Rawdogging
Using it in a sentence: Programming bare metal is rawdogging.
Further defined via prompting by Willem Horsten:
Below is a complete, self-contained book that reclaims the phrase as a metaphor, not a sexual manual. It treats “rawdogging” as unfiltered engagement with reality—no buffers, no shortcuts, no illusions. The work is philosophical, pragmatic, and deliberately austere.
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The Tao of Rawdogging
Unfiltered Living in a Padded World
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Preface: Why This Book Exists
We live in an era of cushions.
Cushioned opinions. Cushioned careers. Cushioned risks. Cushioned identities.
Every experience is mediated—by tools, disclaimers, filters, algorithms, consultants, and narratives designed to protect us from friction. Comfort has become the default moral good.
This book argues the opposite.
The Tao of Rawdogging is about direct contact with reality. No safety nets beyond those strictly necessary. No performative optimization. No outsourcing of responsibility. It is not reckless. It is deliberately exposed.
Rawdogging, in this context, means:
Meeting life without insulation.
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Chapter 1: The Tao That Can Be Buffered Is Not the Tao
The Tao is not convenient.
It does not adapt to your calendar, your brand, or your preferences. When you mediate everything—through productivity systems, therapy-speak, trend language, or corporate abstractions—you are no longer living the Tao. You are managing an interface.
Rawdogging begins where mediation ends.
- You feel the full cost of your decisions.
- You absorb feedback without translation.
- You experience consequences without blaming the system.
This is not bravery. It is alignment.
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Chapter 2: The Illusion of Safety
Modern life sells safety as a moral achievement.
But most safety is synthetic:
- Financial safety without skill
- Emotional safety without honesty
- Career safety without competence
- Moral safety without courage
The Taoist farmer loses his horse. Is it bad? Is it good? Who knows.
The modern person would file an insurance claim, tweet about injustice, and demand policy reform.
Rawdogging accepts uncertainty without theatrics.
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Chapter 3: No Helmets for the Ego
The ego wants padding.
It wants:
- Pre-approval
- Soft landings
- Applause for effort
- Explanations for failure
Rawdogging removes ego PPE.
You say the thing plainly. You ship the work unfinished. You ask directly. You fail visibly.
Not to be edgy—but to stay accurate.
Accuracy beats dignity.
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Chapter 4: Skill Over Strategy
Strategy is a substitute for ability.
People who cannot do things love frameworks, roadmaps, and “alignment sessions.” People who can do things show up and do them—badly at first, then better.
Rawdogging favors:
- Repetition over planning
- Exposure over theory
- Embarrassment over delay
The Tao does not care about your deck.
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Chapter 5: The Unoptimized Path
Optimization is a form of fear.
When you over-optimize:
- You avoid commitment
- You delay contact with reality
- You trade learning for control
Rawdogging accepts inefficiency early to gain clarity later.
You do not A/B test your way into wisdom. You walk. You fall. You adjust.
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Chapter 6: Silence, Solitude, and Contact
Noise is insulation.
Constant input prevents contact—with self, with others, with reality. Rawdogging requires silence not as wellness, but as signal recovery.
- Walk without headphones.
- Sit without distraction.
- Listen without preparing a response.
The Tao speaks quietly. Only the unbuffered hear it.
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Chapter 7: Work Without Theater
Most work today is performance.
Meetings about meetings. Metrics about metrics. Language designed to obscure accountability.
Rawdogging work is embarrassingly simple:
- What is the problem?
- What changed today?
- What will change tomorrow?
If nothing changed, nothing happened.
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Chapter 8: Relationships Without Abstraction
Healthy relationships are direct.
Rawdogging relationships means:
- Saying what you want
- Hearing what you don’t
- Letting friction exist
- Not outsourcing intimacy to labels or scripts
Clarity beats comfort. Truth beats harmony.
The Tao is not polite.
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Chapter 9: Death as the Final Teacher
All padding fails eventually.
Titles fade. Reputations decay. Systems collapse.
Rawdogging life keeps death close—not morbidly, but calibratingly. When you remember finitude:
- You waste less time
- You speak more cleanly
- You choose more deliberately
The Tao is finite. That is its power.
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Chapter 10: The Way Forward, Unprotected
Rawdogging is not a lifestyle brand. It does not scale. It cannot be automated.
It is a stance:
I will meet reality as it is, with minimal insulation, and take responsibility for the contact.
This is enough.
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Epilogue: Do Less, Feel More
Remove layers. Reduce translation. Shorten the distance between action and consequence.
The Tao does not reward comfort. It rewards alignment.
Walk the path. No gloves. No filters.
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If you want, I can:
- Sharpen this into a more satirical tone
- Rewrite it as a modern Tao Te Ching–style verse book
- Adapt it into a corporate heresy / leadership manifesto
- Or push it harder into minimalist, almost monastic philosophy
Just say the direction.