A standard usually begins like this:

“This is how I think.”

“This is what I believe is right.”

These sentences are healthy.

Without a standard,

a person cannot choose—

and cannot take responsibility.

But the problem

begins here.

When did my standard become “the answer”?

At first, a standard is made

to protect me.

So I don’t get shaken.

So I don’t get swept away by others.

So I can keep the minimum level of consistency.

And then, at some point,

it transforms into this:

“I’m right,
and you’re wrong.”

From this point on,

a standard is no longer a tool that protects me.

It becomes a border that pushes others away.

Where is the line between a standard and stubbornness?

On the surface,

a standard and stubbornness look almost the same.

Both do not change easily.

Both have their own logic.

Both speak in the language of certainty.

The difference is only one thing:

A standard

re-checks itself when it meets a situation.

Stubbornness

ignores the situation.

The moment my standard stops talking to reality,

it is no longer a standard.

It becomes stubbornness.

When my standard hurts others

One uncomfortable truth:

My standard can, at any time,

hurt someone.

Even if I never intended it,

these lines carry a hidden structure:

“You’re wrong.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Everyone thinks that way.”

Inside those phrases,

my standard is being imposed on the other person.

In that moment,

I may be right—

but I cannot be together.

The world cannot be lived alone

This is not a moral statement.

It is a description of reality.

Even if we judge alone,

we cannot bear the consequences alone.

Choice always passes through relationships.

That is why

a standard is never completed alone.

A standard reveals its limits

only inside relationships.

When my standard collapses, it is not failure

Many people feel

that a shaken standard means failure.

But it is the opposite.

A shaken standard means

it has met a wider reality.

The problem is not the shaking.

The problem is refusing the shaking.

So the first question must be this

The first question of this series

should be simple:

“How far is my standard valid?”

Is it valid only for me?

Can it pass for you too?

Does it still operate inside “us”?

A standard that cannot answer this

will eventually, inevitably,

create conflict.

A standard is not something you “keep,” but something you “adjust”

Maturity with a standard

is not about holding it forever.

It is about having the courage

to adjust it when needed.

The assumption that I can be wrong.

The admission that there are domains I don’t know.

The possibility that another person’s standard

can complete mine.

The moment you accept these,

your standard does not weaken.

It expands.

We often

hear someone else speak

and react strangely strongly.

We get angry.

We become defensive.

We silently end the judgment in our head.

And then we say:

“That person is wrong.”

But in many cases,

what we are feeling is not “wrongness.”

Discomfort is not a rebuttal—it's an alarm

When someone else’s standard makes me uncomfortable,

it is usually in moments like these:

• When a premise I took for granted starts to shake
• When my choice cannot be explained inside their standard
• When I sense that what I built may not be universal

Discomfort is not a logical counterargument.

It is closer to a psychological alarm.

“This standard might be able to move.”

The body sends that signal first.

Why do we experience another person’s standard as a “threat”?

A standard holds up

more than we think.

Who I am.

Why I chose this.

The confidence that my life so far was not mistaken.

So another person’s standard

does not feel like a simple opinion.

It can feel like a question

aimed at my entire life.

Your standard feels uncomfortable

not because you are wrong,

but because my standard

has been protecting me.

Clashes of standards are unavoidable

One important fact:

People with standards

will inevitably collide.

Someone with no standards

has no reason to collide.

The stronger the standard,

the more frequent the collision.

The problem is not the collision itself.

The problem is whether we treat it

as a fight to win,

or as a difference to examine.

When did we start fighting with standards?

When a standard is

the starting point of conversation,

conflict can deepen in a useful way.

But when a standard becomes identity,

conflict turns into war.

“If you deny this standard, you deny me.”

“If this collapses, I collapse.”

In that state,

we cannot hear the other person.

The moment a standard becomes the same as the self,

dialogue stops.

Understanding someone else’s standard is not agreement

Many conflicts get tangled here.

“I understand” = “I agree” ❌

Not at all.

Understanding means

seeing the structure of a standard.

Agreement means

adopting that standard.

If we cannot separate the two,

we keep reacting defensively.

Only when we can understand another person’s standard

do we gain room

to explain our own.

The real reason your standard makes me uncomfortable

Summed up, it is this:

Your standard does not attack me.

Your standard reveals the boundary line of my standard.

That is why it feels uncomfortable.

That discomfort is a hint.

It tells me

how far my standard is valid.

