This morning I went for a walk in the park.
Like most mornings, at some point, someone approached me to make conversation.
But this particular person’s opening line puzzled me. He said: “Good morning, this is better than punches, right?”
Before I could respond, he said “oh, so you prefer punches? you prefer to fight?” and started swinging fists at me.
My morning brain didn’t register yet that I was dealing with a scoundrel.
So I just took a step away from striking distance, stared in his eyes and blurted out something like “No? What are you doing, man? This is some strange behavior.”
Clearly upset that I didn’t seem intend on attacking him back, he told me “Are you really going to run away?”
In that moment, I witnessed a process happen inside myself that I hadn’t noticed before:
My body prepared to fight. But not because I perceived the man as a threat.
It prepared to fight because it perceived not fighting as a threat to my worth.
In a matter of seconds, it downregulated again, I ignored the man and walked away.
As I was walking away, another impulse came up:
The impulse to say something kind to him. To bless him. To wish him happiness or a beautiful day.
But this impulse didn’t arise from loving him.
Upon close inspection, it was an attempt to dominate. By verbally expressing love to him, I could position myself as “the better person”.
So I didn’t do this. I shrugged it off and walked away.
But it felt like a lightbulb went off inside my head.
I’ve always been confused by the way men can get baited into fights.
Because if fights weren’t so violent and harmful, the way this works is almost comical:
Some stranger in a bar yelling “your mother is promiscuous!” and suddenly that’s the thing that sets you off in a rage?
This person clearly hasn’t met your mother. They’re just posting analog rage bait.
It never made sense to me.
But on this morning, for some reason, I ended up being lucid enough to watch my own inner process in slow motion. And it all became really obvious.
Why would my body suddenly want to fight when he implied walking away meant cowardice or fear (by calling it “running”)?
Because he was casting a powerful spell on my brain. A spell that’s important to be aware of in daily life, lest you be manipulated.
It’s called “framing”.
Now, what’s really interesting to me is that I felt the impulse to verbally dominate him, moreover, to verbally dominate him in a way that would make it able to convince myself I wasn’t doing so (“I’m just being loving”).
Those are exactly the sort of gymnastics an ego makes when fighting a frame.
In its simplest form, a frame spell is a spell that intends to create constraints on the other person’s reality (“place a frame around it”) which make it so that they are more likely to exhibit the behavior we want to mindcontrol them into.
Let’s analyze the example of the man picking a fight with me, and then zoom out to see how this is used all around us in daily life.
The moment mister man (I never caught his name) noticed that I was intent on walking away, he said something that implies that if I do this, I’m a coward.
By doing so, he casts a frame spell on my reality in which walking away means admitting to cowardice.
Even though this is one of the most cliché spells around, it makes sense that most men fall for this. It’s quite an elegantly designed frame:
Humans depend on each other for survival.
Historically, if a man was known to be a coward, that meant he wasn’t holding up his end of the bargain. He was relying on the tribe for survival but they couldn’t rely on him. This would often lead to banishment or worse.
Of course, the same is true about men that would constantly get into needless fights (threat to the tribe’s survival). But basically, the phrase he speaks is trying to trigger the former fear in me:
“I must fight to ensure I am a valuable human, or I might be cast out.”
In reality, walking away and cowardice are completely unrelated.
There is nothing cowardly about avoiding a fight. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s what any wise person would recommend you to do.
However, real cowardice does often express itself with the action of running away. Which means enough of a correlation exists in our minds to accept the belief he is trying to instill.
Now here’s where it gets interesting:
When we subconsciously notice the other person casting a frame spell (which, by the way, they often cast without consciously knowing it too), our mind tends to want to fight the frame.
I used to be a skilled dark wizard myself in the past. And usually the way I’d win fights is exactly through frame wars:
E.g. some guy would push me and say “What’s up bro, are you gay?” (which is an ineffective frame spell because it only works if you actually believe that being gay is bad) and I’d immediately respond with something like “Oh I’m so sorry. No, I just look gayer than I am. But I’m sure if you go inside that bar you will find someone who is a match for you.”)
(Which is basically a frame spell saying that instead of trying to hit me, he was trying to hit on me. Which makes him feel like he just called himself gay, a thing he clearly feels one should be ashamed for.)
