Note to a Friend

~19 min read

Note 02/25/2026: This is an edited note I sent to a friend sometime in 2025. For privacy (theirs and my own) I have edited sections of the text. Nevertheless, I think the writing offers an understanding towards some of my more ideological thinking. Lastly, know that this was first and foremost an informal note to a friend, so inconsistencies and fallacies may exist.

I know this is a bit past due but I still wanted to write this out for you to read, out of interest to see what you think of it and also because maybe it’ll help you as it has for me. These principles are what I would like to call ‘rough drafts’ in that they’re still being modified as I go through life and my circumstances evolve. Additionally, I really am sorry this took so long to get to you.

I am not a religious person as you likely know, at least not in the devotional sense. Most people who are religious approach faith from a bottom up perspective. They first adopt the base assumptions of the religion, the histories, the beliefs, and more without replacing any preexisting beliefs that might’ve previously imprinted on someone’s mind. This usually occurs in adolescence, before exposure to communities outside ones immediate family and their communities such as a local church, and before other base ideas have had time to take hold. And indeed, it would be a lie to say that when I was in adolescence I did not develop basic beliefs from the bottom up that now structure my beliefs in the current day. They just happened to be mostly secular in origin.

To adopt a religion from the ground up would require me to question large parts of my identity that I would consider to be ‘load bearing’. It would necessitate or require a complete collapse of my identity to undergo such a total shift, and my fundamental beliefs would have to be totally unreconcilable with the way reality actually works.

I do however, find value in the aesthetic and philosophies of religions, the top level abstract ideals offered by many religions that curiously seems like common ground among groups with vastly different base worldviews. An answer to that question of “what for?” which bears no quantifiable answer and that makes no quantifiable sense, yet demands an answer nonetheless. I would simply equate this sensation to virtue. Virtue and living within virtue seems to be a common theme among major religions, and presents itself in secular mechanisms as well.

For the Abrahamic religions, virtue presents itself in the corporeal world but is intrinsically tied to God.

Three things last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. Corinthians 13:13

For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; the upright will see his face. Psalms 11:7

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

To the Christian, virtue is driven by effort in the world through prayer, action, and faith, but justified by a greater authority and an adherence to this nature. It establishes a cosmic good and evil, and removes the necessity of confusion for a path. In Islam, virtue is tied to submission, through Taqwa (piety), Sabr (Patience), Shukr (Gratitude) etc. Hinduism and Daoism sees virtue as an alignment with Dharma, a cosmic and moral duty, and De, a natural harmony, respectively. Buddhism sees virtue as a path to enlightenment. It is expressed in a conduct that reduces suffering, and a wisdom to transcend an eternal cycle of suffering latent in all life. The writings above are in no way meant to perfectly encapsulate these cultures mind you, or give a complete synopsis of their ideals, but merely serve to paint a picture. I don’t mean to denigrate any of the aforementioned beliefs above or below, so hopefully none of these offend.

Let’s veer away from religion; Virtue is also seen in a common conscience of a society and culture (and indeed, religion is often interbred with both). From the perspective of law abiding individuals, to obey law is virtuous. To act politely is virtuous, as is to be a productive member of the workforce, to save your money, to pay your taxes, to buy a microwave and a four door truck, and a white picket fence, to raise a family, to pay your taxes, to call your grandparents, yada yada. In this case to be virtuous is once again tied to a higher power and away from short term consequences. This higher power no longer wears a white robe with a long beard, heralded by cherubs and trumpets but goes by the name of reason and rationality; He is worshipped all the same, and faith still lies latent in the equation not in an explicit sense, but in a trust in the systems and their efficacy.

Personally I see no problem with faith, whether that faith is in a God or a rationality is unimportant to me(though I mean not to imply that God and rationality are exclusive). Each one has its uses, and the authority to be most respected depends on the individual. There’s a reason AA programs are often religious. It’s not just about God, but about outsourcing a problem—abstinence—to a structure that removes decision-making fatigue. It just so happens that its easy to justify that structure in God for most people.

