TL;DR - The priorities you set in life directly determine the focus and strength of your frames in all aspects of you life. If you fail to set purposes for yourself, you are open to influence from ones imposed by other people and society.

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I want to talk a bit about aimlessness and agency. Everybody should be well aware by now that being the captain of your own ship by setting your own purpose, holding frame, etc. is extremely important to building a fulfilling life. However, I want to illustrate in just what ways the lack of a purpose on a minor, intermediate, or major scale can be to your detriment. But first off, apart from setting you on the path of the doomer, why is aimlessness so bad?

It’s in these two words: “Why not.”

Without a well enough defined purpose, your attitude to the majority of the aspects of your life could be limited to “why not”. You are basically a soft sponge that just absorbs whatever comes your way. This is exactly why aimlessness is so dangerous – because aimlessness is indifference, and indifference means that without understanding yourself, your needs, and your motivations, you will think that it doesn’t matter what your course is – this is the classical beta delusion, believing that the course you take does not matter, because you are in denial of your needs, desires, and drives. If you approach every, or even most aspects of your life with a “why not”, you are practically committing psychological suicide. "Why not" is the battle cry of the faceless, mindless drone with all the personality of a wet towel.

The problematic consequences of aimlessness are numerous, but for now I’ll limit it to two:

  1. Firstly, having a “why not” attitude to all or most things is dangerous, because every single area of your life on which you do not have an informed opinion or standards, is an area in which, for lack of understanding, you assume that “anything goes”, and so you just follow the path of least resistance (this could be peer pressure, but it could just as easily be a situation where there is no direct influence from people involved).
  2. Secondly, if you do not set proper purposes based on the things that really matter to you, what will happen, is that simultaneously both you and the people around you will lose sense of the value of your time. This is because, since you do not do anything purposeful or evidently beneficial with your time, the very real subconscious belief arises, that you do not do anything valuable with your time – subsequently, this means that whenever someone else makes you an offer, a proposition, invites you somewhere, you always comply, because “why not”, you have nothing better to do with your time. As a result of this, others lose sense of the value of your time as well, because in their minds, the understanding becomes ingrained, that whatever it is you’re doing on your own, it’s not of value to you either, and so, whatever opportunity or activity they are proposing to you, it’s bound to be better 100% of the time. Essentially, you are running the risk of people becoming entitled to your time.

What all this means is not that you have to be a hard ass that has very specific procedures for every single thing you do, but rather that you need to recognize the areas which are the most important for you to live the live you want, and get really in depth as to why they are important to you, after which you need to ensure that your life prioritizes these major elements, and you properly set boundaries around them, so that you do not budge when an outside influence introduces itself. Based on this, it becomes pretty clear that boundaries are a necessary part of a man’s purposes.

FRAMES

I’m fairly certain that everyone on this sub is well aware and informed on the topic of holding frame. However, the only type of holding frame that is talked about generally is holding frame socially, which by no means exhausts the extent of the topic. It’s for this reason that I wanted to give a basic outline on the major frames that a person might possess or lack in their everyday and long-term life, and the way that their agency is affected by the presence or lack of said purposes and frames.

What I’m proposing here is that every conflict of purposes is in essence a type of frame battle – I will cover the major types here to illustrate the point and will also try to show the ways that having a purpose manifests in each of these areas.

To clarify, I do not think that the list of frames I have made is by any means complete. My goal was only to subdivide them into major categories, not to list every possible frame battle that a person encounters throughout life.

EXAMPLES

SOCIAL FRAMES

This is the typical “holding frame” situation, so I will not elaborate much further beyond illustrating the importance of purpose. These are the frames that relate to interpersonal relationships and social dynamics. In the context of the system of frames, a situation where this type of frame is accounted for would be a situation where a man understands the man-woman dynamic and takes into consideration that: 1. Women are emotionally driven 2. A woman’s actions say more than her words 3. A woman’s mode of action and thinking is essentially a child’s, and etc.

The woman might hold a different or even opposing frame, and the man will break it with ease, precisely because his frame is purposeful – if the man does not have the understanding of the social context, since he has no idea of the causal relationship between his best interest and what is happening, he would just go “why not”, and adopt the woman’s frame, as simple as that. He will then go on to whine why the woman does not respect him, why she is constantly bitching, etc. You know how it goes.

INTERACTION FRAMES

These are frames which unlike social frames relate to a specific interaction on its own.

