We are about Belonging first.
Only about Freedom next.

Observations

• The Order of Things is: Evolution - Species - Subspecies - Groups - Specimen

• There are no “Species of 1“. We stem from 2. Alone we perish.

• We act, react and interact based on: Reason, Culture and Instinct

• We adapt to our environment. That changes perpetualy.

• Therefore we cannot be limitlessly Souvereign, Makeable or Malleable.

Consequentially:

Identity is a Plurality

Identity ( What i am)

Identity cannot be reduced to a single plane. There is no solitary dimension to which all else can be subordinated. There are at least three irreducible planes:

Evo     Evolution, understood as time and change
ME+   The collective, the field in which the individual no longer stands alone
Me      The individual, the unit of consciousness

From this follows the core formula:

I = (((Me)ME+)Evo)

 To be read as:

“Identity (I) is the lived expression of an individual consciousness (Me) that exists only within collective belonging (ME+), and unfolds continuously through time and change (Evo).”

WE – The Collective

By deduction: 

 WE = ((ME+(Me))Evo)

“WE” is not the sum of isolated “I’s”, but an emergent whole that arises when individual Me’s enter into, and continue to participate in, ME+: a weave of relationships, rituals, stories, and boundaries that is continuously renegotiated across time. The “WE” emerges where inner worlds intertwine and shared meaning lights up from that entanglement.

“WE” is therefore:

“The living synthesis of individual selves (Me) and their collective field (ME+), continually formed and re-formed through shared memory, interaction, and meaning-making (Evo).”

I and WE are not rivals but reflections: each arises from, and acts back upon, the other.

CORE & OPS — Depth And Action

CORE & OPS - Depth and Action

At the level of Me , two layers appear:

a depth layer:  CORE
an action layer:  OPS

CORE is the instinctive dimension of identity: the deep patterned substrate shaped by evolution, biology, and early attachment. Hunger and safety, attachment and loss, closeness and exclusion — these forces often operate below conscious awareness. CORE is what draws the child to the parent, mobilises fear or anger in danger, longs for contact in isolation. It is what remains even when roles, opinions, and habits shift.

But instinct alone does not make a human life. Layered over it — and constantly interacting with it — lies OPS, the operational, non-instinctive layer. This is where Me learns, experiments, adapts, takes up roles and relinquishes them. Here arise skills, routines, social masks, strategies for navigating shifting contexts. OPS is identity-in-action: behaviour, habits, performativity — partly conscious, partly automated, but fundamentally learned.

Both layers are indispensable.

CORE  provides emotional gravity and continuity through change.
OPS  provides flexibility, revision, and growth.

Daily life is a negotiation between the two: sometimes we can temper CORE patterns through new routines; at other times, under stress, we fall back on the oldest wiring. To understand Me is to see CORE and OPS together: depth and behaviour, root and branch.

Two Cores: Instinctive And Cultural

Within CORE, another distinction must be made. Not everything that feels deep is innate.

CORE has two faces: 

CORE-i  the instinctive core
CORE-c the cultural core

CORE-i is biological, innate, universal: hunger, thirst, basic emotions such as fear, anger, joy, sadness; attachment, territoriality, the fight/flight/freeze response. This is the layer we share with all humans — and to a degree, with other animals. It is fast, automatic, barely subject to conscious intervention.

CORE-c is not genetic, but often just as stubborn: values, taboos, honour and shame codes, primary loyalties, the emotional grammar of language, religion, family, homeland. This is culture that has become flesh — not inborn, but learned so early and deeply that it feels “natural”. Anyone who says “I have lost my roots” feels it here.

 Both CORE layers share three properties: They are fast, largely unconscious, and resistant to direct willpower. They determine what feels self-evident, sacred or repugnant, who belongs inside “we” and who does not.

Above them lies OPS: the layer of roles, skills, behavioural patterns, deliberate choices and practice. Here we learn a profession, a language, a style of interaction. Here we can adjust routines, set boundaries, choose new scripts. OPS can challenge, soften, or reframe CORE — but not simply erase it.

When these layers are confused, things go wrong. We treat cultural scripts as though they were biologically inevitable (“that’s just who I am”), or we try to repair deep CORE injuries with superficial OPS adjustments. Therapy, parenting, and policy fail when they attempt to change habits without addressing underlying needs — or when they try to “re-educate” culture without renewing skills and structures.

From Me to ME+

 What is true for the individual repeats at the level of the group.

ME+ has its own CORE-i: the quick “us-them” reflex, group bonding, tribal solidarity, the intoxication of the crowd, the unquestioned loyalty to family, clan, nation. Without this layer, groups would not cohere, protect, or care.

And ME+ has its CORE-c: the stories, symbols, constitutions, rituals, holidays, unwritten rules. These form the deep memory of a society — its honour, its thresholds of shame, its assumed hierarchies, its sacred prohibitions.

And here too is an OPS layer: the way societies organise and adapt in practice — institutions, policy decisions, reforms, new customs, public debate. This is the layer of trial and adjustment.