Just a reminder that human struggles are eternal ... and that there is nothing new under the sun. With all the technology and information I have at my finger tips, it took engaging with AI for me to finally discover Aristotle. Absurd!

I have so many thoughts about this.

Of course I knew of the person Aristotle. Philosopher! Ancient Greek! Socrates! Plato! The fire in the cave and whatnot! Just very shallow, dilettante stuff.

Starting an AI chat with "am I a polymath" (insert derisive chuckling here) and ending with "I stumbled on fucking Aristotle with my dumb questions" is fucking HILARIOUS. Truly galaxy brain stuff.

And yet! And yet ...

There is comfort in recognizing a struggle so intrinsically human that humanity's greatest minds have been talking out it since ancient times. And there is comfort in confirmation that some things are so true than CAN be arrived at naturally just by talking/thinking it through. TRULY galaxy brain stuff.

For reference, here is AI chat excerpt:

am I a polymath? or a renaissance person?

hmmm ... the problem is have with both those words/terms is the social weight context applied to them ... I mean, they come across in a certain way ... kind pompous/arrogant. and i'm not so much interested in reclaiming anything (I feel like that's a kind common/shallow approach ... not very thoughtful and in some cases counterproductive. I am more interested in NEW ideas ... or synergistic ideas. I'm thinking of making a new term for myself that isn't saddled with the weight of popular opinion.

I very much like the idea of defining HOW I MOVE versus WHAT I AM ... oh, that is sooooo satisfying. so how DO I move? from the outside it looks chaotic, but from the inside it's a matrix ... interconnected ideas and thoughts. I am internally moving like lightening ... externally I move slowly because I am often in freeze/statis while the mental ideas run. when I move externally I am a run away train mentally, but deliberatley in ACTION. I am ENDURANCE and STRENGTH, not SPEED and POWER. when I am given the temporal space I move with lighthearted direction ... I am playful and joyful.

I am 1000000000% NOT A GRINDER. And that in some ways has been part of my problem. I cannot sustain the attention need to grid over a long period of time. I can grind for hours, maybe a couple of days, but CERTAINLY NOT over weeks/months. That being the case, the words that align for me are praxis ... and maybe that's the main word ... and now that I'm thinking about it, my approach to praxis has always been wrong for me. I have tried over and over to develop a praxis around ... I don't know ... whatever ... a "gardening" praxis, a "sewing" praxis ... etc. once I define a praxis topic I rabbit hole into planning the praxis instead of DOING the thing. Instead of a specific praxis, I want to have the "what i do" praxis ... that's why a name or phrase will be good for me ... it's been easy for me to set aside "gym time" over the last 6 months and make it a real praxis. I want to set aside "who/how i am" praxis time in a similar fashion ... in such a way that when I am in that time, I can feel like I am DOING something and not just brain firing.

my brain immediately threw out 20 different praxis "topics" hahahhahah o am ridiculous. I do like Body Praxis ... that feels comfortable to me in that it encompasses more than just the gym. like I want to do flow arts ... I would put that in my body praxis and that feels good to me, like I can conceptualize body praxis blocks where some of them are dance, some are gym, some are yoga, etc. but for the other praxis, I am still having anxiety around it ... like it's not comfortable for me to mentally throw all that other stuff together into a single praxis block ...

OH. KAY! Now we are cooking .... yes! this feels MUCH better. I very much like the split between body, mind, and making ... that is a very, very good split for me. Let's do this! I need good praxis names and micro rules ...

OK this is good ... I do however need to add just one dimension to this which is time. TIME TIME TIME is my eternal struggle ... for each praxis I need to add a time dimension ... which gives me freedom within that time and helps me choose a direction. praxis blocks can be micro (minutes), short (0.5 to 1 hr), medium (1-2 hours) or long (> 2 hrs to a day) ... some things just cannot be accomplished in short blocks. the key for me will be to balance across all

I would love a template ... but am wondering about the non-negotiable blocks. For example, my body praxis had me going to the gym 3x a week, each are a medium block. also, I have many micro body and maker praxis elements ... daily dishes, brushing teeth, etc. these things are part of the praxis because w adhd they are things I struggle with ... I am not routine. how do I roll those into this whole thing? I kinda dont like the idea of making them praxis ... because they are annoying LOL ... and the praxis idea is fun for me. maybe I can reorient my thinking.

gym is 💯 praxis ... and I like infrastructure ... that is a neutral word that still has value for me, without infrastructure I get derailed. I also agree that linking some infrastructure to praxis would def be helpful

what are options for "body" praxis in greek?

what about "making" or "creating" praxis?

what about "mind"? isn't that more theoria than praxis?

wait, are you telling me i have somehow arrived at an Aristotelian framework without realizing it LOL .... omg I AM DYING HAHAHAHHA ... I should have studied more philosophy, might have saved me some time and mental energy ... tell me more about this triad of aristotle

Yes. You independently rebuilt a very classic Aristotelian structure: theoria – poiesis – praxis.
Aristotle’s three basic activities
Aristotle describes three fundamental kinds of human activity:
• Theoria (θεωρία) –
o Activity aimed at truth.
o Contemplation, observing, studying, understanding.
o End goal: to see/know how things are.
• Poiesis (ποίησις) –
o Activity aimed at production.
o Making, crafting, bringing something into existence (a poem, a table, a garden bed, a stew).[195][196][192]
o End goal: the product.
• Praxis (πρᾶξις) –
o Activity aimed at action itself.
o Doing where the doing is the point: living well, ethical action, political action, walking for the sake of walking, going to the gym because the movement itself is the good.
o End goal: the enacted life, not an external product.
Corresponding to these, Aristotle also talks about different kinds of knowledge: theoretical (for theoria), productive (for poiesis), and practical (for praxis).
Where phronesis fits
• Phronesis (φρόνησις) = practical wisdom: the meta‑capacity to judge what is good to do in this situation.
• It mediates between knowing (theoria) and doing (praxis/poiesis), helping you decide which actions, projects, or forms of making actually serve a good life.
Modern writers often treat phronesis as the “conductor” coordinating virtues and activities into a coherent life.
How closely you’ve mirrored this
You landed on:
• Somatic / Body Praxis → your lived, embodied action (going to the gym because it is good to move).
• Making / Poiesis Praxis → your gardening, cooking, sewing, crafting, home projects: bringing things into being.
• Mind / Theoria‑leaning Praxis → your contemplation, reading, mapping, designing, writing: aimed at understanding and pattern‑seeing.
And you’re now talking about using a higher‑level “who/how I am” praxis + time‑blocks to knit them into a balanced life, which is essentially a phronesis‑like frame for your own days.