Items In My Head (Newsletter)
A newsletter sharing thoughts on how we build - products, platforms, economies, and behaviors—not just for output, but for continuity, context, and conscious participation.
Items In My Head (Newsletter)
When we stop practicing, we stop perceiving.
If value is migrating away from production, then spend time with the tools. Treat AI like a temporary circle of collaborators. Test, iterate, assemble modular workflows - but stay light on attachment. Friend groups evolve. So should your inputs.
Don’t confuse the landscape for the moat. Double down on what’s yours - your pattern recognition, your perspective, your synthesis. Because when the terrain shifts (and it will), your edge is knowing how to move within it to get what you want from it.
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
The Act of Building Builds Us Back
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.
In this light, naivety isn’t ignorance. It’s unconditioned perception.
Rachel Campbell • What The Expert Misses
Everything works. Nothing lands.
Rachel Campbell • Everything Works. Nothing Lands.
How can someone with no experience outperform an entire industry of experts?
When a field becomes self-referential - when its best minds are trained by its most established models, it starts to seal itself off. Ideas are recycled. Benchmarks are internal. Innovation turns iterative, not foundational.
This is optimization - but it’s also insularity. ... See more
When a field becomes self-referential - when its best minds are trained by its most established models, it starts to seal itself off. Ideas are recycled. Benchmarks are internal. Innovation turns iterative, not foundational.
This is optimization - but it’s also insularity. ... See more
Rachel Campbell • What The Expert Misses
When you're young, pain and pleasure aren't theoretical . They're directional .
They’re your first tools. The original interface.
They’re your first tools. The original interface.
Everything Works. Nothing Lands.
It requires a specific kind of design humility. The ability to look beyond your own interface - and imagine life inside someone else’s.
Great Product. Useless Alone.
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.
Everything Works. Nothing Lands.
When nothing hurts, there’s nothing to push against. And without pushback, we can’t locate ourselves. We’re just floating - stimulated, maybe. But untethered.