Kurtis Kemple

The "Just How It Is" Test

July 28th, 2025

Ever feel trapped in a situation where nothing seems to change, no matter what you try? That frustrating sense of being stuck isn’t a personal failure—it’s a universal condition. Every organized system, from your workplace to entire civilizations, faces the same fundamental reality: we’re all operating within constraints and boundaries that limit our options.

The difference between feeling stuck and successfully navigating these constraints comes down to understanding how they actually work and having the right tools to work with them instead of against them.

Information Physics provides a practical framework for understanding why some positions feel impossible to escape and what you can actually do about it. Instead of generic advice that assumes everyone has the same options, this approach recognizes that your position determines your possibilities—and gives you the math to figure out exactly what those possibilities are.

How to Test This Approach

Here’s a simple way to compare Information Physics with any other solution framework you’ve tried.

The Challenge Setup

Pick any problem that feels permanent—something where you’ve been told “that’s just how it is” or where previous solutions haven’t worked. These situations are perfect test cases because they reveal the difference between approaches that address symptoms versus those that target the underlying constraints.

The Information Physics Process

Step 1: Map Your Actual Position

Instead of pretending you have options you don’t have, start by honestly assessing your constraints. What rules, resources, and relationships actually limit your choices? This isn’t pessimism—it’s precision.

Step 2: Calculate Your Energy Burden

How much energy do you spend just maintaining your current position? Are you constantly putting out fires, translating between different groups, or working around broken systems? This “energy burden” determines how much capacity you have left for making changes.

Think of it like your phone battery. If background apps are draining 80% of your power, you only have 20% left for the things you actually want to do:

  • Low energy burden (20-30% of your capacity): You can make strategic decisions, have access to resources, and see the big picture. Like having a fully charged phone—you can run any app you want.
  • Medium energy burden (40-60% of your capacity): You have some autonomy but need to do translation work and deal with moderate friction. Like having half battery—you can still do important things, but you’re more selective.
  • High energy burden (70-90% of your capacity): You’re mostly following others’ decisions, have minimal resources, and face maximum constraints. Like having 10% battery—you’re in survival mode, only doing what’s absolutely necessary.

Understanding your energy burden is crucial because it determines what solutions will actually work for you.

Step 3: Identify What Everyone Actually Wants

What outcome would genuinely help the whole system? Not what people say they want, but what they’d actually support with their time and energy. This shared intent (V) is crucial because solutions that work against what people actually want will face constant resistance.

Step 4: Find Operations You Can Actually Execute

From your specific position, what can you realistically do? Information Physics identifies three types of actions:

  • MOVE: Relocate information, resources, or connections to reduce friction
  • JOIN: Unite elements that naturally work better together
  • SEPARATE: Break apart forced coupling that creates waste

The key insight: MOVE operations require the least energy, SEPARATE operations require the most. This is why reorganizing existing resources is often more effective than trying to restructure entire systems.

Step 5: Calculate Your Navigation Capacity

Your ability to create change follows a simple relationship:

Your Change-Making Power = (What You Can Do × What Everyone Wants) ÷ (1 + Your Energy Burden)

Here’s the napkin math: If you can do 3 things, everyone’s 80% aligned on the goal, and your energy burden is 60%, your change-making power is roughly 1.9. If someone else can do the same 3 things but their energy burden is only 20%, their power jumps to 2.0.

This simple calculation reveals why the same solution can work brilliantly for some people and fail completely for others—it depends entirely on your position in the system.

Step 6: Compare with Traditional Approaches

Now apply your usual problem-solving method to the same situation. Which approach:

  • Acknowledges your actual position constraints?
  • Clarifies what everyone genuinely wants versus what they say they want?
  • Provides operations you can realistically execute from where you are?
  • Shows measurable progress toward reducing the underlying constraints?
  • Works even when you don’t have much power or resources?

The difference usually becomes clear pretty quickly—most traditional approaches assume you have more options than you actually do.

Real-World Examples

Let’s see how this plays out with common “unchangeable” problems.

”Our Meetings Are Useless But Required”

Sound familiar? Everyone complains about wasteful meetings, but they keep happening because most solutions treat the symptoms (bad agendas, poor facilitation) rather than the real problem (people don’t know what’s happening without these meetings).

Traditional approaches: Better agendas, meeting-free days, improved facilitation skills

Information Physics approach:

  • Calculate the energy drain: How much time and mental energy is everyone losing?
  • Figure out what good collaboration actually looks like for your specific group
  • Apply simple operations: MOVE updates to Slack, JOIN related discussions into one meeting, SEPARATE status updates from strategic decisions

The difference: Instead of making meetings better, you reduce the need for meetings by fixing the information flow problems that make them necessary.

It’s like fixing a leaky pipe instead of just mopping up the water.

”The Hiring Process Takes Forever”

Three months to hire someone? Hiring delays frustrate everyone, yet most “speed-up” initiatives just add more steps and approvals.

