6 Practical Tools for DIY Solve

The following section, Practical Tools for DIY Solve, is the most important in the book. However, I chose to not to lead with it, and to instead start with the more complicated theory chapters, because without that foundation it would look like a series of ungrounded assertions, which come about at random and tell you to make huge changes to your life on the basis of nothing.

It’s entirely possible that it’ll still seem that way; I know that the theory in the last section was packed in densely, and probably seemed very tenuous. However, I hope that what you’ve read so far has given you at least an intuition for how I’m deriving the actually-useful advice in the chapters to come. It’s really that intuition that matters to me, far more than whether you understand the theory section of the Framework well enough to sum it up in words.

The first chapter of this section is An Overview of the 9 Dispositions. It describes each of the 9 dispositions in extensive detail, to help you determine which one you belong to, and to place the people in your life within them as well. Figuring out what disposition you possess is essential to the Framework Process, so this might be the most important step in your journey.

The second chapter, The Alchemy of Pathological Compatibility gives the Framework’s explanation for why interpersonal relationships of all sorts succeed or fail (spoiler: it’s the dispositions of the people involved) and gives you an extremely powerful tool for predicting the outcome of any entanglement you find yourself in, from romantic relationships to friendly or even professional ones.

The third chapter, Trivial Goods, is a companion piece of sorts to the second, and outlines the impact that trivial things like money, physical attractiveness, and your personal qualities have on interpersonal relationships, once pathologies are all accounted for. It contains some of the only action-items in this BlogBook which aren’t contained within the Framework Process itself.

The fourth chapter Idiot Spackle explains how idiocy— plain, literal unintelligence— can undermine the explanatory power of the Framework by making people behave in unpredictable ways, and a technique I use to control for it when I’m forming my analyses.

These four chapters make up a slim portion of the book, but they’re far and away the most important. I’m sure that the prospect of finally diagnosing yourself with a disposition fills you with excitement, and/or indifference, and/or dread, so I won’t detain you any further. Read on!