Values
1,705 words
ORIGINAL: https://brennan.day/values/
What I believe in. What guides my decisions. These are the principles I try to live by in my work, my writing, and my community building.
This document was originally based off of The Dokkōdō (Japanese: 獨行道) (The Path of Aloneness, The Way to Go Forth Alone, or The Way of Walking Alone), written by the Japanese swordsman and strategist Miyamoto Musashi. I have been adding and modifying to it since I was 15-years-old.
"This is the beginning of a new day. I have been given this day to use as I will. I can waste it... or use it for good, but what I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it!" --Ric Kausrud, 1997
Core Values
Values
- He who creates the most meaningfulness, wins.
- He who dies having achieved the most he wanted to in life, wins.
- He who has the highest quality of life while spending/purchasing the least, wins.
Existence
- You are alive, but only for a little while.
- You are a tiny speck in an infinite universe.
- You have a plethora of options in front of you today.
My belief: I don't believe in original sin or karma. We have the unique ability to be in charge of our lives. We're fortunate to exist at all, and to exist at the same time as each other. Life is a gift, not a test. Being alive together is sacred.
Success
- Start living. Beginning this very moment.
- You already have everything you need.
- Be content with losing everything except your principles.
- Motivation only operates properly internally.
- The world doesn't care if you're tired.
- Hit where you aim, don't miss the mark.
- Cultivate a burning ambition for success.
- Sacrifice what it takes to achieve results.
- Apply overwhelming force.
My interpretation: Success is showing up every day and doing something productive and meaningful with time and energy by your own definition. It isn't an outcome after years of hard work. It's what you cultivate daily.
Improvement
- Constantly pursue knowledge.
- Recalibrate and practice where necessary.
- Apply your understanding.
How I practice this: One percent better every day. Small amounts to reduce entropy and chaos. It only takes a slight effort to make something slightly better than it was. I don't believe in hustle culture, rather, I believe in systems that make the work sustainable. Beeminder commits. Daily journaling. Incremental improvements that compound.
Honour
- Be honest with yourself, and then with others.
- Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
- Be as thoughtful of your inclinations as possible.
- Always respect, but do not hold expectations.
- You will eventually abandon your body, but preserve your honor.
What this means: Integrity, authenticity, truthfulness. Mean what you say, say what you mean. Have the courage to live within truth and virtue. This applies to code (semantic HTML, accessible sites), honest writing, and business (pay people fairly, deliver what you promised).
Wisdom
- Nothing is 'risk-free'.
- Be detached from desire your whole long life.
- Discard all unnecessary possessions.
- You are not obligated to do a single thing.
- It is only a mistake the first time.
In action: Learn from my mistakes and share what I learn with others. Allow others to make mistakes without judgement. Have patience and teach. Be a student and always be learning. Write in public. Document the process. Help others avoid my mistakes. Stay curious. Admit when I'm wrong.
Gratitude
- Nothing should be taken for granted.
- Leave circumstances better than how you found them.
- Spread goodness unto everyone.
- Always be thankful; Communicate it.
- Always be complimentary; Communicate it.
What I'm grateful for:
- The IndieWeb community that taught me to build better
- Write Club members who taught me to lead (100+ members now)
- 750words for giving me a place to think (1,300,000+ words since 2011)
- Public transit for giving me time to read and observe Calgary
- Free and open-source software (built my entire practice on it)
- Libraries (one of the last truly free resources)
- The Mountain Goats for teaching me volume > perfection
- Joan Didion for teaching me precision in essays
Asceticism
- Ego will often create irrelevant fear.
- Pleasure for its own sake is wasteful.
- A partial feeling can never be depended upon.
- Regret only stunts growth.
- Jealousy only hinders the self.
- Separation cannot always be reconciled.
- Lust or love are never good guides.
- The unknown should not be feared.
- Death should not be feared.
- Avoid taking action for the sake of following customary beliefs.
- You cannot assume your actions may not have beneficial outcomes.
- Life is either less work in the present, or more work in the future.
- Never allow yourself to become comfortable.
How I practice this: I'm trying to do more with less, and refuse to own more than what I can carry.
Progressive Universalism
- All sentient beings deserve compassion and care.
