Pathology: The Study of Paths 
How to Solve Your Puzzle
Choose Your Path 
The Direct Path 
The TranceFormational Path 
The Path to Awakening 
The Final Destination Choose Now
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice,
in practice there is.
— Benjamin Brewster
A Choice Point
Your personal research is an ongoing exploration; however, it is important to begin to take action as soon as possible. Start by choosing any one of the links that appeals to you. Read the text and accept the experiential invitations. If it seems to be a good fit for you, try out the methods and continue to use the Personal Research Tool to monitor your progress. As you do, you may find it interesting and helpful to explore some of the other paths and add tactics and insights seems appropriate.
Your capability to follow the most advantageous path rather than the path of least resistance will grow with your understanding of yourself. Each of the approaches described in this section has its own contribution to make to your personal development. So I encourage you to continue your explorations of this most fascinating of subject matters.
- Perspectivism (this is the default path) — You cannot use validity as the basis to choose your perspective, so choose on the basis of utility [Nietzsche]. This approach pairs well with Suggestion.
- Suggestion -Take reification to its logical conclusion. This is the most direct approach to intentionally influence your subjective reality.
- Cognitive Therapy - The Personal Research Tool was originally developed within the Cognitive Therapy framework. The original purpose of this tool was to identify the irrational beliefs responsible for your unwanted reaction. The solution is recognize and replacing them with more rational ways of thinking.
- Mindfulness [De-Reification] — Appreciate that whatever goes on between stimulus and response is a creation of your imagination.
- Intentional Trance Formation [Focused Attention Meditation]— Develop the skill to aim your attention so as to create healthy emotional environment.
- Stoicism — The power to accept what you cannot change gives you the courage to change what you can.
- Existentialism - It is your responsibility to create a meaningful life and you don't have forever to figure out how to do that.
The Default Path
Reification is where the abstractions that take place in the mind is transformed into physical reality. The premise of this project is that none of us have access to the objective truth. All of our interpretations of the things that happen are based on the reification of a creative fiction— you may label this creation of your mind as a perspective, belief, or premise. Regardless of your model, the map you create by seeing the world from your biased perspective is not the same as the territory! [For simplicity sake, I'm using the term "perspective" to refer to the interpretive lens that causes you to perceive antecedent events in ways that cause you to react as you do; some readers may prefer the term, "belief" or "premise."]
Your interpretation of the things that happen is the consequence of how things look from your perspective at that moment. Any attempt to appraise the validity of different perspectives is confounded by the perspective from which you appraise them. You cannot depend upon the perspective that caused you to create a defective map to reveal that the map is defective. However, you can look at the outcome of using the map to see if it is helping you navigate your course so that you avoid obstacles and reach your goals.
To change the way you react to the things that happen you will have to overcome your knee-jerk appraisals, including your automatic acceptance of the perspectives you have been using to interpret the things that happen. The fact that you have been viewing the world from this perspective for a long time gives it a familiarity that comes with a feeling of certainty. You will have to overcome the resistance to changing a perspective that feels comfortable and valid in order to give a fair trial to different ways of interpreting the things that happen.
The $64 question is: Do you have the cojones to change?
— Twitter