…and then I would feel really good about having punished the guy for acting like a bigot and picking fights with strangers.
However, now that I’m a bit older, I no longer agree with my behavior there. I think it’s being unkind to someone already suffering, and there’s a degree of arrogance to it that I don’t think is good for the soul.
Now…if you pay close attention you may notice something:
This in itself is a frame! Every belief we have is a frame spell we either have cast on ourselves, or that was once cast upon us.
By believing that verbally pwning a guy is unkind and not good for my soul, I mindcontrol myself into not doing it.
There’s also a bigger frame around this: The belief that “kindness is good”.
So what happened?
My ego tried to fight both the guy’s frame and mine. As a result, the impulse was “I’ll defeat this guy’s frame by exhibiting kindness! By showing him that I’m better because I wish him well!”
Luckily, I realized I was in the middle of a frame war and just dropped all the frames altogether.
But it’s a beautiful demonstration of how powerful frames are.
Can you see how each frame imposed a limitation on my available thoughts and action, steering me towards a very specific outcome?
This is exactly how frame spells work.
And while we mostly cast them on each other unconsciously, there are also conscious attempts to cast frame spells on you.
That’s how the most effective advertising, politics and propaganda works. Not by explicitly stating things but by slowly but surely casting frames on you that make buying the think, voting for the person or supporting the cause the only logical action.
Think of frames like “pro-life” or “pro-choice”. Both are meant to constrain your reality by having you believe “if I support abortion I don’t value life and am a murderer” or “if I don’t support abortion then I am against freedom” . But neither are true.
If one of the frames casts hold on your psyche, you’ll be committed to supporting one option and not hearing the arguments of the other side.
If you cast frame spells wide enough, this can affect entire societies:
A particularly genius frame spell was the frame that instead of it being cool, smoking was a sign you were successfully mindcontrolled by the big marketing budgets of the tobacco companies. And since teenagers naturally want to rebel against the establishment, slowly, not smoking became the act of rebellion.
Another example is governments and media calling everyone who didn’t want to take the Covid vaccine “anti-vaxx” (or “anti-your -grandma’s-life”).
Now people had a choice: “Am I taking the vaccine, or do I fully adopt the stance that I believe the conspiracy theories about vaccines and have beef with your grandma?”
The mechanism here is exactly the same as calling someone a coward if they don’t fight you.
Mindcontrol like this is everywhere. Bosses do it. Kids age of three do it. Even educated fleas do it!
So what can you do when they come for you?
Not by fighting back with a stronger frame. That battle never ends. And by doing it in the first place, you are implicitly giving their frame power over you, by acting like it is something you have to defend yourself against.
The solution is to notice the frame and ignore it. To allow yourself to walk away and have the other person think “what a coward” while you let go of the idea that cowardice means anything in the first place.
To not worry whether smoking is cool or not smoking is rebellious, but just notice whether you, in your heart of hearts, want to smoke today or not.
To respond to the question are you “pro or anti-vaxx” with “I want to people to be healthy, happy, sane and safe.” (which is what both “sides” wanted).
Notice there’s one more thing to notice here:
Frame spells are way more powerful when they are cast in public.
This morning, me and mister man were alone in the park. He had little leverage.
But notice the following difference in dynamic:
You’re going out with a group of friends and someone casts a frame spell:
“Oh, you’re not taking another round of shots with us? Can’t handle your booze.”
What they’re doing here is essentially not just cast the frame spell on you but on everyone else in the group.
By leveraging every person who witnesses it, they 10x the power of the spell.
Because now, even if you ignore the frame, you might worry “…but everyone else still thinks…” .
Now, of course, you might decide to shrug that off too (it doesn’t always matter what people think of you).
But let’s say the social consequences are real enough for you to want to deal with them (e.g. maybe they try to frame you as doing something unacceptable or illegal).
Once again, the move is not to go fight the frame, but to call out that there’s a frame in the first place, preferably without blaming the other person for introducing it:
“Choosing not to drink is a different thing from not being able to. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. We won’t find out, because I don’t feel like drinking.”
…and then make a big show of chugging your glass of water like a total badass!