- All human beings possess inherent, inalienable rights.
- The further someone is from us, the more deliberately we must count their life.
Principled Solidarity
- Compassion must never be limited convenience.
- Moral consistency is truth; moral comfort is falsehood.
- Bear witness to all suffering.
- The bystander inactive towards evil is responsible for it.
- Support must be material. Give money, time, and effort.
The Way
- Measure the consequences.
- Never stray away from The Way.
Applied Values
In Development
- Own your content: Build for portability, not platform lock-in
- Accessibility first: Everyone deserves access
- Privacy by default: No tracking, no surveillance, no data extraction
- Performance matters: Respect people's time and bandwidth
- Open source when possible: Share knowledge, improve together
In Writing
- Write in public: Document the process, not just results
- Honest over clever: Clear communication beats wordplay
- Research and cite: Give credit, show your work
- Elevate the ordinary: The mundane deserves literary treatment
- Truth over brand: Be a person, not a persona
- Bear witness to suffering: Use writing to make invisible suffering visible
- Meet people where they are: Center collective care and focus on structural analysis, maintain my principles
In Community
- Value quiet supporters over loud critics: Deliberately notice and appreciate the people who show up with kindness, not just the people who show up with hostility
- Extend grace, even in disagreement: Accountability isn't the same thing as punishment; dialogue requires love, not just correctness
- Center marginalized voices: Practice meaningful, intentional listening and deliberate amplification
- Pro bono work matters: Corporate clients fund community service (Berry House's dual mission)
- Safer spaces are built: They require work, consistency, boundaries
- Mentorship without gatekeeping: Lift others up and break down barriers to entry for everyone
- Fundraise for what matters: Support causes that align with my values and make a real impact (see /giving for organizations I support)
- Practice the radical work of staying: Community requires showing up, even when you're annoyed and tired
- Global solidarity: Our liberation is bound up with the liberation of all people, everywhere
- Indigenous rights advocacy: Support MMIWG justice, land back, and Métis sovereignty
- Class solidarity: Organize across differences against exploitation and extraction
- Mutual aid: Build networks of care that don't depend on institutions
In Business
- Sustainable over scalable: I want to work for decades, not burn out
- Pay-what-you-can: For those who need it
- Fair pricing: For those who can afford it
- No exploitation: Not of clients, not of myself, not of collaborators, nor of communities affected by the work
- Dual mission: Profit enables service
- Global impact awareness: Consider how business decisions affect all people
- Anti-extraction economics: Reject business models that extract value from vulnerable communities
- Environmental responsibility: The ecological and climate impacts of business decisions
- Animal ethics: Extend moral requirements to non-human animals in business practices
What These Values Cost
Being value-driven isn't free:
- I alienate clients who don't share my values
- I turn down work that conflicts with my ethics
- I spend more time on accessibility than clients sometimes understand
- I prioritize community over growth metrics
- I choose open source over proprietary convenience
- I keep prices sustainable instead of maximizing revenue
- I bear the emotional weight of witnessing global suffering
- I lose friends and followers for my outspoken politics
- I am accused of being "too radical" for my refusal to remain silent about injustice
- I sacrifice comfort for moral consistency
What These Values Enable
They also create opportunities:
- Clients who share my values find me
- Community members trust me
- I sleep well at night
- The work compounds over time
- I attract collaborators who care about the same things
- I build authentic relationships based on shared principles
- I contribute to movements that benefit all people
- I maintain integrity even when it's difficult or unpopular
- I help build a more inclusive, accessible, and compassionate world
- I demonstrate ethics extending beyond human boundaries
Show up. Do the work. Help someone. Build something useful. Write something honest.
The values only matter if they guide today's actions.
Identity & Positionality
I write from the position of someone who has exploited both male-presenting and white-presenting privilege while being Métis and queer. I am card-carrying MMF member, though largely detached from my culture and heritage.
I've come to lean on trickster storytelling--Coyote, Chi-Jean, Wisakedjak--and Gerald Vizenor's concept of survivance as a way of thinking about humour, satire, and empathy in public writing: laughing with people rather than at them, and using story to keep culture alive rather than just documenting its damage.