Existential Givens are part of My Philosophy (The Conditions of Human Being)

Existential Facticity is part of My Worldview…but just called circumstances.

Popularized by existential thinkers and psychotherapists like Irvin Yalom, the existential givens (often called the “ultimate concerns”) are universal structures of consciousness that apply to everyone, regardless of their individual facticity.

Yalom identifies four primary existential givens:

1. Death: The inevitable reality that life ends, creating tension with our desire to continue existing.

2. Freedom (and Responsibility): The absolute necessity to choose and create our own meaning, along with the burden of owning the consequences.

3. Existential Isolation: The unbridgeable gap between individual minds—no matter how close you are to someone, you live inside your own experience.

4. Meaninglessness: The absence of a built-in, pre-packaged grand purpose to the universe, leaving us to construct our own meaning.

** audit this…what does TST want to use? **

My Philosophy

DEV CONCEPT:
My Philosophy is the member’s private workspace for discovering,
developing, documenting, and optionally sharing their personal philosophy.
It should feel like a living workshop rather than a test with a final answer.

The conceptual foundation comes directly from 30 Philosophers.
Throughout the book, readers are encouraged to examine their worldview,
learn from multiple traditions, mix and match useful ideas, and develop
a life view that resonates with who they want to be.

A philosophy can be extremely simple or elaborate. The book identifies
several useful ways philosophies express themselves: a guiding statement
or mantra, sayings or aphorisms, practical principles, and longer
explanatory or wisdom literature.

Core Philosophy Areas

• My Guiding Idea / Mantra
  Help the member identify a central theme and distill it into a
  short guiding statement. This can optionally be displayed on
  the member profile and My TST header.
• My Pillars
  Allow members to organize important values or principles into
  broad themes. Shuruppakism in 30 Philosophers provides
  a useful model: Relationships, Honor, Humility, Duty, and Wisdom.
  Members should create their own rather than being forced into
  predefined categories.
• My Aphorisms
  A collection of short sayings expressing the member’s philosophy.
  Think Shuruppak, Laozi, Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, etc.
  Aphorisms can optionally be associated with one of the member’s pillars.
• My Wisdom Literature
  Longer personal writings explaining ideas, beliefs, principles,
  observations, lessons learned, or philosophical reflections.
  These can range from a paragraph to essays or larger documents.
• My Worldview
  Optional guided questions that help members examine their current
  knowledge, beliefs, values, assumptions, and view of reality.
  The worldview should always be treated as evolving rather than fixed.
• My Influences
  Optional list of philosophers, traditions, books, people, ideas,
  or experiences that have influenced the member’s philosophy.
  Encourage mixing and matching rather than forcing philosophical labels.
• My Philosophy Library
  Allow members to save supporting material and eventually upload PDFs
  or other documents related to their philosophy.

Relationship to My Worldview

DEV CONCEPT:
My Philosophy is the conscious, constructive layer of the member’s broader
worldview. My Worldview helps the member uncover and examine what they
currently think and believe. My Philosophy helps them deliberately decide
what ideas, principles, values, and wisdom they want to live by.

The two modules should interact without duplicating each other.
A worldview discovery may lead to a philosophical principle, pillar,
mantra, or aphorism. When appropriate, allow the member to intentionally
promote an insight from My Worldview into My Philosophy.

Simple distinction:
My Worldview: What do I think, believe, and value—and why?
My Philosophy: Given that, how do I want to live?

Design Philosophy

• Private by default.
• Allow profile visibility at the item or section level rather than
  requiring the entire philosophy to be public.
• Do not force the user into a philosophical school or label.
  The goal is discovery and articulation, not classification.
• Encourage ideas to change over time. Consider preserving revision
  history later so members can see how their philosophy evolves.
• Keep the first experience simple. A member should be able to begin
  with nothing more than one sentence or one aphorism.
• Advanced structure such as pillars, worldview questions, documents,
  and longer writings should emerge gradually.
• My TST may occasionally surface prompts such as
  “Continue your mantra” or “Add an idea to My Philosophy,”
  but the full module should remain an intentional destination.