Traditional approaches: Hire more recruiters, buy better software, create urgency

Information Physics approach:

  • Map where energy gets wasted at each stage (usually it’s waiting for approvals)
  • Find where people’s actual goals diverge (hint: someone might actually benefit from slow hiring)
  • Apply simple fixes: MOVE decisions closer to the teams doing the work, JOIN scattered approval steps, SEPARATE must-haves from nice-to-haves

The difference: By targeting the energy waste from decision distance and approval fragmentation, you reduce hiring time without sacrificing quality.

Think of it like untangling a knot instead of pulling harder on the rope.

”Nobody Uses Our Documentation”

Spent weeks writing documentation that nobody reads? You’re not alone. Most solutions try to force people to use bad docs instead of making docs actually worth using.

Traditional approaches: Mandate documentation reviews, gamify contributions, improve search

Information Physics approach:

  • Calculate the energy cost: How much effort does it take someone to find what they need?
  • Check whether creators actually want their docs to be used (sometimes they don’t!)
  • Apply simple fixes: MOVE docs to where people actually work, JOIN scattered related content, SEPARATE reference material from step-by-step guides

The difference: Instead of forcing people to use documentation, you reduce the friction that makes asking someone faster than reading docs.

It’s like putting the fire extinguisher next to the stove instead of in the basement.

Why Position Matters So Much

Here’s the crucial insight that most advice misses: solutions that work from one position often fail completely from another position.

Think about it: A CEO can reorganize teams with a single email. A middle manager needs to build consensus across five different stakeholders who all have conflicting priorities. A front-line employee has to work within existing structures and hope someone listens.

The same “solution” requires completely different energy levels and faces entirely different constraints depending on where you sit.

Most advice is created by people with extensive navigation tools—time to strategize, information to coordinate, resources to experiment—for people whose tools are limited or denied. It’s like a person with a car giving directions to someone on foot. The destination might be the same, but the route is completely different.

Information Physics starts with the universal reality that everyone faces constraints, then calculates which navigation strategies actually work from your specific position.

The Energy Reality

People in high-constraint positions aren’t failing to implement good advice—they’re rationally conserving energy for survival. When you’re spending 70% of your energy just keeping your head above water, you can’t afford solutions that require swimming upstream.

This is why “just work harder” or “be more proactive” advice fails. It’s not a motivation problem—it’s a math problem. You literally don’t have the energy budget for it.

The Information Gap

Similarly, many solutions assume access to information that you simply don’t have. “Just talk to the stakeholders” doesn’t work when you don’t know who the stakeholders are, can’t get their contact info, or don’t have permission to reach out.

It’s like being told to “just call the CEO” when you don’t have their number and security won’t let you past the lobby.

Information Physics recognizes these information gaps and designs solutions that work with what you actually know, not what you theoretically should know.

Measuring What Actually Works

Track your progress using a simple question: How much closer are you to where you want to be?

Rate it on a scale of 1-10:

  • 8-10: Solution working as intended—keep going
  • 6-7: Needs adjustment but you’re making progress
  • 4-5: Significant drift from your goal—time to reassess
  • 1-3: Approach isn’t reducing the underlying constraints—try something different

Traditional metrics often hide when you’re just running in place. This simple measurement reveals whether you’re actually getting unstuck.

The key insight: if your score isn’t improving over time, you’re treating symptoms rather than addressing the real problem.

Why This Changes How You Think About Problems

Most frameworks assume that if a solution doesn’t work, either you implemented it wrong or you need to try harder. Information Physics recognizes that solutions fail when they don’t account for the actual constraints and energy realities of your position.

This shift changes everything:

  • From “Why can’t I make this work?” to “What would actually work from here?”
  • From “I must be doing something wrong” to “This solution wasn’t designed for my constraints”
  • From “I need to be more motivated” to “I need better tools for my actual situation”

The Universal Reality

You’re not uniquely failing—you’re navigating the same fundamental constraints that all organized systems face. The difference is having tools designed for constraint navigation rather than constraint denial.

Every successful change happens by working with constraints, not against them. Information Physics provides the framework for understanding exactly how to do that from wherever you currently are.

From Resignation to Recognition

“Just how it is” transforms from resignation to recognition. You’re not stuck because you’re inadequate—you’re experiencing the predictable result of operating within certain constraint structures. Once you understand those structures, you can navigate them strategically.

The goal isn’t to eliminate constraints (impossible) but to navigate them efficiently using whatever time, information, and tools you actually have available.

Getting Started

Ready to test this approach against your current problem-solving methods? Here’s a simple five-step process to get started:

  1. Pick one “unchangeable” problem you’re currently facing.
  2. Use the Information Physics process to map your position, energy burden, shared intent, and available operations.
  3. Design one small MOVE operation you can execute this week.
  4. Measure whether it reduces the underlying constraint or just treats symptoms.
  5. Compare the results with your previous approaches.

The framework doesn’t promise magic solutions—it promises solutions that actually account for the reality of your situation. Sometimes that’s enough to unlock possibilities you didn’t know existed.

Remember: Constraints are universal. Navigation tools are learnable. Your position determines your possibilities, but it doesn’t determine your potential.

For the complete mathematical framework behind these concepts, see Entropic Mechanics. For the broader theoretical context, start with Information Physics Overview.