Contextualization is about asking the why: Why do I care about this? Why is this important? Why am I spending time and effort on this?
Specification is about asking the what: What exactly is going on? What is the problem? What are the sub-components of the problem? What do I need to achieve this outcome?
Similar to the discussion on Will and Fate introspection, both sides are necessary for effective introspection, but here the focus is more so on problem solving rather than life direction I would say.
People who are bad at contextualization end up solving the wrong problem. They are the kind of people who will think about what supplements to buy, so that they may have bigger muscles, so that they can build a more attractive body (it is not always the case that bigger muscles lead to an attractive body by the way), so that they may attract a girl, so that they may have a relationship with her, so that they may feel good about themselves.
Along the way, such a person is solving a convoluted sequence of sub-problems which are completely removed from the initial problem, in this case low self-esteem. Not that any of those are bad per se, but that this tendency of being blind to what you actually want can only create misery because most of your effort is being funneled on activities which are at most orthogonal to the initial problem, but could even make it worse.
A neurotic person who feels the need to control every situation might feel attracted by a self-help book which teaches them how to get what they want and be more effective in life, but in doing so they might become even more neurotic in their need of control, even more tense when things do not go their way.
On the other hand, people who are bad at being specific are poor at action and decision-making. They might know what they want and why it is important to them, but they might concern themselves so much with their higher vision or potential that they do not pay much attention to the nitty gritty of their day to day life, such as how they use their time and energy, what specific problems they are encountering—as opposed to their idea of the problem—and what specific steps they have been taking.
Not being specific leads to an internal dialogue full of vague claims such as "my life is a mess", or "I feel behind in life", or perhaps even "I cannot do anything right", which are hardly productive but also not even in touch with reality because they tend to vastly exaggerate what is going.
When someone says for instance that "everyone thought I was crazy for quitting my job", they are usually referring to the 3 or 4 people closest to them. When they say that "nothing is going right today" they are usually thinking of a sequence of 3 or 4 events that didn't go according to plan, certainly not 10 or 15 of them. And when they say that "nothing has worked to solve this", they are again usually thinking of 3 to 4 attempts at most. 1
Words such as "every" or "always" are suspicious because their function is usually to stop further thinking, they are thought-stoppers. One major aspect of specificity then is the ability to move beyond those thought-stoppers and articulate what exactly is going on.
The point is that you cannot solve a vague problem such as "my life is a mess", you need specific problems so that you may then take specific actions. The problem of course is that if you are not clear on why those problems are important to address in the first place, then you may very well be on your way towards solving a bunch of things you do not care much about.
But the problem that occurs then is that it is essentially impossible to know yourself accurately without doing things in the world. You might have an image of who you are, but that image can very easily shatter under the demands of embodying your ideals. Many people would like to be ripped, but how many do the work required to achieve that? Many would like to see themselves as artists of whatever field they are in, but how many put in the practice and embody the soul of a genius, one who can hit a target that no one else can see?
People tend to glorify introspection, saying again and again that the "unexamined life is not worth living", but equally as true is that the unlived life is not worth examining. Thus we can see that there is an emerging dialogue between contextualization and specification, a discursive rather than linear process, as most things are really.
Right now I am in a phase where I am focusing more on specificity and how to bring my intentions into the world, because introspection quickly shows its limits when you've spent years upon years reading and journaling without any notable change in your life. I initially wanted to write about this, but in the spirit of one intention one piece, I realize that a discussion about solving the wrong problem was important to precede it, because it's a very common failure mode of thinking, which tends to be narrow and thus blind to its own direction.
Solving the wrong problem mainly happens because of a poor usage of one's mind, or "skill issues", but a much deeper reason why it occurs so frequently is that it is how the ego maintains itself. Many people do not want to face themselves, which means that their mind strategically goes down unproductive avenues, as surprising as it might sound. Someone who is a coward for instance will find very intelligent ways to blame anything but their cowardice, they will blame their parents, women, the government, capitalism, their genes, their coworkers, anyone and anything but their inability to face their fears.
This survival strategy which the mind employs to become blind to certain realities is quite a deep subject, I don't think I can give it justice in just a few paragraphs, but perhaps a term is enough to hint at the self-deceptive nature of the ego, that term being distraction loop. The ego co-opts the mind to get stuck in distraction loops, to not look at itself, and this happens individually and collectively.
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Observation Consciousness Skills Selfhelp Problem Root Expandable
2025-10-06