Relationships

Your connection to other entities. Relationships are an inherent mastery.

Relationships with other people

Relationships with others are an inherent mastery. Aim to strengthen your relationships with others to reap the unlimited advantages of strong relationships.

All relationships should create more value than they cost. This applies to relationships with people as well as things.

Evaluate Relationships with higher cost than higher value.

Evaluate relationships based on their cost/value effect upon your paths & pursuits.

Be cautious of those who exhibit dishonor:
• If their words are honorable, but their actions are not, they are dishonorable.
• If their words are dishonorable, but their actions are not, they are honorable.

Respect is the foundation of relationships. Respect creates allies while disrespect creates enemies.

There are no downsides to garnering respectful relationships.

Be cautious of disrespecting others. Creating enemies brings unlimited and exponential downsides.

Aim to acquire long-lasting relationships with others.

Don’t confuse the reputation with the object. This applies to all relationships. Reputations can be over or under exaggerated rumors.

Be discerning with whom or what you share your contact information with. You should not give your contact info to individuals who seem like they could distract you from the path.

Men need a brotherhood and women need a sisterhood. You can have friends of the opposite sex, but you need a group of the same sex. A group where you can truly depend on others is inherent to the human experience; a group where you are responsible for others and they are responsible for you. The male/female experiences are vastly different, and relating across the sex divide is difficult compared to within.

You will find groups to join as you pursue mastery on your many paths. Examine the groups you are considering joining to ensure proper Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS) alignment. Do not join a group until you have analyzed where it's been, where it is, and where it is going.

When you have a group, you must encourage them, and they must encourage you. If a group does not add value to your life, does not help you walk the path, the group is not for you.

Avoid groups that pursue pleasure. Misery is a form of self-pleasuring that reinforces an unfulfilled life.

No one should be able to read or predict you who isn’t in your inner circle of trusted allies. Wanderers must train the skill of "controlled expression" so that enemies do not use your non-verbal language against you.

Making Friends

Make friends while you are on your chosen paths to mastery. By making friends on your paths, you walk the same way together and having similar values, which strengthens relationships while aiding fulfillment for all wanderers.

If you see a potential friend, the easiest way to connect with them is through action: doing something together.

The student asks a fellow student to study together
The fighter asks the other fighter to practice together or watch fights together
The volleyball captain organizes a sleepover for the team
The businessman asks another businessman to discuss a particular topic at a coffee shop

By having paths to mastery, you should always have something to do. Take another on to your path, even if you walk the same path. Show them how you walk. Let them do the same for you. Share your minds to grow together. A good friendship is one that contributes growth both ways.

Do not need the friendship of another. When you need someone, they have power over you. Consider the friendship of another and determine if they are a suitable friend who will improve your life.

Attempting three times to make a connection with a potential friend is good. If, on the third time, you cannot connect, you may be better off finding other potential friends who are easier to sync with.

People who live by the same or similar philosophical codes, whether stated or not, are predictable to each other. They act in keeping with each other’s expectations and standards. They can cooperate, even if that cooperation is competition. A shared belief system, a shared set of values, reduces friction which allows individuals to go forward together. You can go far together.

Discarding friends

Musashi Dokkōdō Precept 8 | Never let yourself be saddened by a separation

As you walk your paths, you will discard friends organically as well as manually. This is normal.

Relationships change as you change, and some relationships change with you, while others are left behind.

Discard ‘friends’ who keep you from your path. The path is where fulfillment is—‘friends’ who prevent you from obtaining your fulfillment must be discarded.

Treasure your time with people while it lasts.

Staying on Your Path

“If you follow the present-day world, you will turn your back on the Way; if you would not turn your back on the Way, do not follow the world.” Takuan Soho | The Unfettered Mind

Do not care about what other people think of you when they are not on your path. What other people think is their responsibility, not yours. Thinking or obsessing over others' lives means you are not giving 100% to your path. Do not take away from your fulfillment. Do not compare against others.

Avoid paying attention to the lives of those not on your path, as it is a distraction from the path.

If you’re afraid of criticism—which is an overt way of focusing on others’ paths more than your own—you won’t walk your path.

Those who judge do not do.

Do not compare yourself against those who are off or on your path. Compare yourself against yourself in the past. Look at changes in your three domains.

Musashi Dokkōdō Precept 7 | Never be jealous

Doing what everyone else is doing makes you a copy; copies are always less valuable than originals.

Fit in with your path, not with the crowd.

You are on the family path with your family because you are family, but your family, including your parents, may not be on the same path to mastery as you. They may not understand your path. Understanding this distinction is crucial. Your family may try to espouse wisdom related to your masteries that has little use. They may also espouse wisdom unrelated to your masteries that is valuable.

Having a Mushin mind will help categorize useful versus useless information. You can be respectful to family, or anyone, even if you disregard their advice for you.

Care about what others on your path have to say, like a mentor/adviser, an enemy, or a peer. This does not mean you internalize what they say in all circumstances, nor does this grant the other party the right to create an emotional response in you. Those without a Mushin mind tend to overshare; your rivals may give you what you need to defeat them.

Don't attach yourself to others' problems. Let them walk their path, give counsel, don’t try to pick up their feet for them, because you can't.

Celebritization

Obsession with others, the “celebritization” and worship of another, is vice.

When you celebritize someone close to you, you become baggage on their path. This also takes you off your path, so you stop pursuing mastery, while slowing down their pursuit of mastery. Good relationships require not slowing or stopping the pursuit of fulfillment for your life or theirs.

