Make it make sense

A reach for frameworks amidst chaos

Earlier in 2020, I came across the quip “information is not knowledge” — and it has not left me. This got me thinking about patterns.

The first thing I noticed was a pattern that I didn’t like: how I consume information. Mindlessly. Insatiably. I check Twitter headlines, skim an article, send it to a loved one. Rinse, repeat. I am done with this pattern.

It’s time to focus on different patterns. This is the space I am carving out for connecting the dots to create knowledge; to find patterns using the STEEP framework. Throughout my life, frameworks have given me the gift of structure in ambiguous, overwhelming situations.

I am reaching for a familiar framework yet again.

The STEEP framework covers most of the bases that impact how we live:

• Social: how people live and relate to one another on a daily basis

• Technological: how tools and processes are applied, based on science

• Economic: how people consume and produce resources

• Ecological: how the organisms in our physical surroundings relate to one another

• Political: how people govern and create institutions

I’ll be looking for patterns in all this information. Ultimately, I hope to find this process illuminating and empowering — an input for decision making about the best ways to spend my limited energy and resources. I hope that if you’re reading this, you feel that way too.

I also hope that if you find an interesting piece of information or an interesting pattern, that you’ll share it with me so that I can, in turn, share it with others. I hope that we can build a mutual knowledge base by revisiting important topics together.

In structure & solidarity,

Agnes