Once upon a time if you asked a kid what they wanted to be when they grew up you’d get answers like “policeman” or “scientist.” I’m sure nowadays it’s YouTuber, Streamer, or Sentient Minecraft Block.

Unfortunately for me, I still don’t know the answer to this question. I’ve got two options on the table and roughly six months to pick. But first, to make any of it make sense, we need to go back to the halcyon days of 19-mumblemumble.

Chapter 1

I was the unplanned, unwanted side effect of a single night of passion.

This meant a lot of things, not least of which that my mother wasn’t prepared to have a child. She worked for Planned Parenthood and they were not interested in having an unwed mother on staff. It didn’t really fit the image of the brand.

This meant I arrived into the world with a parent who had no aspirations, no savings, and no job. An auspicious start.

But I’m not here to talk shit about my mom. Whatever other disagreements we’ve had, which are many, she realized that she had a duty to the life she’d brought into this world, and that led her to go back to school. She got an associates of nursing, and spent the entire rest of her career as a geriatric care nurse.

Why? It’s what my grandmother had done. And, to quote my mom, quoting my nana, “go into nursing and you’ll never receive a pink slip in your life.”¹

For whatever semblance of success I’ve achieved in life, know this. I got here by a combination of clawing my way out of the dirt from whence I came, mentors who took kindly and saw potential in me, and an inexhaustible font of luck.

I learned many things in my misspent youth. Several of them things I would need to go on to un-learn in pursuit of success. But key among them, the importance of steady and reliable work. There is not one member of my family who could provide me with a safety net. When I almost became homeless again in my 20s, only the grace of a family friend spared me.

As a consequence, I’ve never had the luxury of batting for the fences. Following your passion is great advice for the middle-class with a parent’s basement you could land softly in if you fail. If you’ve ever wondered why I didn’t go found Facebook, or any of a thousand other things, this is why. Because even when I lived in an RV, I had no interest in sleeping in my car.

Chapter 2

I signed a contract to work in the video game industry on the literal day of my 18th birthday, not even having graduated High School. And it was awful. I have not one nice thing to say about it. Technically I shipped production code for an MMO. There’s a slim chance you’ve even played it.

The video game industry was, and still is, a wildly abusive place to work. People do it for the love of the game. They do it because they’re passionate about what they do. Not knowing any better, I ran from it. I spent the next 10 years, give or take, trying to do anything else.

I managed an arcade.

I did data analysis for the American Red Cross.

I did IT for a public university.

And importantly, I spent as much money as the government would let me floating around community college. Trying to figure out any other option for what I could do with my life. Anything except work with computers.

Which is why I was able to accrue basically every associates degree they offered, in a wide variety of topics. I think it’s plausible that I took all of the classes. All of them. Which was fascinating and I absolutely would do for the rest of my life if I could get paid to do it. Just audit 100 and 200 level community college classes. It’s the best.

But when the money started to run dry, it became obvious that I needed to pick exactly one thing, and it needed to be something I could stick with. So I picked the safe thing. The thing that I knew I could do, and which would keep me employed. I transferred up to a state university, and I got my degree in Computer Science.

And there’s the thing. I am good at it. My mother tells an apocryphal story about a time when she was in college and a professor set me up on a jailed terminal to keep me busy, and not five minutes later I had broken out.

Ladies and gentlemen I’ve been hackin’ since I was three.

From 286s I scrounged together from trash my grade school was throwing away, to a Kaypro 4 that my mom managed to find used from a coworker. I’ve been tinkering on computers in any way I could as long as I could. I knew BASIC in 5th grade. I was fluent in C++ in 8th. I wrote a MUD for my senior project.

The purpose of this is not to toot my own horn, although a think some occasional horn-tooting is valid. It’s to try to establish a crumb of bona fides in a forum where I’ve generally avoided mentioning anything about what it is that I do to provide economic value. As much as I wish I were the idle rich, I am not. I am a certified computer toucher.

But see here’s the thing. While young-me thoroughly enjoyed the mysteries of the thinking-sand-box, adult-me mostly hates the blasted things.

If I could figure out a way to make a living without ever turning on another computer in my life, without a significant degradation of quality of life from all the online friends I’d never talk to again? Dear reader I would reenact the fax machine scene from Office Space on every computer within a 10km radius.

I have slowly been turning into Jubal Harshaw for about three decades with no sign of stopping now.

Because I got backed into a wall by the limits of financial aid I “failed up” into a successful career as a computer toucher, which I have spent my nights and weekends trying to break free from ever since.

Chapter 3

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that I have two career paths in front of me.

On the one hand, I could become President of Earth. On the other hand, I could become an Astronaut.

Yes these are metaphors.

There’s a lot to recommend President of Earth. With great power comes great responsibility, and great compensation. It represents the safe path, but is also a path that brings no real joy. I would be in great company, the world is filled with talented, driven, creative people that just need to pay the mortgage.

As President of Earth, I would need to work longer hours, I would need to do many things I would not enjoy. But the satisfaction would come from the ways in which it would enable a comfortable life. In the knowledge that despite my upbringing, I climbed to the top. That I achieved to the very highest levels, despite it all. All the people who believed in me that I proved right. All the people who didn’t that I proved wrong.

It’s unlikely that I could become President of Earth and then abandon the post. While all things remain possible, it requires making commitments that will close other doors.

