O.T.U.J.A. — A Brief Guide for Acting Right in Turbulent Times

Welcome to OTUJA which stands for Observe, Think, Understand, Judge, Act. This is a draft of a five-step guide for acting well and intentionally, especially important when there is a high risk of emotional influence on decision-making.

Anger, frustration, excitement, fear, pity, empathy, joy, etc.

Emotions are a matter of the subjective being alone — mere reactions to external stimuli. They are neither indicative of nor serve as evidence for any general reality. In the case that an emotional impulse does seem to reflect general reality, that is merely coincidental and should be accepted humbly. Emotions are not reasonable bases for action in any case. To act on the basis of an emotion is to act in self-interest and to therefore disregard the well-being of others. One’s emotions are one’s own responsibility to control. The more one allows their emotions to flow freely and impact others, the worse that person is, insofar as I can tell.

It should be considered that fully-justified action may be an unattainable ideal. Of course, everyone must act with some degree of self-interest and emotional influence from time to time in order to survive in the world. That still does not justify it, for martyrs can be perfectly justified in their final act. The best one can do in desperate times (while maintaining that survival is necessary) is to act from an unreasonable basis with the intention to prevent that from becoming a general pattern of behavior in future cases. OTUJA is a guide for formulating a good pattern of decision-making and therefore to maximize overall well-being around them in general, despite what exceptions may have to be made for necessary, expedient ends. The more consciously and frequently this process is applied, the purer one’s intentions will be, and the better a person that one will be, quite simply.

If you will notice, as I have mentioned the word a few times already, intention matters. What I mean by this term could also be described as an aim or purpose. This is not to be confused with goal or consequence. In each step of this process, as I will repeat, the intention is to set a foundation for the following step.

1. Observe

Acknowledge that your first intention is to think clearly (the next step). In order to do this, you must observe. Clear your mind. Identify whether or not you have any emotional impulses. If you do, then take deep breath, take a walk around the block, bash your head on a concrete wall — whatever necessary — until those impulses have at least gone dormant (if not, then congratulations: you are not a decision-maker. Go find a wiser, cooler head to depend on). Observe all that you can impartially, without bias for or against the subject(s) involved and for any outcome which might affect you, emotionally or practically. Love blinds in this step. The more you care about the subject, the hotter the lens through which you will perceive it. Whether it is your child who was kidnapped or a random straight white guy being curb-stomped by ANTIFA in the street, don’t let your initial emotional reaction jump to a premature judgment. Simply collect factual data about what you can see — as much of it as possible. Without impartial observation, thinking is not possible.

2. Think

Now that you have a basis of observations, acknowledge that your next intention is to understand what is going on. This means that you must first think critically about your observations as well as continuing to think about your own mental states during that process. The most important thing here is not to compile and organize all of your data in the construction of a viewpoint, but rather to filter out all of the useless information which, by the way, will be the majority of it. To develop a good filter, it is necessary to have knowledge of, and preferably also a cultivated sixth sense for, logical fallacies. These are errors of relevance and inference that hinder good reasoning. Once you have sifted through all fallacious data, look for patterns in the observations that are left over (there may be nothing left over, which is often the case during political unrest for example, in which case you should remain neutral and walk away from the situation entirely). Consider as many different interpretations of that remaining data, real or hypothetical, as you can. Without critical, analytical thinking, understanding is not possible.

3. Understand

Take your reasoned analysis and acknowledge that your next intention is to formulate a judgment on which to base your action. What is the most reasonable and least self-interested interpretation you can possibly make as a result of the thinking you have just done? Do you actually understand what is going on here on all levels? Do you sympathize with the local case and have a bird’s eye understanding of the greater conceptual patterns if any? Has this happened before, and are there any lessons from history to be learned here that you can draw understanding from? Without understanding to the highest, broadest, and most detailed degree conceivable, valid judgment is not possible.

