The Faust Baseline™Purchasing Page – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
People don’t need excitement right now.
They’ve had plenty of that.
They need reliability.
Not slogans.
Not breaking news.
Not another sharp turn every twenty minutes.
They need to know what tomorrow is likely to look like—at least in their own small corner of the world.
When everything feels unstable, the first thing that breaks isn’t optimism.
It’s trust.
And trust doesn’t break because people disagree.
It breaks because nothing behaves the same way twice.
Rules change.
Standards slide.
Expectations move without warning.
The body feels that before the mind does.
You see it in people’s faces.
You hear it in how short their answers get.
You feel it when even simple decisions start to feel heavy.
That’s not weakness.
That’s a nervous system that’s tired of guessing.
So the repair doesn’t start with motivation.
It starts with predictability.
Old generations understood this instinctively.
When times were uncertain, they made their own lives boring on purpose.
Same wake time.
Same meals.
Same work hours.
Same rules, applied the same way every day.
Not because they lacked imagination.
Because predictability builds trust—and trust calms the body enough for judgment to return.
Here’s how that works, in real terms.
When you wake up at a different time every day, your body stays alert.
It doesn’t know what’s coming.
When rules are applied sometimes but not others, your mind stays defensive.
It’s always bracing for surprise.
When routines change constantly, your attention stays scattered.
You never fully settle.
That constant low-level alertness drains people faster than hard work ever did.
Predictability flips that switch.
Not all at once.
Quietly.
The body starts to relax because outcomes become familiar.
The mind slows down because it isn’t scanning for threats.
Energy stops leaking into anticipation and starts returning to presence.
This is why “boring” routines used to be prized.
They weren’t about control.
They were about trust.
If you want to repair yourself—or a household, or a small community—this is where it starts.
Same wake time.
Not “whenever.”
Not “when I feel like it.”
Pick a time and keep it, even on weekends.
Why it matters isn’t discipline for its own sake.
It’s signaling to your body: You can stop guessing now.
The same signal applies to simple routines.
Morning coffee, made the same way.
A short walk at the same hour.
A fixed time when screens go off.
Nothing fancy.
Nothing optimized.
Just familiar.
Familiarity tells your nervous system it doesn’t need to stay on guard.
Then there are rules.
This part matters more than people like to admit.
Rules don’t build trust because they’re strict.
They build trust because they’re consistent.
A rule that’s always enforced—even gently—is calming.
A rule that’s enforced randomly—even kindly—is stressful.
Old households knew this.
Dinner time meant dinner time.
Bedtime meant bedtime.
A promise meant something because it was either kept or explained.
No theatrics.
No exceptions for convenience.
Consistency taught children—and adults—that the ground wouldn’t move under their feet.
You don’t need a long list of rules.
You need a few that actually hold.
If you say you’ll call someone, call.
If you say no, don’t soften it later out of guilt.
If you decide something matters, let it matter every day, not just when it’s easy.
That kind of consistency rebuilds self-trust first.
And self-trust always comes before trust in institutions, leaders, or systems.
This is the part people miss.
They’re waiting for the world to stabilize before they stabilize themselves.
It works the other way around.
When your internal world becomes predictable, the outside world loses some of its power to throw you.
Headlines still exist.
Prices still rise.
Politics still churn.
But you are no longer living inside that volatility.
You’ve built a steady floor.
That floor gives you something priceless: choice.
You can engage without spiraling.
You can step back without disappearing.
You can wait without feeling frozen.
That’s the trust phase.
Not trust in promises.
Trust in process.
Old remedies don’t ask you to believe anything.
They ask you to repeat a few things long enough for your body to recognize safety again.
And once that happens, something subtle changes.
You stop reacting first.
You start observing again.
You notice patterns instead of spikes.
You make fewer emotional decisions and fewer regrets.
That’s not passivity.
That’s restored judgment.
If you want to start today, don’t overhaul your life.
Choose one thing and make it predictable.
One wake time.
One meal you always eat.
One rule you apply without exception.
That’s enough.
Trust doesn’t need fireworks to grow.
It needs repetition.
And repetition—done quietly, without announcement—is how people have always made it through uncertain seasons.
Not by chasing excitement.
By restoring reliability, one day at a time.
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