All systems are built on faith, but it might be more important to direct our eyes to feedback, of which is essential to a successful system. Take the Apollo 11 moon landing. To send three men to the moon in 1969, a Saturn V rocket 363 feet tall had to accelerate to a velocity of ~25,000 miles per hour to break Earth’s gravitational pull. The first stage itself required five F-1 engines to produce 1.5 millions pounds of thrust each for a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust, or about how much thrust is required to lift your mother off of the couch¹. Then a trans lunar injection had to be performed based on faith in a hardcoded piece of hardware with less processing power than in the microprocessor of a Hello Kitty Casio watch, using math derived by a man born in the 17th century, which had to place the Lunar module into a 50-mile wide corridor 60 miles above the moon during an entry from 24,000 mph to a final landing velocity of 2 mph, with such miraculous navigational backups as sextants, star charts, and a sliding piece of wood known as the slide rule—seeing as the handheld calculator hadn’t been popularized yet and wouldn’t be for 15 years. The Apollo 11 lunar module landed 4 miles away from the planned landing site without accident, from an origin a quarter of a million miles away in Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Launch Complex 39A. The precision required to do such an action, and the cooperation required is a testament to the value of systems of abstraction, which allowed individuals to contribute to a greater whole without having to conceptualize the entire process itself.

This system did not work because its participants had only faith in the process, but because they had faith in the processes that worked. Many mistakes were made along the way, some due to theories that did not agree with reality (in which case, reality usually won), and others due to incalculable error that is latent in the process of (methodically) fucking around and finding out. Nevertheless, their beliefs could be adjusted so the results aligned with reality, and the feedback of the results adhered to theoretical beliefs. This is what is commonly known as the scientific principle. Faith in such a system, that allows one to adhere one’s beliefs to observation, is what separated 250,000 years of subpar toil from a modern society as we know it. Sending men to the moon required faith, but faith in predictions grounded in core axioms continuously tested and refined against reality. All systems require faith in core axioms, which by their very nature are unproveable. They must be a given. To utilize numbers, which form the pillars of all modern math and the fruits of its labors, one must accept without argument the value of numbers and the results of basic operations. But why is 1 = 1 and 2 = 2 you may ask? Why isn’t 1=2 or 3=4? Because fuck you, that’s why.

This leads nicely into the principles themselves, which is the actual focus of this letter. Each of these principles forms the framework of my working philosophy, which I use to make decisions in my life, find purpose, and feel a sense of satisfaction that what I’m doing is if not right, at least as close as I can optimally get to it.

I. principiis servus est (slave to principles)

This was the first principle I wrote. It comes from a quote by Emiliano Zapata Salazar, who was a leading figure during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. He is quoted as saying:

I want to die a slave to principles. Not to men.

When I saw this for the first time I didn’t think much of it. I wrote it down somewhere for safekeeping. It bore no significance on my life, and I merely kept it around because I liked the way it sounded. However at some point it became the basis of my belief system which I now present here before you.

As I have stated, all systems require a modicum of faith, the subject of which cannot itself be proven. Skepticism, popularized by individuals such as René Descartes in the mid 1600s, questioned our most basic assumptions about reality. HIs Evil Demon hypothesis supposed that a powerful deceiver could manipulate even our base perceptions about the world. If we could not trust even our most basic senses, then what could we believe? I am not here to discuss his response to that (The famous Cogito, ergo sum, or I think, therefore I am) but to say that life works a lot better if you simply assume your eyes aren’t lying to you. The infinite regress of asking “How do you know? But how do you know you know? But how do you know you know you…” can be best left to the burger-flipping philosophers and away from the purview of the working man. This principle is the only one you have to take on faith. By following this principle—by being a slave to it, you free yourself to actualize your best self—assuming positive results of these principles do actualize. If they don’t, then you should disregard this system since it does not benefit you, or at the very least modify it to a level of applicability.

The Stoics popularized the idea of controllable and noncontrollable aspects of your life. In some respects, you will always be a slave. There are just some things that can’t be beat. Death will likely come for us all in the end, and suffering is an unavoidable fact of life. We all have our boulder to push, but some people push more than they need to. In my opinion, it is best to face what we must so we can focus on what we want to. That first shot comes for us all, but the meaning lies in those four further shots that knock upon the door of fate.

Principles such as these are limiting of course. The pacifist who frees himself of violence also revokes his right to fight back against those he deems wrong. But in limitation there lies what can exist, which through structure and discipline is usually much better off. Structure always implies limitation. The whole and half notes of a piano denies the fractional steps in between, but it is within this medium that exists Stravinsky, Wagner, and Bach.

This principle offers nothing directly, but it empowers all the rest; It offers nothing and everything.