You can celebritize a friend, child, enemy, celebrity, sports team, romantic partner, or anyone(or anything) else, where you focus on their life instead of your path. This does not mean you should not care about your friends, children, family, or romantic partner; this means you can care about specific individuals while continuing to pursue mastery on your path so you may live a fulfilling life.

Celebritizing someone you don’t know does not add baggage to their path, but takes you off your path. This includes the unhealthy obsession with an individual, with a sports team, or with a political team—any team obsession takes the wanderer off their path, creating an unfulfilling life. You can easily observe this as the individual who celebritizes a team or other individual has their emotions controlled by what they celebritize.

Celebritizing does not mean ~~loving.~~loving, It means ~~having an obsessive relationship.~~obsessing. This can be love or hatred. Hatred is overcaring rooted in anger.

When you celebritize, you give control over your body, mind, and spirit to what you celebritize; a pact of servitude that serves no one.

Parents must continue to pursue mastery and fulfillment when they have children—they must not live through their children nor stop living and pursuing mastery once they have children. Living through your children is the pursuit of pleasure through power.

You can find fulfillment in a relationship because you can improve a relationship. All relationships have a path to mastery. You will not find fulfillment in another—you will only find fulfillment on the path, which includes the path of a relationship of any kind, but not the celebritization of another.

Relationships with things

The more things you own, the more relationships with things you have, thus the more you have to manage. Be deliberate in possessing things that progress, not hinder, your progress down the path.

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Seek to cut what distracts from the path.
• Seek to obtain what aids progress on the path.

Prioritize belongings that increase your depth of mastery. Deprioritize the width of belongings.

The longer you own an object, the deeper your relationship with it. Aim to acquire belongings you may form long relationships with.

A thing is only broken when it cannot achieve its purpose. Damage is personality.

Do not let your relationships with things become a distraction from the path. Things are tools, and tools are for progressing mastery, not hindering it.
• Ex. Your phone should not tell you when to look at it; you should tell your phone when you need it to achieve specific objectives. So a wanderer may keep their phone on silent, not vibrate, so they decide when to use their phone as opposed to their phone deciding when it is to be used.

Romantic Relationships

Like all relationships, your romantic relationship should encourage progress down the path. A romantic partner should be a companion that encourages your progress down the path, even if that means staying out of the way while you walk. Staying out of the way is crucial for romantic relationships and relationships of all kinds.

A worthy partner encourages you to continue walking during the darkest times, and celebrates the best of times with you, then encourages you to get back to the path so you do not lose control of your ego or cease your pursuits.

You will meet a worthy partner on one of your many paths. This implies they are on the same or a similar path, implying basic compatibility.

Do not pursue another individual. This takes you away from your fulfillment while bringing you to desperation, which is unattractive to the wanderer's spirit and to potential romantic partners.

You should not use corporate matchmakers, like dating apps. This is an inauthentic romantic experience that should be avoided at all costs.

Corporate matchmakers are incentivized by money, not by authentic romantic experiences between two individuals, unlike two individuals with chemistry. Corporate matchmakers want to make money, not marriages. If you find a partner, you no longer pay for dating applications. This is why corporate-owned dating utilities do not work. Incentive misalignment.

Do not wedge corporate interests between romantic adventures.

Corporate power is fed by monetary contributions; do not contribute to corporations that erode civilization.

Do not let yourself fall in love too quick. Being in love is a vulnerability that can serve or serve against the wanderer. Falling in love is faster than climbing out of love. This applies to falling in romantic love, brotherly love, or love of an object.

Romantic partner green flags:

Romantic partner red flags:

Do not obsess or become distracted over another individual in the short-term or the long-term. Do not celebritize a romantic interest.

Obsess over your paths. Condition your mind to become obsessed with your paths. When you think about something off the path, direct your mind back to the path.

Rivals & Enemies

Use rivals to rouse the spirit to encourage progress down the path. View your rivals in a positive light; although this can be difficult, like when the rival is an enemy; not all rivals are enemies. Rivals can be friends.

Do not hate an enemy. Hate is a distraction from mastery. Instead, respect, & destroy your enemies in competition.

Apathy is the greatest offense against an enemy. To be unaffected by one who wishes to affect you.

“I don’t think about you at all” Don Draper

If you allow others to offend you, you allow them to blind you. Do not allow others to control your emotions. Offense is an emotion that damages the offended, not the offender.

You have the option to punish an individual who has attempted to, or has offended you, without subjugating your spirit to their attempt to offend you. You can ignore them, too. However, some problems grow in the darkness and are better met head-on than ignored.

To allow someone to offend you is to allow them to take control over you.

If another has insulted you, you may feel a spiritual need to get respect back from them. Revenge is often intensive and laborious, and can take the wanderer off the path. It may be better not to take and internalize offense against you.

May the wanderer let their inner strength shield them from offense.

Do not give anyone, or anything, the power to ruin your day. If your day is ruined by the words or actions of another, you may not progress down the path. Do not let an enemy keep you from fulfillment. A master of the path walks regardless of how they feel.

Do not let a rival or enemy bully you. This demonstrates that you are bully-able to others and can encourage more bullying.

Carefully consider letting attacks against you go unanswered. You may need to block and return fire in a method to neutralize the threat while preserving your ability to pursue mastery. However, defense is its own reward, whereas offense contains unlimited potential for failure and reward.

Some attacks against you are better to let go of, while others are better held onto. The wanderer must make this distinction while keeping the pursuit of fulfillment at the forefront of their strategy.