4. Judge

Judgment is not bad. Judgment is necessary for action. Judgment without observation, thought, and understanding is bad and often leads to poor and destructive action. Acknowledge now that your intention is to act. In order for your action to be well-intended, the conclusion you have drawn from the first three steps must be valid. For a judgment to be valid, by logical definition, the truth of its conclusion must follow from the truth of its evidence. No matter how carefully you have completed the first three steps, you may not be comfortable with making a judgment at all. That is OK. Feel free to go back to any of the steps to analyze whether you missed a crucial bit of information or overlooked an interpretation that could have led to a more confident and reasonable judgment. Know that you are under no obligation whatsoever to have an opinion on anything or to act if you do not think that your judgment is true. Let your intuition be the final judge. An opinion can be based on as much as nothing, so it is better to have reasonable disbelief than to have unreasonable belief. At least reasonable disbelief will yield well-intended actions.

5. Act

In the case that you have formulated a well-reasoned judgment, acknowledge now that your intention is to accept the consequences of the action that you are about to produce. Act confidently and without apology. Apologies are not about actions themselves but rather about having done JA without OTU, and sometimes about having done A without OTUJ!

X. Intuit

The final bullet point and x-factor I would like to mention is intuition. Intuition, I must make clear, has no basis whatsoever in one’s personal emotions, beliefs, or conditioning, although those things can be partially based on it and will often overlap with it to some degree, blurring the line between intuition and personal baggage. It is our connection to the universal unconscious, to speak in Jungian terms, and is intrinsic to our nature. It is our spiritual and truth-guiding force, and it by its very nature cannot be wrong. In the case that an intuitive decision is wrong, it is because of interference of the ego, emotions, or a value structure that needs reform. This is to “trust your gut instinct” with regards to what is true. The more naturally emotional one is, the more difficult it will be, I suspect, for them to rely on their intuitive instinct, for the greater the risk that their intuition will be hindered by emotion. Cultivating intuition takes a lot of fine-tuning. As everyone’s is buried underneath layers upon layers of emotional and conditioned influence, I cannot give any general advice on how to do that. That is your personal duty and obligation to yourself and to the world.

The OTUJA process should be repeated as needed. You will make mistakes. That’s OK as long as it is your ongoing intention to act in accordance with truth — i.e. to do good for the sake of itself and to accept the consequences of that humbly — rather than to act in order to produce a consequence to begin with. This is what it means to be an authentic, moral being.

I must emphasize once more that OTUJA is intended toward an ideal, for one cannot and should not attempt to control external variables. That is not the point. The point is to focus on oneself, one’s own thinking. Every step of this process is extremely difficult. Even the first, to simply observe without emotional or self-interested bias, often requires monk-like meditation in the face of emotion-stirring crises. Sometimes it will seem impossible. When it does, inaction alone will show good character.

Under the condition that you apply OTUJA as consciously and frequently as possible, and that you get a wee bit better every time you do, you will probably start to think critically about some popular false beliefs. The following truths (any of which I would be happy to defend at length) are just a few that may arise:

1. Very few people (including most who claim to love you) care about you, and they like you even less when you speak the truth.
2. Almost all information is meaningless and must be sifted through for truth nuggets to be found.
3. To have knowledge of the logical fallacies is to have taken the intellectual red pill. This is one of the greatest transcendental values as well as the greatest personal dangers of formally studying philosophy. Your bullshit filter will be flawless, and you will never see the world the same again. This will either thicken your skin beyond what you thought was possible or send you spiraling down a well of crippling depression. Either way, you will be forced to find solace in isolation (see 1).
4. Non-defense-based violence is never justified, no matter how useful.
5. “Eye-for-an-eye” is a counterproductive approach to justice, personally and generally.
6. “Moral relativism” — the philosophy in which you believe that shit doesn’t stink just because your shit doesn’t stink to you — is false.
7. People are mostly good, albeit reckless, self-centered, and ignorant.
8. There is no connection whatsoever between being smart and being wise. An equal degree of good and evil is intrinsic to us all, and one uses one’s available tools to intend good rather than evil precisely to the degree that one is self-aware.
9. Self-awareness is the foundation of being a genuinely good and authentic person. It is a endless struggle. It never ends.
10. Activism — the belief that action trumps the other prerequisite steps in the OTUJA process so that it is perfectly acceptable, regardless the ideology on which it is founded, to act without proper justification or civility — is irrational animal behavior against which forceful defense is always permitted.

Good luck.