Items In My Head (Newsletter)

But pain and pleasure aren’t reactions to the system - they are the system. Without resistance, reward goes flat. Without contrast, pleasure becomes ambient. The result isn’t meaning - it’s dopamine. And dopamine, divorced from depth, doesn’t satisfy. It loops.

What’s often framed as “disruption” is, at its core, a byproduct of vacuum. A sealed system can’t see itself. But someone outside it can.

In this light, naivety isn’t ignorance. It’s unconditioned perception.

But friction is the teacher. It tells us where we’re stuck, and where we’re unclear. It’s how we build an actual perspective. And when we remove it, we lose the pause that allows deeper noticing. We lose the opportunity to make meaning through the act of making. What erodes isn’t just a single skill - it’s an entire network of disciplines that used... See more

Here’s what this reveals: the systems we’ve built reflect our instincts. But those instincts are dual. We are extractive - and we are generative. We deplete - and we restore. We burn out - and we rebuild.

As kids, we pressed against things to understand them. Clay. Walls. Rules. We learned form through pressure. Touch made things real.