II. veritas super omnia (reality above all)

This principle comes to me from my admittedly short experience with dealing with pain. I have found that in order to enjoy or simply experience life properly, you must confront your problems and conflictions if they are to remain in your life. This relates to of course those unavoidable problems, the kind that will not go away by indulging in ignorance or engaging in a hedonistic streak, hoping that your problems will go away. If you do have a problem that can be avoided, it should of course be cut off completely if possible. The solution to problems in life lies first and foremost in confrontation (and indeed, removal of a problem is in itself a form of confrontation). Confrontation is not always easy. It sometimes demands pain. In all choices, the option must be chosen that coincides with, if I can romanticize a little bit, “The Flow of the Universe”, or the way things ought to be. Energy itself flows along the path of least resistance, which can be seen in electrical current through wires², and adaptations of life through evolution. You can not fight reality, you are forced to flow with it. Sometimes the best you can do is play the cards you’re dealt. In a less floaty sense, you should be absolutely observant to reality, because reality is above all. You should be radically open minded, a maxim I took from the economist Ray Dalio, who coincidentally has a book called “Principles” which I HIGHLY recommend. Following reality will always minimize suffering, even if it must sometimes allow it in the immediate. I do not claim to have always done this or will always do this, but in my efforts to align myself with this principle I have become all the better for it.

If I could be allowed to tell an anecdote, this principle really helped me deal with things in my life. A year or so ago, I acquired some LSD. I won’t go into my reasons, but I see psychedelics as an invaluable source of perspective that can’t be replicated through near any other means. In the words of Aldous Huxley in relation to psychedelic experience—notably mescaline—he says³,

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite”.

Nevertheless, I took a moderate dose for the first time and had a pretty good time. Then a month later I had enough for three small doses or one quite large dose. The thing about psychedelics is that you have to respect the substance. They do not fuck around. They play with your senses and comprehension of reality, and once you strap in you’re along for the ride. And if you are not in the right mindset or setting, they can really mess you up. At the time I was dealing with some stuff. In the grand scheme of thing it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was mostly medical related, which at the time was very stressful for me. I wanted to escape my present circumstances, and took all three tabs that night.

What followed was 12 hours of hell⁴, and I still hold that it was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. My sense of time and space distorted heavily. My whole body hurt in such a realistic fashion that I felt as if I was actively dying and all my organs were failing. I couldn’t feel my heartbeat, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t remember my name, where I was, even the names of common objects. I forgot everything, as if I had become conflicted with late-stage dementia. I felt like a small child, completely lost and confused, or like an animal trapped in a cage. While I was fully convinced I was dying in, I was too scared to go downstairs and talk to my mom or talk to anyone for fear that I’d be carted off to some hospital and be subjected to an even worse experience. For nearly 12 hours, I paced in a circle in my room waiting for the sun to come up. It was horrible.

What’s interesting though was that I don’t blame the drug. It didn’t introduce any new fears, it acted like a magnifying glass to my preexisting fears—the very same ones I had tried to bottle up and avoid. I did not respect the drug and so it did not respect me. It showed me that there were things in my life I had to face, which over the course of 2024 I did, and even though things aren’t perfect my mental state has improved astronomically. In my opinion you should respect reality above all, and be radically open minded to truth. You should be open to truth completely, and if you ever find yourself incorrect about something then its best to change.

III. partum vel discere; ad astra vel terra (creation or learning; to the stars or earth)

This principle is perhaps the most contentious, and I would not hold it against you if you found it inapplicable to your life. It concerns actions that I consider worth doing, and the actions it defines fall on a coordinate in two dimensional space defined by two cardinal axes: direction of the result and the realm of the result. I would like to point out that this system is in no way a science. It does not claim to classify all actions in terms of their worth or virtue, and serves only as a heuristic to prioritize my time. There is no function you can maximize here, and while it reflects fundamentally on my biases of what I consider worthwhile, it is purposefully simple so it can be adapted to whomever uses it. Adherence to this system, like the principles as a whole, is only as useful as its positive effect on you.

That being said, the horizontal axis is separated into what I would call ‘emission’ or ‘absorption’. In any action you can either produce something into the world or ‘absorb’ something. To learn a skill would be to absorb information. To produce a painting, for example, would be to ‘emit’ it. The principle separates this into creation and learning, but this is not a perfect translation.

The vertical axis concerns the realm of the result, and is either in the realm of the ‘stars’ or the ‘earth’. These might be better understood as concrete or abstract. A concrete act of production for example could be work. Most people’s jobs involve the production of something concrete. Conversely, to absorb concretely might be understood as learning, such as going to class and learning an intended subject.

