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Establish Your Order
And gain clarity in your action.
Ioan "Speed" Mateescu
March 23, 2025
Pursue chaos without order and you're lost.
Pursue order without chaos and you're caged.
Pursue both, and at their confluence you will find…
Effortless action.
More on that in a moment, but first…
We must clarify a few things.
Order Is Not Control.
I get it. People want control. It makes them feel powerful.
Safe. Secure. Like they’ve got life by the reins.
But here's the truth:
Control is just the desperate grasp of the fragile.
And the chase for control is a trap that many still fall in.
That's not to say that we should give up on control altogether.
You see… The issue is most people confuse order with autocratic control.
Rigid rules, strict hierarchies, and suffocating predictability. They believe it means:
Fixed schedules and 9-to-5 jobs.
Central planning and organized society
Blind obedience to "because you're supposed to"
But that's not order.
That's tyrannical imposed order.
It's top-down, brittle, and in opposition to chaos.
It's the Roman Empire's bureaucracy collapsing under its own weight.
But true order is different.
It doesn't come from opposing chaos, fighting it, and shoving it in a bottle.
True order emerges from dancing with the chaos.
It's when the two forces meet…
That creation happens.
Order Isn't Designed. It's Discovered.
As Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel-winning economist, once said:
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. To the naïve mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions, order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account."
In other words…
If you wish to grow, you must decentralize your decision-making process.
Read. Listen. Discuss.
Stop thinking that you're a genius with a master plan.
Let ideas, people, and experience collide.
Broaden your horizons. Live life.
Only then will order emerge.
Like the Silk Road.
There was no ancient bureaucrat who drew a map and said:
"This is where we'll trade spices, silk, and ideas!"
No. It emerged from thousands of merchants, bandits, and wanderers…
Stumbling through the desert. Bribing guards. Swapping stories…
Living their life as best they could according to nature.
Even today. Whether you've got Venezuelans trading Crypto for Medicine.
Or digital nomads working from Bali, sipping cocktails on their beachfront bnb.
They don't do that thanks to some authority ordering them. They do it in spite of it.
This Is Emergent Order.
Structure found within the haze of uncertainty.
Far away from the crowded path enforced by others.
And it's only natural that human action should work this way.
This is how our brains have ended up being grown and wired, after all.
Think about it: Your mind isn’t a dictator barking orders. It’s a bustling marketplace of neurons… trading signals, forging connections, and dancing with chaos.
Just like the Silk Road merchants.
Hayek called this The Sensory Order. Here’s the gist:
Your brain doesn’t mirror reality. It interprets it.
Every sight, sound, and smell gets filtered through a web of past experiences and evolutionary hacks.
When you see ‘red,’ it’s not because red exists ‘out there.’ It’s because your brain classifies certain wavelengths of light as red, based on millennia of survival data.
Too abstract? How about this?
Imagine you’re a monkey tasting a nice red wild berry.
Berry 1: Bitter. You spit it out. Your brain logs, ‘Berry = danger.’
Berry 2: Sweet. Your brain revises, ‘Some berries = energy.’
Berry 3: Hallucinations. 'OH NO AVOID RED BERRIES.’
This isn’t logic. It’s emergent classification – order rising from chaos.
Now back to today…
Societies aren’t built by geniuses with blueprints.
They’re built by millions of monkeys tasting berries.
Your brain’s order and society’s order? Same emergent dance.
Here's Why
You’ve been fighting with chaos because your brain evolved to misclassify it.
Fear of failure? Your amygdala screaming ‘Berry = danger’
Difficult vices? Your basal ganglia asking for 'Moar berries!'
Craving control? Your cortex begging to ‘AVOID RED BERRIES’.
So you end up with anger, anxiety, addiction…
That's why you need antifragile systems to make things easy.
But here’s the fun part…
Your brain is already antifragile.
Every time you eat a berry, the network in your head rewires.
Every time you face the haze of uncertainty, you change your classifications.
Every time your neurons fire, they forge a new wire. That's learning. That's growing.
And the more you test yourself and the reality around you…
The closer to the truth you'll get.
Your own order.
Your life.
Your mind is a free market of ideas, bustling with electricity.
Intuition haggles with logic. Fear trades with curiosity.
And today's failures are sold as tomorrow's wisdom.
But if we're to make sense of it all…
We must go back to the beginning.
Because the most valuable jewel sold in this bazaar…
Isn't your attention, or focus. It's not knowledge.
It's definitely not authority or control.
It's… why.
Why are you waking up in the morning?
Why is it that you're acting in the first place?
For what reason? Towards what?… Ultimate end…
Without a clear why, it's impossible to navigate the haze.
Even if you brave through and face chaos, you'll end up going in circles.
Your ideas and actions become a pile of half-baked goals and reactive choices.
That's not purposeful action. And it's definitely not effortless.
The farmer gets up at the crack of dawn knowing:
"My family eats tonight."
The cool dude in Bali sips on his cocktail because:
"I refuse to take orders."
Steve Jobs got out of bed and yelled at his people:
"Make a dent in the Universe!"
And you're in the same spot now. Yourself…
How long have you been thinking about this?
A few weeks?
Years?
How long must one consider why their tiny existence is worth writing about?
I couldn't tell you.
But what I can tell you is why I'm doing all this.
Action Should Be Effortless
Too many people treat life like a punishment game.
They go against their desires.
They stifle their curiosity and creativity.
They overthink, overplan, and fail to act with purpose.
To them, going with the flow means doing what they're told to do.
They believe effort means suffering, so they grind through 80-hour work weeks…
→ chasing promotions they don't want
→ to buy things they don't need…
→ to impress people they hate…
For no real reason.
Inhuman.