  • Conversation Topic frames

The first type of conversational frames are topic frames. The way that they work based on the system I introduced is this: As long as you have developed an understanding as to what it is your goal is when talking to people, you will be less tolerant of topics that are negative, are of no interest to you, or are just plain boring.

- If you have standards for your interactions with people, this means that you have the purpose to have fun with the conversation, get to know the other person better, or steer the conversation towards something that you or the other person is passionate about

- On the other hand, if you have no purpose, you will hold no frame, and have no focus, which will allow for the already mentioned scenarios of boring, negative, or uninteresting conversations to occur. “Anything goes”, remember?

  • Premise frames

Premise frames are based on the implied medium-to-long-term purpose of a given interaction – the most common way to fuck this one up is when you lack a purposeful approach when approaching women – you will meander, because “anything goes”, and so, in the absence of a frame of your own a frame will be set for you – a platonic one.

PHYSICAL FRAMES

Physical frames are the frames that manifest as your physical presence, action, and body language. These are possibly the most easily overlooked frames, and are also difficult to fake, which is why the cultivation of an inner purpose is so important. Having a purpose in a given situation will mean that your physical movement within the space is motivated by something worthwhile. On the other hand, if you lack purpose, you will be a ready victim for anybody else’s frame.

- Let’s say that you are at a party, and your purpose is to have an enjoyable experience. Having internalized that purpose, it is likely that you have cultivated certain interests and skills to accompany it, meaning that “you act with a purpose” – you look for people, you talk them up, vibe with them and see if you are compatible, and if they do not contribute to your cultivated enjoyment of the event you move on and continue your purpose – you refuse to bend your frame to match those people’s negative one, because you understand that it is important to you.

- On the other hand, if you are at that same party, and you have no purpose whatsoever, what do you do? You sit around with your face buried in your phone, or you aimlessly wander around, looking for someone else’s purpose to latch onto. And the moment that someone addresses you – your head whips around like lightning, showing your lack of purpose for all to see, because your attention is on no purpose of your own – there is no such thing – you immediately fall for everyone’s physical frame, your reactive body language saying tomes about your lack of internal purpose. For the sake of argument, even if you faked non-reactive body language, but had no purpose, other people would still see a man who does not value his time, since without a purpose, what can you do? Stare at a wall? The lack of frame is plain for all to see.

ACTIVITY FRAMES (medium-term physical frames)

These are the frames that relate to the activities that you chose to partake in and the ways that you spend the majority of your time.

Imagine you have a friend who invites you to go clubbing about 4-5 times a week. However, you have an important project that is very important to you and your current purpose. If you have cultivated a deep understanding of your purposes, you will understand why your project is important to you and will therefore prioritize your time accordingly (that is your frame). If, however, you are in the “why not” lane, you will inevitably fall into your friend’s frame, because you are so out of touch with what you want out of life and why, that you can’t determine what is most important to you (and that is vital for a strong and sturdy frame)

LONG-TERM FRAMES

These are the frames which are determined by the purposes that outline and define your entire life. This is pretty much the difference between the Red Pill and the Blue Pill on a Macro scale.

- A red-pilled man makes a goal out of understanding himself and the world around him, cultivating his purpose and interests, integrating his needs and desires, and plotting a path for himself, knowing the best course through life that will bring him optimal fulfillment. He is a man who has set a frame of his own making for the life that he lives. More importantly, that frame has purpose, which means that it will not break at the first sign of resistance.

- On the other hand, the blue-pilled "man" is a being without a frame of its own. He will follow whatever frame for his life he is assigned by his parents, social circle, education system, wife, media, or whatever else. This "man" lives to consoom, he has no direction, and so, "anything goes". His position with regard to any path that is externally forced on him is "why not". After all, it's a hell of a lot easier than having to think for yourself and facing the tension of pursuing your real passions and purposes, even though it might not be met with approval by your peers or relatives.

The most important takeaway here is this: the actions that you take have to feel meaningful and justified towards your purpose in order for that purpose to be resilient in the face of external frames. However, you should not hamster-rationalize your way into thinking that “anything goes”, and that your current purposes are just good enough – usually the people who think this way are people who do not have a lot of experience with true joy, and because of that rationalize that there can’t be a potential existence much better than the one they are currently living.

Going with the flow is one of the potentially most destructive paths a man can take – it’s destructive not only on a personal level – aimlessness and indifference has the power to bring down societies, so stop going with the flow and set a purpose to discover your needs and wants, or otherwise risk falling for someone else’s.

Set your purposes and know the whys behind them. Why? Because what is the alternative?

"Anything goes".