NO ANSWER, JUST PONDER

Frameworks Mindset: Good or Bad?

Did We Just Stop Thinking Who Does It Matters?

I was reflecting on my Medium writer journey so far, and before I realize, I completed the writing within a framework.

Retrospection = Learning(Good + Bad) + Action

Bad is a negative word. Public should sound positive.
Bad should also be prevented.
The headers should have resemblance.
Therefore:

Learning_neutral = What I learned
Good = What Went Well
Bad_past = What Could Have Done Better
Bad_future = What I will not do 
Action = What's Next

This writing is a calibration to my internal system. I must think through this before I write more articles.

There is nothing wrong nor unethical for using frameworks in writing.

Framework is a safety net to ensure output is accepted. Framework introduced structure, ease the readers and the writer. It speeds up things with known human knowledge. It is more reliable than the electronically-powered information retriever which packaged to sound like human.

This is often why AI doesn’t sound like human.

Human was not designed to talk in framework, but is nurtured to think in framework.

Human naturally learn to speak by mimic. We all had enjoyable conversations in imperfect grammar, using words only we know. There is no ‘word’ = ‘distinct meaning’ until dictionary comes into our life. Even so, dictionary will be updated because meaning of a word will evolve. The same word may have different meaning over time.

Philosopher argue in words. Knowledge is formed by words in sentences. That’s why every field has ‘Doctor of Philosophy’ who debut by writing thesis. Long-form writing was a crucial to develop knowledge.

Then we learn math. Nominal. Ordinal. Operations. Arguments. Suddenly everything can be algorithmic. Clustered. Classified. Sequenced. Decision can be boolean by a threshold value, or a range, or dynamic threshold value. It seems more efficient in that way. It remove noise and focus on what matters.

This is where human starts to behave like an algorithm, when we only focus on what matters.

Let me highlight this if you see the problem in the sentence.

When we only focus on what matters.

There is a fundamental mindset that blinds you: objectivity. Leftist, liberalism, progressive, they might call you. But those doesn’t quite matter when it is just within yourself. It does matter when you don’t see yourself.

The problem I see in this line is:

Who define what matters?

Every framework is designed with a scope. Within the scope, that is what matters and ‘who’ is not the concern.

Yet as human is not algorithm, frameworks live on without its scope preserved along. Some application are useful, then it becomes a scope expansion of the framework.

The more generic a framework is, the easier it could turn into a mindset for all near similar scenario. And we continuously apply the same framework, forgetting who will it even matters. Our thoughts become predictable by frameworks.

Frameworks had hack our mindset, stopped us from thinking from our perspective.

Because we are applying, we assumed it is serving us.

“Standing on the shoulders of giants”

Are we aware of who are the giant are we standing on? Is he standing or seating? Where is he heading? Why is he there for us to stand on his shoulder? Will he eats us?

It doesn’t matter until the giant stood up and drops us, eats us, move towards the scotching dessert, or if the giant is just facing a wall. The inner wall in the allegory of the cave.

It doesn’t matter why the giant was there for us. Is the giant enslaved to keep us on his shoulder? Is the act of us being on the giant’s shoulder plays into the interest of whom defining what matters?

It doesn’t matter until the framework doesn’t work anymore, even by then we didn’t realize our reliance on the giant.

Framework covers the fact that we didn’t think with an illusion of a thought output. It makes individual to think less and just execute into a near deterministic outcome to whom defining what matters.

Business owners or employers define what matters to the sustain the business or employment. Employees are executors within the framework. There, employees don’t define what matters. Employed managers define what matters to a subset of the business. Professional is engaged because they are known of capable to execute what matters in the similar subsets of all business. Experts of certain frameworks.

When we remove individuality from the equation to judge objectively, it is easy to not be pessimistic over the current civilization. Frameworks which consist of algorithms and psychology to make human execute into the interest of whom defining what matters, while the individual thinks it is their freewill.

Allegory of the cave; Image generated by Gemini

My sudden realization of my reliance on framework is because my writing feels boring. I am trapped in a framework unnecessarily.

Our enjoyable conversations in real-life, it’s all about who are we talking to. None of the sentences are crafted with effort like we write online. Why aren’t they as interesting? When the person comes into picture, the structure of the content matters less.

I tried too hard to write in a certain way. The framework that works or bring value. That’s why it sounds boring.

I miss the ‘who’ who define what matters. Yes, the article is my review, it matters to me even if nobody is reading. but on Medium, the readers defines what matters. Or the editor, they define the publication direction.

Readers will not be bothered like corporate about the retrospection framework and wordings. Even I, in this case, it does not matter to me.

Frameworks are mental modals. All modal are wrong, but some are useful.

Use it only when to whom it will matters find it useful.