Abstract production is production of something that is more creative, such as music, poetry, writing, etc. Abstract absorption is also learning, but in this case you aren’t so much learning a concrete thing of knowledge but a skill, something that you can embody as apart of yourself and use to ‘interpret’ reality.

What I mean by interpret is this: When you learn how to write and proceed to write something down, whatever you wrote came from you. Your output is based on your inputs, i.e., the things you’ve experienced in life. In that sense, anything you produce is your interpretation of life, however explicitly stated as such. To take a picture is to quite literally look at something that you saw, and in the subtext understand the intention of the photographer. “Why that picture? Why that subject? What does it mean?”. It is impossible to create without leaving traces of your own biases. Similarly, creation might also be understood as teaching, because for every learner (absorption) there is a teacher (emission).

In this way, I consider there to be four main types of virtuous actions. In my opinion you cannot go wrong by engaging in any of them, but a healthy individual might engage in all four. Another important detail, and this is purely a matter of vocabulary, I consider purely logical learning to be “conceptualizing” and physically learning a skill to be “embodying”. I know this is all very hippy-ish but bear with me.

Interpret (Abstract Emission): To Art, To Paint, To Write, To play an instrument…
Embodying (Abstract Absorption): To look at art, to see a movie, to learn an instrument…
Teaching (Concrete Emission): To teach math, to convey information…
Conceptualizing (Concrete Absorption): To learn biology, to learn to code…

Each of these actions exists in a dynamic with the other. A painter needs their audience, who hopefully will go on to produce their own art. A teacher will pass on knowledge hoping there are students to listen. Each action is also not separate. A guitar player, though engaging in muscle memory, would do well to understand a little bit of music theory, and a mathematician still needs to know how to use a pencil.

These are the actions that embody virtue in my opinion. If you follow these, you cannot go wrong.

IV. Sapere et agere (To know and to act)

This is the last principle (so far), and by corollary the most recent. Like the rest I created it as a solution to my current problem of motivation and inaction. Whether I will keep it—as is the same for the rest of them—I am not sure. Nevertheless, this principle is applicable to a new kind of problem. Where principle II was applicable to “Cliff-like” problems, this is applicable to “Mountain-like” problems. To jump off a cliff for example is nerve-wracking. It takes immense willpower to jump off a cliff, even if there is water safely below, (don’t read into the metaphor too much) but once you take that leap, the problem mostly carries itself and is over swiftly. All you have to do is take that initial leap. A mountain on the other hand is insurmountable in one step, and must be conquered step by step slowly and methodically. To take a single step requires no immediate willpower. It is not glorious or virtuous, and so motivation is easily lost. That is where this principle comes in. It is analogous to the famous Nike motto: “Just do it”, and reminds me that at any time I am in control. An early form of this was “conscious choices, conscious actions”. I haven’t given this one time to simmer, but it seems to work well so far. I’ve adopted better habits in terms of diet, exercise, hobbies, and academics. You seem more disciplined than I am, but perhaps this one can give you some motivation if you need it for those long-term goals.

In conclusion, I hope this benefits you. You did not ask me for advice, and while I did not write this to solve your problems I hope it can help if you need it. I have not done anything substantial, I have not lived a life of experience yet, these are merely my musings on life. There is no credibility or necessary veracity to these principles besides what I have conveyed here, and if you wish to dismiss these I would not mind.

Ouch ↩
Categorically, this is incorrect. Energy does not flow through a wire. What “flows” is charge carriers (in this case, electrons). The quantity that represents this flow is electric current. Addittionally, it is more accurate to say that in general cases current distributes itself across all available paths regardless of resistance, though the distribution is according to Ohm’s Law. Or put simply, it partitions itself proportionally. ↩
Actually William Blake ↩
Looking back this makes me cringe. I was so dramatic, but by all means I wasn’t exaggerating. The brain tends to forget how pain felt in the moment, but that trip was uniquely painful. I think the warning should hold true for anyone curious about psychedelics. You shouldn’t hold baseless worry in your mind, but you absolutely have to respect the substance. The underlying sentiment I agree with, so I opted to keep this section. Additionally, as I’m sure you’re aware, any section pertaining to the use or involvement of illegal substances is presented as a writing exercise and nothing more: It has no basis in regards to my actual activities. ↩