Root-Finding

Here, I would like to elaborate on what “Root-Finding” (which I’ll often shorten to RF) means in the context of this site and my-worldview more generally.

I think of there being 5 “kinds” or subsets of roots:

• R0: existence
  • What exists?
• R1: roots of existence
  • Why/how does it exist?
• R2: roots of our existence
  • Why/how do we exist? ¹
• R3: roots of our good existence
  • What is a good way to exist? ²
• R4: routes³ to our good existence
  • How can we have a good existence?

Here, “our” has a double meaning: it refers to us as (1) a collection of individuals and (2) a collective. So, the three root subsets containing “our” could be considered as:

• R2: roots of our existence
  • Why/how do you, as an individual being, exist? How have your unique natural (genetic) and nurtural (environmental) circumstances contributed to your current state of existence (i.e., way of being, worldview, character, values, etc.)?
  • Why/how have we, as a collective (collection of individuals), arrived at this current state of existence (i.e., structure of society / particular societal configuration)?
• R3: roots of our good existence
  • What is your personal definition of “good” - what is a good life/society?
  • What is our collective definition of “good” ⁴, and what would a good society full of people leading good lives look like?
• R4: routes³ to our good existence
  • According to your definition of good, how can you as an individual have a good life? What thoughts, mindsets, actions, etc. are required to have a good life?
  • How can we consciously act as individuals within the collective to reorganise ourselves in pursuit of a good society which allows us all to have good lives?

So, RF is supposed to represent both a theoretical and practical methodology/framework, for investigating life and doing life, inspired/informed by those investigations.

By this definition/delineation of RF, there exist and have existed many RFers (root-finders) throughout space and time on this planet⁵. Root-finders are curious about the world, want to have a good life, and constantly seek to understand more about the world/life and how to co-create/have a good one - i.e., how to contribute to restructuring society in a way that allows them (and others) to have a better life while simultaneously taking actions that make them feel like they’re leading a good life individually.

If this is how you tend to approach things/life, then you are a root-finder. Welcome :)

---

Related articles:

• You are a fool (RF Substack)

Footnotes

1. What caused/led to our existence (as individuals, as a species, as a set of beings on a planet we call Earth, etc.? ↩

2. Why would we want to exist? What is “good”? What is a good existence(/life/society)? ↩

3. (homophone) ↩ ↩²

4. This includes how we can even go about determining our collective definition of “good”. ↩

5. This is not necessarily restricted to our planet, but we’re not currently aware of other living beings elsewhere, let alone beings which would have the capacity to be root-finders. I can elaborate more on this in my-worldview view on “extraterrestrial” matters. ↩