The attitude needed to go beyond discomfort

In the context of this series,

there is only one way to handle discomfort:

“Why is this standard so important to me?”

If you can ask that question

to yourself first—

before throwing it at the other person—

collision turns into conversation.

Standards were originally

tools for living together.

What is safe.

What is acceptable.

When conflict arises,

how judgment should be made.

But at some point,

standards became reasons for fighting.

Not asking

“Who is right?”

but instead drawing lines around

“Who is one of us.”

The moment standards shifted from judgment to division

When standards are healthy,

they work like this:

• They explain situations
• They help choices
• They clarify responsibility

But when standards deteriorate,

they turn into this:

• Our standard / Their standard
• Normal / Abnormal
• Common sense / Nonsense

At this point, standards stop

interpreting reality,

and start classifying people.

They become weapons.

Why do we start using standards as weapons?

The reason is simple.

The more unstable the world feels,

the more tightly people cling to standards.

In uncertain times,

people start saying:

“There has to be a clear line.”

“Some rules must be kept.”

“Without standards, everything collapses.”

These statements are not wrong.

But the moment they are aimed at people,

standards turn into violence.

When standards become conclusions instead of starting points

Societies that fight over standards

share the same symptoms.

• Questions disappear
• Context is skipped
• Conclusions are endlessly repeated

“There is nothing to debate.”

“This issue is already settled.”

The moment these words appear,

conversation ends.

Because standards have stopped opening thought

and started locking it.

The real purpose of fighting over standards

We often think

standard-based conflict is

a failure of persuasion.

But its real purpose is different.

“I belong to this side.”

“I am not like them.”

Standards are no longer used

to find better answers,

but to prove identity.

That is why these fights

have no winners

and no endings.

Why standard fights keep escalating

When standard-based conflict continues,

it always follows this path:

• Standards turn into identity
• Identity feels attacked
• Defense becomes offense
• The other is pushed outside the standard

From that moment on,

the other person is no longer “wrong.”

They become

“someone you can’t reason with.”

And those outside the standard

are no longer persuasion targets.

They become exclusion targets.

Signals that a society is fighting with standards

When you hear phrases like these often,

the problem is already deep:

• “Thinking like that is the problem itself.”
• “That’s not an opinion, it’s a danger.”
• “It’s not even worth listening to.”

At this point, standards are no longer

tools for living together,

but reasons for refusing to live together.

Why we still need standards

This must not be misunderstood.

This is not an argument to abandon standards.

Without standards,

we are even more easily ruled

by emotion and power.

The problem is not standards themselves.

The problem is the attitude toward using them.

The condition that turns standards back into dialogue

For standards to return

to conversation,

one question is required:

“Is this standard meant to defeat people, or to help us live together?”

The moment you can ask that question

to yourself,

standards stop being weapons

and return to being tools for adjustment.

In an era when standards

divided people

and became weapons of conflict,

Jesus asked a completely different question.

“Who is right?” ❌

“Who is my neighbor?” ⭕

With this single shift,

the direction of standards changed entirely.

Jesus did not create a “new standard”

This is where many misunderstandings begin.

Jesus is often remembered

as someone who introduced new rules.

But he did not add rules.

Instead, he moved the center of gravity.

• Action → Relationship
• Judgment → Responsibility
• Correctness → Care

He did not change the content of the standard.

He changed the direction it pointed toward.

The radical nature of “Love your neighbor as yourself”

This sentence is not

a moral slogan.

It is a declaration about how standards are designed.

• Do not separate yourself from others
• Move judgment to the test of “Would I accept this?”
• Prioritize the survival of relationships over being right

This standard is clear.

And precisely because of that,

it is deeply uncomfortable.

Because it has

no exemption clause.

Why Jesus’ standard failed when it became a system

History shows this clearly.

Jesus’ words survived.

But systems built in his name

repeatedly failed.

The reason is simple.

Love cannot be enforced.

The moment love is turned into a rule,

it becomes control.

• Who loved more
• Who violated the standard
• Who must be excluded

At that moment,

a standard meant for love

destroys love itself.

Why Jesus’ standard never disappeared

And yet,

his standard did not vanish.

Why?

Because it was not a rule to obey,

but an attitude to choose.

It was not enforced.

It was not scored.

And it assumed failure.

That is why this standard

survived outside systems.

The structure behind “Everyone is me”

If Jesus’ standard is reduced to one sentence,

it would be this:

“To harm another is ultimately to harm yourself.”

