The Three Selves: Your Internal Thermodynamic System

The Three Selves: Your Internal Thermodynamic System

Let’s get one thing straight: the idea that you are a single, unified self is bullshit.

It’s a convenient lie we tell ourselves, a comforting bedtime story to mask the chaotic, messy reality of what’s actually going on inside. You aren’t one person. You’re a committee. A dysfunctional, arguing, brilliant, and utterly contradictory committee of three.

Most of modern psychology, from Freud to the latest pop-psych guru, has tried to slap a neat label on this internal conflict. They give you an id, ego, and superego. They tell you to find your “true self.” They sell you on mindfulness and meditation as the cure for your monkey mind. And while there’s value in some of that, they’re all missing the damn point. They are trying to create equilibrium in a system that is, by its very nature, far-from-equilibrium.

Life isn’t about balance. It’s about flow. It’s about existing at the edge of chaos, where real change and adaptation happen. And to navigate that, you need to understand the three players running the show inside your own head.

Ancient Hawaiian wisdom, or Huna, had a model for this thousands of years ago. It’s a model of consciousness that actually works, not because it’s mystical, but because it aligns perfectly with the fundamental laws of the universe—specifically, the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

The Problem: You’re at War With Yourself

You ever feel like one part of you wants to eat the whole damn pizza while another part is screaming about your diet? Or one part of you knows you need to leave a toxic job, but another part is terrified of the uncertainty? That’s not you being indecisive. That’s a battle between your three selves.

We spend most of our lives with these three parts of ourselves completely out of sync. We let the chattering, logical part of our brain dominate, ignoring the deep, instinctual wisdom of our bodies. We chase after goals that our higher, intuitive self knows are meaningless. The result? Anxiety, depression, addiction, and a pervasive feeling that something is fundamentally wrong.

We’re told to “get control” of ourselves. To suppress our desires, to ignore our gut feelings, to “think positive.” This is like trying to dam a river. You might hold it back for a while, but eventually, the pressure builds, and the dam breaks. You binge, you lash out, you have a breakdown. You’re a Backward-Looking Person (BLP) fighting a losing battle against the natural flow of energy.

The Application: How to Stop Fighting and Start Flowing

So how do you get your internal committee to work together? You don’t force it. You don’t create a rigid set of rules. You create the conditions for self-organization.

1. Feed and Listen to Your Ku. Your lower self needs to feel safe. It communicates through feelings, emotions, and gut instincts. When you feel that knot in your stomach, that’s your Ku talking to you. Don’t ignore it. Don’t numb it with booze or doomscrolling. Acknowledge it. Journal about it. Go for a walk. Move your body. The Ku stores trauma, and that trauma needs to be processed and released, not suppressed. This is about honoring the engine. Give it the fuel it needs—good food, movement, rest—and listen to its signals.
2. Quiet Your Lono. Your middle self, the conscious mind, needs to shut the hell up sometimes. Its constant chatter, its endless analysis and worry, drowns out the wisdom of the other two selves. This is where practices like meditation or breathwork come in. The goal isn’t to achieve some blissed-out state of nothingness. The goal is to quiet the Lono long enough to hear the Ku and the Kane. It’s about stepping back from being the narrator and just becoming the observer.
3. Align with Your Kane. Your higher self is always there, but you can’t access it through logic. You access it through quiet, through nature, through creativity, through flow states. It’s the feeling you get when you’re completely absorbed in something you love. It’s the sudden, inexplicable insight you have in the shower. To align with it, you have to trust it. You have to take that leap of faith, leave that job, start that project, even when your Lono is screaming about all the reasons it’s a bad idea.

Creating the conditions for self-organization within our internal committee often involves challenging long-held beliefs and opening ourselves to new experiences. For me, this meant confronting preconceived notions about substances like cannabis. I encountered a group of individuals who used it thoughtfully—professionally engaged, balanced, and productive—contradicting the stereotypes I had carried for years. Trying it myself, I realized that my sense of self remained intact, highlighting that external factors rarely dictate our internal state. This personal insight reinforced the importance of understanding and managing our internal dynamics consciously. With this perspective, we can approach the process of running our internal operating system with greater clarity and intention.

The Takeaway: Your Three Action Items

This isn’t just theory. This is a practical guide to running your own internal operating system.

1. Schedule a Daily “Ku Check-in.” For 10 minutes a day, just sit and feel. No phone, no TV. Just you and your body. What are you feeling? Where do you feel it? Don’t judge it, just notice it. Put a name to the emotion. This is you learning the language of your lower self.
2. Practice “Lono Silence.” Five minutes. That’s it. Sit and focus on your breath. When your mind wanders (and it will), just gently bring it back. You’re not trying to stop your thoughts; you’re just practicing not being carried away by them. You’re training your middle self to take a back seat.
3. Ask Your Kane One Question. Before you go to sleep, ask your higher self a question about a challenge you’re facing. “What’s the next step?” or “What am I not seeing?” Don’t try to answer it. Just release the question into the void. Pay attention to your dreams, your gut feelings, and the synchronicities that show up in the next few days. The answer will come.

Stop trying to find balance. Stop fighting yourself. You are a chaotic, beautiful, self-organizing system designed to surf the edge of chaos. Your three selves aren’t a problem to be solved; they are a power to be harnessed.

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