This is the fourth article from the series 6 Degrees Of Integration. There is a list of all the articles that are part of this series at the end of the post.

Value Is Context Dependent, Intention Has Inertia And We're Operating On Flawed Hardware And Buggy Software

In the first post we briefly discussed how value is entirely subjective, context-dependent and how context has an inherent inertia. Our intentions to modify the environment will always need a certain time to manifest and that time depends on the value we have and how adapted that value is to that specific context.

The only thing that we can modify instantly is how we feel and what we do about our current situation, which obviously won’t change the situation instantly, but it will shape the value we create in order to change that situation.

In the second post we looked at how flawed our hardware (body) and software (mind) are, when you really look at them. One of them is inherently limited - incomplete sensors and very fast degrading cycle - and the other one cannot cognize anything without being taught first (dependent arising).

To overcome these problems, one must always be cautious about what he perceives through his senses - the flawed hardware - and about what he understands from that picture - the flawed software.

Don’t believe everything you see and everything you think.

And in the third post, we learned how family influences our behavior at all levels: from child to adult and elder, coming through the partnerships we form with our spouses. The most important part in the family insertion point is the fact that what we plant with our behavior - how we educate our kids and how we treat our spouses - will be experienced first hand, as a direct consequence of our actions, day by day. Whatever we do inside the family is shaping our lives in a very profound way. Effects will become more and more powerful as we get older.

The family is functioning more at the value creation level, and less at the context level. In other words, how we create value is deeply rooted in our family but the context to which we need to adapt is most of the time outside of it.

In today’s post we’ll make the link to this context field, which is also the third point of insertion in our 6 degrees map: friends.

Friends, Social Validation And Shared Values

When we're not alone or when we're not spending time with our families, most of the time we're spending time with friends.

The concept of friendship is very difficult to explain. If an alien will land right now in front of me, I will have a really hard time explaining what a friend is. The concept of family will be easier to explain, because biological bonds are easier to understand. But friendship is such a complex web of interactions and responds to so many needs, that is almost impossible to explain in a single phrase.

If I would do that, though, risking to let aside important parts of the concept, I'd say that friendship covers two fundamental needs of our being: social validation and personal values.

With social validation we step into a much wider area: social compliance. At the family level, we're talking just basic survival stuff, all family interactions are linked to this goal. At the social level we're talking community survival and that's a whole new level of interaction. A community is, to a certain degree, just another, more complex being. It follows certain rules and it enforces them back to its members.

But back to our initial situation: how friends can help us create a type of value that will speed up the manifestation of our intentions in a specific context?

Well, first of all, friends are part of the context. The more friends we have, the bigger the context. In a way, friends are hybrid between a consumer of our intentions and a co-creator of them.

This "dual appearance" of friends is maintained for as long as we can validate each other. This validation can be made by offering emotional support, material incentives, social endorsements and so on. These are a kind of "soft contracts" between people. They're soft because they're not enforced legally, but most of the time their validity transcends legal boundaries.

The dual appearance of a friend is also maintained by shared values. Meaning we need to have similar outcomes to basic life situations. If one believes that it's not necessary to kill animals in order to feed ourselves, it will help if your friends are sharing the same belief. Shared values don't need to overlap 100% - I do have friends who are meat eaters and we get along pretty well - but the overall sum must be greater than zero, so to speak.

So, how do we integrate friendships in our lives, in such a way that it will maximize our value?

1. Friends are validating each other by offering unconditional support, transcending hard contracts. In other words, friendship is a way of creating support lines between people, outside the family circle.

2. Friends must maintain a common set of shared values, otherwise validation will fade, in time. If shared values are dropping below a certain limit, friendship, as a support activity, will end.

Every other type of relationship that doesn't fall under the two points above doesn't fit into the "friendship" description. These other relationships can be casual encounters, daily soft interactions made with common sense, or professional relationships (we'll see more about that in the next article, about guild) but they are not friendships.

The "friendship insertion point" will help us create more value because many of these friends are the actual context in which we are acting and also because they share some common values with us, which will streamline the entire process.

Always keep in mind, though, that these interactions are made by using obsolete hardware and flawed software, which kinda raises the chances to blow up. And, indeed, how many times we thought we're friends with someone, only to find out in a pressuring context that we're actually not.

If I would try to quantify the importance of family and friends in our daily activity, I would say that family is probably more than 50%, and friends up to 15%. That will leave only 35% to the next 3 insertion points: guilds, clients and the world.

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All the articles in this series:

1. 6 Degrees Of Integration - Introduction
2. 6 Degrees Of Integration - You
3. 6 Degrees Of Integration - Family

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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