that it has a value. You won’t talk about it in the animal kingdom because “stealing” is a human
concept.

So when you are talking about purpose and why we are here, you automatically already are
following in the footsteps of a concept that has been able to evolve because of humans. So taking
them out of the equation is paradoxical, to begin with. You can’t just omit humans when
consciousness is what brings about the question you are trying to answer.

40. What if chaos (and not logic) is more effective to the universe?
• There isn’t such a thing as “more effective” for the universe. The reference frame in which you
define plus and minus is your own reference frame, your own existence. So you have to take
humans as the reference frame. The moment you do that, chaos doesn’t work at all because it
goes against what we are.

41. Could you explain the rational “gun to the head” step by step?
• First of all, my core value is “making sense”. When something doesn’t make sense, I experience a
lot of dissonance. The way I cope with that is by learning and understanding it through knowledge.

If my reality is fully built on “making sense”, having a version of me being more productive (because
you put a gun on his head) is completely illogical comparing to a version that has more rights, more
freedom and as a result is a bigger slacker.

So a better version in a better situation of me is less productive than one where I strip away these
rights? That doesn’t make any sense. A version of me that has a gun pointed at his head would do
all these things that I do, so why me, as a person, wouldn’t be able to do that? It doesn’t make any
sense.

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