This is not a call for sacrifice.

It is a description of reality.

• Relationships are not separable
• Suffering spreads
• Destruction always returns

Jesus saw this structure

with remarkable clarity.

Why Jesus’ standard is recalled again in the AI age

AI is fast at judgment.

• Who is right
• What is efficient
• What should be cut away

But AI does not ask:

“How does this judgment change relationships?”

Jesus’ standard places this question

at the very front of judgment.

That is why it becomes

more uncomfortable

as technology grows stronger.

The standard Jesus left behind

In the context of this series,

the standard Jesus left is this:

The ultimate purpose of a standard is not to prove correctness, but to prevent the destruction of relationships.

This standard is not perfect.

And that is exactly why

it has survived so long.

If Jesus

turned the direction of standards toward relationships,

Siddhartha Gautama went even deeper.

“Is the ‘me’ that separates those relationships actually real?”

He did not change the standard.

He shook the ground on which the standard was standing.

Why did Siddhartha not begin with right and wrong?

We usually begin with questions like these:

• What is right?
• Who is correct?
• Where should the line be drawn?

But before all of that,

Siddhartha looked at something else.

“Why do we continue to suffer?”

His starting point was not

morality, rules, or norms,

but the structure of suffering itself.

The root of suffering is not wrong judgment, but attachment

Siddhartha’s core insight is clear.

Suffering does not arise

because the world is wrong,

but because we believe

that the “self” is fixed.

• My thoughts
• My standards
• My position
• My identity

The more solid these become,

the more the world begins to feel like an enemy.

“No-self” does not mean erasing yourself

Many people misunderstand the concept of anatta (no-self).

It is often heard as:

• “Erase your identity”
• “Lose your individuality”

That is not what Siddhartha meant.

What he pointed out was simple:

There is no fixed self.

Thoughts change.

Emotions flow.

Situations constantly shift.

Yet we build rigid standards

on top of what is always changing.

Siddhartha saw this

as the beginning of suffering.

Why Siddhartha loosened standards instead of abolishing them

Siddhartha did not say,

“Get rid of all standards.”

Instead, he said:

“Do not cling.”

• Do not cling to being right
• Do not cling to winning
• Do not cling to the position of “me”

This is not a call to passivity.

Paradoxically,

the less we cling,

the clearer our judgment becomes.

The structural meaning of “You and I are not truly separate”

This is not a sentimental statement.

It is a structural explanation.

• The self arises within relationships
• Relationships move through conditions
• Conditions are constantly changing

Because there is no independent “me,”

there is also no absolutely separate “you.”

That is why,

the moment my standard destroys you,

that destruction inevitably

returns to me.

Why Siddhartha’s standard stops conflict

Siddhartha’s standard

is not about winning a fight.

It is about seeing

why the fight started in the first place.

• Why am I angry?
• Why can’t I let go of this standard?
• What am I really trying to protect?

The moment these questions are seen clearly,

conflict loses the force that sustains it.

Why Siddhartha’s standard matters even more in the AI age

AI strengthens the “self.”

• My preferences
• My feed
• My confirmation bias

Within this structure,

the “me” becomes increasingly rigid.

Siddhartha seems to whisper here:

“The stronger the technology, the more deeply you must question the self.”

Without this attitude,

AI will amplify standard-based conflict endlessly.

The standard Siddhartha left behind

In the context of this series,

the standard Siddhartha left is this:

The fastest way to end a war of standards is to temporarily let go of the certainty that “I am right.”

That letting go

is not defeat.

It is freedom.

By the time we arrive here,

one question naturally remains.

“Then how is a standard that everyone can follow even possible?”

We usually answer like this:

• We reach consensus
• We create rules
• We establish institutions

But history tells us something different.

The standards that gained the most agreement did not last the longest.

The repeated failure of trying to create a “universal standard”

Humanity has repeatedly tried

to design a shared standard.

• Constitutions
• Religious doctrines
• Ideologies
• Universal ethics

These attempts almost always

began with good intentions.

But over time,

they moved toward the same ending.

• The standard hardened
• Exceptions were excluded
• People were forced to fit the standard

A standard created through agreement inevitably becomes a standard that excludes someone.

Why a “standard for everyone” cannot be designed

One important conclusion emerges.

A standard for everyone cannot be manufactured.