Possible Guided Flow

1. What ideas matter most to you?
2. What kind of person do you want to be?
3. What principles guide how you treat other people?
4. What principles guide how you handle difficulty?
5. What do you believe makes a life well lived?
6. Can you summarize your current philosophy in one sentence?
7. Can you turn some of your ideas into short aphorisms?
8. Would you like to organize those ideas into a few larger pillars?

These should be prompts, not required fields. Users should be able to
skip around and build their philosophy organically.

30 Philosophers Integration

Build contextual links back into 30 Philosophers and
TouchstoneTruth material while the member works.

• Components of a Philosophy — examples of guiding statements,
  ethics, practical advice, sayings, and wisdom literature.
• Shuruppak — example of organizing sayings into philosophical pillars.
• Laozi — example of expressing a philosophy through concise,
  memorable wisdom.
• Confucius — example of an applied philosophy centered on
  conduct and relationships.
• Heraclitus / Worldview — reminder that a worldview changes
  with knowledge and experience.
• Other philosophers can eventually provide prompts around
  virtue, skepticism, happiness, ethics, truth, meaning,
  spirituality, freedom, and other philosophical dimensions.

Dev Comments

COMMENT:
Avoid making this feel like personality testing.
“You are 42% Stoic and 28% Buddhist” might be entertaining someday,
but it should not define the member’s philosophy.

COMMENT:
The most interesting long-term feature may be the evolution of the
member’s philosophy. A mantra, pillar, or aphorism could have a history
showing how their thinking changed over years.

COMMENT:
User-created philosophy content could eventually interact with
TST Practice. For example, a member’s mantra, aphorisms, or selected
wisdom could occasionally be surfaced back to them during Practice.

COMMENT:
Uploaded source material should remain distinct from the member’s
authored philosophy. PDFs, books, and references are influences or
supporting material; they are not automatically statements of belief.

DEV TO DO

• DEV: Create My Philosophy page and navigation item.
• DEV: Restrict module to signed-in member and developer during initial build.
• DEV: Decide data architecture before building Elementor forms.
• DEV: Create member-level philosophy record with optional title,
  central theme, and guiding statement/mantra.
• DEV: Create flexible item structure for pillars, aphorisms,
  and wisdom writings rather than storing everything in user meta.
• DEV: Add ordering/reordering for pillars and aphorisms.
• DEV: Add draft/private/public-profile visibility controls.
• DEV: Connect profile mantra to My TST personalized header.
• DEV: Build simple mantra editor first.
• DEV: Add links/prompts for creating a personal mantra.
• DEV: Build My Pillars.
• DEV: Build My Aphorisms and optional pillar assignment.
• DEV: Build Wisdom Literature editor.
• DEV: Develop optional worldview questionnaire/prompts.
• DEV: Add My Influences / favorite philosophers and traditions.
• DEV: Add appropriate links into 30 Philosophers and TST reference material.
• DEV: Research secure private PDF/document upload architecture.
• DEV: Add selected My Philosophy elements to member profile.
• DEV: Later consider revision history so users can view
  the evolution of their philosophy.
• DEV: Later consider surfacing relevant My Philosophy items
  inside My TST and TST Practice.

COMMENT:
Do not turn My Philosophy into a duplicate inventory of beliefs.
Belief discovery and worldview analysis belong primarily in My Worldview.
My Philosophy should emphasize intentional principles, guidance,
aphorisms, pillars, mantra, and wisdom literature.

COMMENT:
My Philosophy will generally contain more material appropriate for
optional profile sharing. My Worldview should lean more heavily toward
privacy because it may contain beliefs, doubts, uncertainties, and
unfinished thinking.

• DEV: Before finalizing data architecture, design My Worldview and
  My Philosophy together so shared concepts such as revisions,
  visibility, influences, and member-created ideas do not require
  duplicate systems.
• DEV: Allow selected worldview discoveries to be intentionally
  promoted into My Philosophy rather than automatically copying them.