Your personal sovereignty is permanently under attack. We now live in a world of shifting landscapes. Political agendas, financial markets, the safety of our cities, all are subject to swift change. You cannot rely on a single protecting entity like your family, or church, or the government (not that you could ever rely on that last one). Everyone is involved in memetic warfare, everything is a playground for new, often hostile strains of thought and emotion. Your defense systems must be active and evolving.
I once heard about the Truth → Health → Wealth principle on some podcast. That struck me as a great directional foundation. First, you determine what is right and proper and then you stand for it. It’s your moral guiding light, first of all. Specific information about the world falls only somewhat in that category. Its main purpose is to help you eliminate untruths in advance and avoid lying to yourself, keeping your soul whole and your consciousness clean.
Then on top of that you make sure that you’re reasonably healthy. I’m not speaking of anything like Bryan Johnson or Andrew Huberman’s approaches, those are too fringe and extreme. And frankly speaking, I don’t think they are solidly epistemologically sound 100% of the time. When it comes to myself, I can eat chips or drink beers on rare occasions, but I work out a lot and eat healthily the rest of the time. I believe it doesn’t just cancel out.
Finally, when you’re confidently true to yourself and healthy enough, you make sure your financial side of life is in order. I’m not a good advisor here, you’d very likely teach me more about that than I could ever teach you. Instead, I’ll rather add a few things I believe will each increase your defense tenfold.
Number one is “Read many books from different cultures and ages.” While nowadays the overwhelming majority of data that we consume comes from our day-to-day communications on the internet, it sways us heavily away from the mighty anchors and monuments of the culture past. Our conceptual vocabulary becomes shallow, and our emotional references to the olden epochs get rusty. As a result, we become easily swayed by being only within the context that is thoroughly analyzed and manipulated.
The most important piece of advice for survival in base physical reality is getting fit. Long hikes, bouldering, karate, shooting, running, swimming—any of these may turn out to be useful, and all of them will make you much healthier. Learn some new skills as well! For instance, knowing what’s edible and what’s not will greatly increase your chances of survival, but outside of extreme situations it will enrich your connection with the nature. Adds extra grounding to make you more emotionally stable in the face of the hostile information environment, and subtracts some stress points.
The last one from me is, stay alone with your thoughts from time to time. Let the noise settle down, try seeing what hasn’t gone perfectly, and why. Hear what your body tells you, it holds more wisdom than you ever will. Unclench, shrug, and maybe dance a little in the dark. You’ll see more clearly how to further improve your defense.