There is a sequence of specific actions when performed along with some favorable conditions that gives us a reward. Not every sequence of actions can give us that though. So for us all living for reward, we have to figure out the sequence of actions. And this is what I would call work exploration where you are just figuring out what actually is worth doing. And then once you figure it out you understand how big the reward pool is and how many times you can do it so once you do the exploration and find one sequence of action that is getting you money, you just double down on it and keep doing it and doing it and doing it until you find a better sequence or the pool dries up because others are also doing it or you want to be tall up So work has two sequences one is exploration and another is extraction

Exploration is the part that feels hopeless and depressing because you will fail a lot and extraction will be the process that feels constraining, binding and depressing because You just gotta keep doing it you made your golden handcuffs. We can see this in terms of Looking for a job and then finding a job and then working to keep that job. We can find this in terms of trying out many business ideas and then Finding one that works and then sticking to it for years. We can also see this in terms of looking for a good content strategy that works and then doubling down on it. In search of reward We manufacture our own chains.

Well whatever i just wanted to point out that there is exploration phase and then extraction phase and we always gotta keep the exploration process going on in the background so that we can have something better to extract because most of the things in the world suck and they don’t reward you much so gotta keep the hunt for the lucrative going

And i think searches don’t last for too long like if going for something low value then the search might not be that intense. I think it’s like 5 to 10 % of the time we are searching and 90% of the time we are extracting that’s how it goes. So a lot of time of people is spent extracting. Life is pretty much extraction for almost all of us

Someone searches for jobs for three months, finds one, and then spends three years extracting from that discovery. Someone experiments with twenty content formats over two months, finds one that works, then makes 300 variations of it. Someone spends six months figuring out what kind of agency offer sells and then spends five years selling essentially the same thing.

And the value of the reward changes the intensity of the search. If you’re trying to earn ₹30,000 a month, society already contains thousands of known action sequences that produce roughly that outcome. Your search can be shallow: qualifications → applications → job → extraction.

But if you’re searching for some enormous or unusual reward, the known paths thin out. ₹10 crore, massive audience, extraordinary career autonomy, a breakout company. Now you might have to explore much more aggressively because there aren’t many obvious sequences that reliably lead there.

Plus I think we gotta have an eye on exploration so that the scope creep doesn’t just become unhealthy that hey you search for a while if whatever you find maybe just go for it for now instead of just looking for things I guess forcing extractions at time is necessary too. It’s an infinite world. There can be too many sequences of actions to try out. I think a lot of times just figuring out In your exploration that hey, this is the local maximal let’s stay around it for a while extract it while we Check out something else.

Because you know if you add constraints to your exploration then you start specializing it you start adding iterations to it that make it greater than sum of parts and sometimes that can have in a cultural pool that it manufactures its own reward

So maybe exploration > finding a good enough spot > running the exploration in background > specialization in the sort you found > trying to create a cultural impact > outsized rewards

Because with cultural ops you are increasing the size of the pool. Previously you were extracting whatever there was but now you create your own leverage to extract more while increasing the size of pool.

It’s exactly like finding the descent in a plot of land building your home there and soon enough the price of properties in that area rises because the cultural impact you created

Explore → find a viable pool → extract → specialize → accumulate social capital → run cultural ops → enlarge the pool → gain leverage over a larger pool → extract outsized rewards.

So yeah that does mean that even with this system you will end up most of the time spending an extraction but at least you will get more in return

The explorer thinks:

Find value → capture value.

The cultural operator thinks:

Find something with enough underlying potential → occupy it intensely → specialize → make it legible and desirable → attract other people → increase the value of the whole territory → own a privileged position inside the territory you helped inflate.

Yup, the american settlers went out in the frontier, occupied some land and soon enough that land is way more valuable. I think it’s about exploring, finding one decent place locking down there and bringing cultural impact.

If settlers kept moving every few months because another patch of land looked marginally better, they would never build roads, towns, institutions, trade networks, identity, or reputation around the place. The value emerges because people stay long enough to create infrastructure and culture.

You might keep wandering and wandering but that will keep you low leverage for your whole life. You can find a spot and build your leverage with culture always going after the better thing might not let you reach the full potential you can have so maybe settling down while being ambitious about the place you were settling down at is the way to go. Endless wandering preserves optionality, but it also resets leverage.

My father had a metaphor that be like a wheel and not a spinning top. That a wheel, even though it rotates so much slower, it goes way farther than a spinning top. But yeah, that is true when you are exploring I guess. But once we are at a place, no one looks at a wheel but someone might want to take a look at a spinning top, right? It’s creating the spectacle. So I guess you gotta be both the wheel and the spinning top. Once you stop create those damn spectacles.

So instead of:

better opportunity → better opportunity → better opportunity → better opportunity

you get:

decent opportunity → commitment → specialization → culture → leverage → appreciation → outsized returns

Because, hey, you are a wonderful person with so much talent! To get big things, you don’t always have to travel to big places. Maybe you can make whatever this place is into a big enough thing.

Talent does not have to be migratory to always earn more rewards. It can settle and compound as well to maybe get even more.