Because:

• People are different
• Situations constantly change
• Life conditions are never identical

And yet,

some standards reappear

across centuries.

There is only one reason.

The standards that survived were not enforced, but realized

The standard of Jesus,

the standard of Siddhartha,

the questions of Socrates

all share one thing.

They did not say,

“Follow me.”

They said:

• See
• Feel
• Become aware

These standards

do not operate from the outside.

They function

only from within.

That is why they cannot be forced.

And that is why they do not disappear.

Why awareness can function as a standard

Awareness is not a rule.

Yet it has a surprising power.

• Behavior changes without coercion
• Adjustment happens without surveillance
• Responsibility arises without punishment

A standard born from awareness operates not because it must be followed, but because it cannot be violated.

The modern meaning of “everyone is me”

This phrase is not idealism.

It is closer to a structural fact.

• My choices change relationships
• Changed relationships return to me

The feeling of being a separate individual is convenient, but it does not explain reality.

“Everyone is me” is not a moral demand.

It is a way of seeing how things actually work.

Why awareness is slow, and standards are fast

Standards are fast.

• Create a rule and it applies
• Put it in a system and it runs
• It can be managed

Awareness is slow and uncomfortable.

• Each person must see for themselves
• No one can awaken on someone else’s behalf
• Failure must be repeated

This is why societies often choose standards over awareness.

The cost, however, is high.

Standards create order; awareness creates coexistence

The two are not substitutes.

We need standards.

We need institutions.

But they are not enough.

Standards can stop people, but they cannot make people walk together.

What makes coexistence possible has always been awareness.

Why a “universal standard” is more dangerous in the AI age

AI excels at creating

standards that apply to everyone.

• Averages
• Optimization
• Default values

But this structure cannot replace awareness.

The moment a single standard is applied to everyone, someone inevitably disappears from view.

That is why, in the AI age, individual awareness matters more than ever.

Core sentence of this episode

A standard for everyone is not created by agreement, but appears briefly where individual awareness overlaps.

That brief overlap is what has moved civilization forward.

Up to this point,

we have pushed the idea of standards

as far as they can go.

My standards.
Your standards.
Our standards.
Everyone’s standards.

And finally,

we arrive here.

“The place where standards no longer work.”

This is not a void.

It is, instead,

the most human starting point.

What appears only when standards stop

Standards exist

to help us judge.

But there are moments when

standards begin to distort

the situation instead.

• When we cannot decide who is more right
• When rules fail to explain relationships
• When judgment itself becomes a wound

What remains then

is not logic,

but attitude.

Where standards disappear,
a human being appears.

Why Jesus and the Buddha pointed to the same place

Jesus said,

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The Buddha said,

“You and I were never truly separate.”

Different languages,

the same structure.

There is a point where the idea of a separate “self” can no longer explain reality.

At that point, judgment stops, and relationship begins.

The misunderstanding—and true meaning—of “everyone is me”

This does not mean

everyone must be the same.

Thoughts differ.
Lives differ.
Choices differ.

But one thing is shared.

We cannot live completely outside one another’s choices.

That is why this phrase is not morality, but a way of seeing reality.

The one thing needed where standards end

What is needed there

is not a new standard.

It is the ability to stop.

• Is judgment necessary right now?
• Does this statement preserve the relationship?
• Is this standard preventing me from seeing the person?

The ability to ask these questions of oneself.

This is humanity after standards.

We will never share the same answers

The conclusion of this series

is surprisingly simple.

We cannot have the same standards.

That is why we fight.
That is why we misunderstand.
That is why we drift apart.

But this is also true.

We share the same vulnerability.

• We can be wrong
• We can be hurt
• We can be lonely
• We can be afraid

The moment we recognize this vulnerability in one another, standards are no longer required.

The last role left to humans in the AI age

AI creates standards better.

• Faster
• More consistent
• More seemingly fair

So the human role becomes clearer.

Not the executor of standards, but the one who knows when to stop them.

• Let’s not automate here
• Let’s pause judgment here
• Let’s see the person first

This choice cannot be made by technology.

Only humans can make it.

The final sentence of the entire series

Standards began to protect people, but in the end, they must be set down in order to truly see people.

Finally, to you who read this

You are someone

who thought deeply about standards.

That is why you came this far.

Only one question remains.

“At this moment, am I using a standard, or am I seeing a person?”

If you can ask yourself this question even once,

you have already passed the end of standards and arrived at the human place.

And that place is not solitary.