A Few Frameworks (Feb. 18 '25)

I've continued to try to stay present while getting involved in ways that are effective. Over the past week or two, I've run across a couple of resources, frameworks, etc. that I've found helpful, so I'm sharing them here.

Kottke has a post on social media use and how to make sure you're using social media in constructive (i.e. not only doomscrolling) ways. He cites Lauren Goode: "I came up with this acronym, CUE: community, utility and education" and adds another E for entertainment. When you log in, are you connecting with your community, doing something useful, educating yourself, or being entertained? If not, consider logging off and doing something else. I've kept my Facebook account for utility (local groups) and Instagram for community and entertainment, but Bluesky and Retro fill all other needs. And when I catch myself doomscrolling, I stop. Mostly.

Mandy Brown writes about living in uncertain times. This is a longer extract, but here's her framework:

Take small steps. Rather than trying to predict outcomes, aim to test, explore, and improvise. Consider each step or action you take to be a small, brief experiment. Try something, then step back and observe what happens. Then, try again. Remember that many small steps can add up to a great big change given a little time and persistence.

Be ready to shift direction. A step may reveal ground that’s too soft or too loose or too steep to climb. An experimental approach admits of the possibility that the best route won’t be a straight one, but one that zigs and zags around sinkholes and obstacles both. When the ground is unpredictable, so is the path through it.

Anticipate surprise. Expect that as you move and learn, there will be many lessons you couldn’t have planned for, could never have seen coming. A choice or habit that made sense a few miles back may no longer serve you. Don’t engage in hindsight; do be ready to relinquish old truths and accept new ones.

Trust in creativity. A basic condition of life is the creative adaptation to changing conditions—and you, my friend, are alive and living. Trust in your own (and others’) ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances with inventiveness, playfulness, and ingenuity.

To this, I will add a fifth principle: Go with friends. Whatever you do from here, do it with others. It’s a long-held maxim in movement circles that the people who work for liberation and freedom will always be outgunned and out monied by those who fight for precarity, oppression, and exploitation. Our power is not measured in weapons or cash but in humans; our power is with and through each other.

This is less of a framework and more of a mental state, but I'm with Charlie Jane when she says that curiosity keeps her going:

[Curiosity] reminds me that there's so much I don't know, including plenty of things that complicate a doom-and-gloom perspective on reality. Staying curious also feels like a way to be different from the people who want to destroy me, whose defining trait seems to be that they've made up their minds and don't need to take in any information that might contradict their worldview.