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PKM systems promise coherence, but they often deliver a kind of abstracted confusion. The more I wrote into my vault, the less I felt. A quote would spark an insight, I’d clip it, tag it, link it - and move on. But the insight was never lived. It was stored. Like food vacuum-sealed and never eaten, while any nutritional value slips away.

Worse, the

We, the software specialists (software architects and developers) and the domain experts, are creating the model of the domain together, and the model is the place where those two areas of expertise meet. This might seem like a very time consuming process, and it is, but this is how it should be, because in the end the software’s purpose is to solv

But for most of us, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the temptation is often to exaggerate potential consequences, so as to spare ourselves the burden of making a bold choice. (It’s a particular peril among the progressive-minded, I’ve noticed, to take the fact that a given choice might be unfeasible for the underprivileged as a reason not to

But even if we follow Freud in assuming that the origins of masochism lie in childhood, in a state of incomplete development, we may imagine masochism as leading toward completion in adulthood. The ability to hold paradox and ambivalence, and to experience impossible unions, belongs to maturity. These attributes, intrinsic parts of the experience o

War breaks reason's promise. Reason is neither pedigree nor algorithm. Reason is using language to make and keep peace.

What feels like fun to me, but work to others? The mark of whether you are made for a task is not whether you love it but whether you can handle the pain of the task easier than most people. When are you enjoying yourself while other people are complaining? The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do.

Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks. Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a n