They confuse discipline for ritualized despair.
They confuse human action for torture.
They're just confused, I guess…
Because human action is inherently human.
And effort is the means through which we achieve and actualize our humanity.
It shouldn't be suffering. It should be passion and excitement and joy.
With a powerful why and clarity of purpose…
Effort becomes effortless.
Daoists call it Wu Wei.
But maybe a more modern take on it is familiar:
Water flows effortlessly.
And when faced with a powerful foe, it can crash just as effortlessly.
And it doesn't have to think about it. It doesn't have to debate its purpose.
When it hits a rock, it swirls. When it meets a cliff, it falls. When it pools, it waits.
Water does what needs to be done. Not what it's told.
Water flows at the confluence between Chaos and Order.
Water is the essence of effortless action. Be water, my friend.
Like the musician who needs no sheet music and plays from their soul.
Like the entrepreneur who pivots on instinct and profits in crisis.
Like the pro chef who prepares a meal without any thought.
Actionsmiths are mastering their craft. They're adaptable. They're resilient.
To an Actionsmith, action is as effortless as breathing.
It's only natural that you act.
You're human.
Establishing Your Order
True order comes through mastery.
Its relentless pursuit and purposeful action will still your mind and lead you to greatness.
Bruce Lee didn't become 'water' by accident. He trained for years.
Every morning he would run. Every day he would exercise.
Every evening he would study and cultivate his mind.
All his life he drilled and prepared…
Until action flowed through him.
The same applies to you.
Effortless action isn't born from chaos alone.
It's not born from order alone.
It requires both.
When the two collide, they meld into an alloy of passion and persistence.
Grit. We've been here before, haven't we?
But there's one missing idea that brings it all together:
Triggers.
Your Chain of Grit is a series of triggers.
Each link, an impulse that pushes you towards your purpose.
The chain itself is an antifragile system that makes action effortless.
A system forged through the collision of chaos and order.
It's nothing out of the ordinary…
Your brain runs on random stimuli flowing through neural pathways.
The Scientific Method thrives when hypotheses meet experiment.
Creation takes place when ideas are channeled into items.
So let's step inside the forge once more…
And create.
On Forging The Chain Of Grit IV
It's time to take control over your action.
We've been making great progress.
The forge is hotter than ever.
And now it's time to order it all.
Let's take all that we've learned and systematize it.
What does it mean to forge a habit?
How can you do it, effortlessly?
I'll let you come up with the answers yourself.
But first, there's something else to pay attention to.
Have you noticed?
What do the ring, the links, and even the chain itself have in common?
They're loops. Each day, circling through various actions.
That, I believe, is what leads to discovery.
The human's compulsion to close the loops, you see.
So here's what we'll do today:
We'll start being conscious about our triggers.
And from all the attention we've been cultivating.
With all the energy that we're building up in the forge…
We'll create a tool.
This won't be like our current hammer, lying around in the forge.
This one we'll bring along with us. Every day. To aid our action.
But don't worry. It's not heavy. (It's still metaphorical)
It shall be a beautiful pickhammer, sharp and sturdy.
And let's try something new.
We won't need water this time. We're supposed to be water, after all.
So try using yourself as energy.
Come on over to the fire.
Empty your mind.
Can you feel it? Radiating? Can you touch it?
It shouldn't burn. This is your fire. Harness it.
Feel it. Feed your attention to it. Give it fuel.
Now let's find some strong material.
Stronger than all of your links.
Whether old or new.
Why are you here?
Why do you wake up in the morning?
Why will the Universe echo with your action forever?
Why? Be clear about your purpose. Materialize it.
We shall craft its essence into your primary tool.
Bring it to the fire. Melt it down.
Is it silver? Is it gold? Is it platinum?
Melt it down until it flows effortlessly.
Now channel it into your will.
Your purpose, crafted.
Your very own.
Hammer it into shape.
Quench it with your energy.
Polish it with your attention…
Until it's fully created by your design.
Your Pickhammer of Purpose.
Congratulations.
Now how to use it? It's simple.
Bring your chain to the anvil.
Take a good long look at it.
Do you like its state?
Is it strong enough to grapple the cliff when you slip and fall?
Will it hold your weight without breaking?
Where would it break first?
Let's pick a link.
Raise your Pickhammer. Notice its weight or lack thereof.
Now let it effortlessly fall down onto the link.
Carried smoothly by its natural path.
Pick!
Where has it fallen?
What have you picked?
Let the loop be opened by the Pickhammer's edge.
And let it stay open.
Let this be a trigger for your awareness.
Like the water, helping you remember.
Like your chain's end, for looking back.
When the time comes to act through this habit.
Notice. Be mindful of what you're doing…
And say "no."
Replace your action with a new one. Choose.
"I won't get distracted. I'll write one sentence instead."
"I won't consume this. I'll do one pushup instead."
"I won't be overwhelmed. I'll breathe, instead."
These links may be deeper in your chain.
You may not be in the right place to break them then.
But you may pick at them, little by little, until they may fall.
Each time you encounter difficulty or disorder. Notice.
Write things down if you have to. Remember.
Carve your will into your chain.
Open each link, little by little, pick by pick.
When you're prepared to embrace the chaos again…
Let them fall. Let your imposed order fall.
And craft a new link in their stead.
With each link, a new trigger.
A new action to master.
Your new order.
Freedom.
Wow. That was a big one.
We've now reached a point where a bit more independence is justified.
Perhaps next time we may consider creating your own forge.
Your mental palace, equipped with all you need.
Overflowing with ideas and resources.
Until then…
Act to improve your understanding and study the following:
Start with Why - Simon Sinek
The Sensory Order - F.A. Hayek
Tao of Jeet Kune Do - Bruce Lee