Qualitatively, the whole society — our so-called civilized world — can be captured by a simple and universal model: Actor–Resource–Activity (ARA).
At any level of experience you can think of, it all comes down to this: a few people used some resources and did something. That’s it. This triad is the simplest architecture of reality.
Yet, we constantly ignore this simplicity, losing ourselves in secondary games — the pursuit of illusionary power, security, or permanence — forgetting that all such games are just different configurations of the same basic pattern. We cling to identities and outcomes, while the essence of life flows quietly beneath: actors acting, drawing upon resources, engaging in activity.
If we compare this to the natural sciences, the pattern deepens. Chemistry tells us that substances consist of atoms; complexity emerges from the recombination of fundamental units. Why does nature present herself this way — in recursive simplicity, endlessly recomposable? Perhaps she is inviting us to learn her grammar.
Maybe the world is a testbed, a playground where everything can be assembled and disassembled like a Lego model — built from unbreakable units of interaction. The universe seems to whisper: “Go play with your ideas; create freely. It won’t harm anything.”
Through this lens, our society unfolds as a loosely coupled, gigantic system, built of countless ARA loops nested within one another — boxes within boxes, atoms within substances, roles within institutions. The same structure repeats at every scale, from the child drawing with crayons, to the company inventing a product, to the civilization constructing an economy. Each is simply a localized rhythm of Actor, Resource, and Activity.
Why then do we ignore such simplicity?
Because once we enter an ARA loop, we tend to identify with our role as the Actor. We forget the pattern and start to take the stage as the “real world.” We become attached to “our” resources and “our” activities, mistaking their transient arrangements for enduring truth. This identification gives rise to the illusions of hierarchy, stability, and control. It’s the human condition — to be absorbed by the pattern’s content and forget its form.
Philosophically, this ARA model resonates with several traditions.
Bruno Latour’s Actor–Network Theory also sees reality as a mesh of interacting entities — human and non-human — defined only through their relations. Heidegger spoke of tools not as “things,” but as “ready-to-hand,” meaningful only in use — a clear echo of “resource within activity.” And in Buddhist thought, interdependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda) describes precisely this mutual co-definition: actor, resource, and activity arising together in one relational field.
Even linguistically, the triad reveals its coherence:
- Actor — from Latin agere, “to do, to drive.” The one who acts.
- Resource — from Old French resourdre, “to rise again,” something that can be drawn upon anew.
- Activity — from activus, “a doing.”
The ARA cycle is thus circular: the one who acts, using what can be drawn upon again, in the act of doing. It is self-renewing — like breath.
From this recursive structure arises what we might call the everyday metaverse. Each person continuously switches between multiple ARA systems — teacher, parent, friend, creator — inhabiting parallel contexts and realities. The “metaverse” is not a digital fantasy waiting to be built; it is already happening in every moment of role-shift, every reconfiguration of our Actor–Resource–Activity field. In this sense, life is indeed everything, everywhere, all at once.
Perhaps civilization itself is a living fractal — a grand experiment where simplicity breeds infinite complexity. Beneath the surface noise of institutions and ideologies, the same pulse continues: someone acts, with something, toward something.
That’s all the universe ever does — and all she ever needs to do.
Note: This work is done by the discussion and collaboration with ChatGPT
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