The alternative is becoming an Astronaut. To pursue with wild abandon a result that most people never attempt. And of those who try, most never succeed. It is to chase the thing which is clearly my true passion, or as close as I think I have to one.²

It would be a risk of the highest magnitude, with an uncertain end. But the chance that maybe, just maybe, I’d land among the stars.

However, to become an Astronaut I’d need to begin making changes. There would be a training regimen. A rocket must be constructed. For the next several years I would be engaged in the process of transforming myself into the kind of person who could go to space. That is wholly incompatible with the duties and responsibilities of President of Earth.

Importantly, I would also need to build a landing pad. Because if I did not launch successfully, I would need a net to catch me. The kind that I have never had before, and which stopped me from ever trying anything this audacious in the past.

The Grand Question

Few things in life are certain, and nothing is guaranteed. But for reasons outside my control I believe I will need to commit to one path or another in the near future. If only because dithering about one will close the door.

It does not mean that I’m planning any drastic changes (hi coworkers, if you’re reading this, I’m not planning to quit any time soon. I really like working where I work, inasmuch as I like working at all.)

What I’m really talking about is setting the trajectory for where I want to be in five to seven years. Because I don’t think I’ll be happy staying exactly where I am.

I either need to run for office, or start building a rocket, and it may be one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

Have you ever lost something and then spent the next ten years trying to find it?

I have. It’s an essay about the fall of the Roman Empire. Did the average citizen know the empire had fallen?

No. It took them about 200 years to figure out, but you’re just going to have to trust me because all the kings horses and all the king’s men haven’t been able to find that paper again.

All of this is backstory

Back in 2020 I got way into the idea of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and went about setting up my first “PKM Stack,” or set of tools for solving the problem: how do I stop losing all the interesting things I read.

The first version of this stack used Instapaper as my read-it-later, IFTTT, Dropbox, and Obsidian. The workflow sucked. But the basic idea was I’d read something, if it had any highlights those would get put in a markdown file in Dropbox by IFTTT, and then I’d manually drag it over to Obsidian eventually.

When AI first started taking off Instapaper used it as an opportunity to raise their rates, and not having been CRAZY happy with that solution, and not seeing any value in the then-state of AI, I used it as a chance to rethink, and ended up hopping to Readwise Reader.

Instapaper to Reader

When I migrated from Instapaper to Reader it was, by necessity, an imperfect migration. Instapaper’s output format included a link to the original document, the parts I had highlighted, but not the document text. Reader had to go out and fetch the document bodies again, and in a handful of cases failed. Either because Reader couldn’t parse it, or because the document was gone.

I also had the habit of archiving everything in the hope I would be able to find it later if I needed. This comes from deep trauma: I’m still looking for a paper I read a decade ago about whether the average imperial citizen knew the Roman Empire had fallen.

The result is a large backlog of low-value things that I had read, and saved in case, that I was unlikely to ever look at again. Or find any value in if I did.

Reader to the Future

Reader is fine for, well, reading, but it’s got usability gaps for making notes and long-term storage. Especially since my primary modality for using it is on an iPad mini on a flight somewhere. Most of my life runs out of Obsidian, why not this?

After thinking about it I decided that I want every document that I “archive” in Reader to go through an enrichment pipeline that summarizes it, extracts any highlights, extracts any key ideas or topics, and puts a markdown file in the right part of my Obsidian vault with all that information and a link back to the Reader copy, so that I can reference it if needed.

To make it maximally useful, I needed to do this for everything in the archive, and to do that I needed to get rid of all the low-value documents hanging around in there.

How to Build A Rubric And Learn to Love the Atomic Bomb

Going through the entire archive was going to require a system that could look at everything and reliably decide what I should or shouldn’t keep. To do that, I needed to be able to describe what I would want to keep. I needed an interest rubric.

Have you ever tried to describe yourself? Like really describe yourself? Maybe this is easier for other people but man I struggled. I came up with I think about four core interests, but I knew that wasn’t accurate.

My next attempt was to open a conversation with Claude, explain to it what I was trying to do, and ask it to interview me. This was... Medium successful? It ended up being a much better place to start from but was not in and of itself nearly comprehensive. Again it continued to rely on the things I could think of to prompt it with.

Finally I thought, okay. Well. I’ve got this backlog of things I’ve read. I know it’s got some stuff I want to get rid of, but it’s also filled with lots of stuff I’d want to keep. Can I use that as the basis for a rubric?

Bingo.

The next problem was purely technical. Over 700 documents, many running into the tens of thousands of words. There was going to be no way to put them all into Claude’s context at once. I thought about it and figured “good enough” might be “good enough” at scale: I had Claude write a series of Python scripts that would randomly sample about half of the documents and post them to an OpenAI batch job with the goal of summarizing and extracting key insights.

I’m not certain if this was the absolute final version of the prompt, but it looked a lot like this:

Your task is to analyze this document and create a comprehensive summary that would allow someone to understand its core value without reading the full text.

Document Title: {doc[‘title’]} Author: {doc.get(‘author’, ‘Unknown’)} URL: {doc.get(‘url’, ‘Not provided’)}

Content: {doc[‘extracted_content’][:15000]} # Truncate very long content

Please provide:

1. A concise but information-dense summary (2-3 paragraphs) that captures the key ideas, arguments, and context of the document.

2. 3-5 key insights or takeaways from the document that represent its most valuable content.

3. A brief assessment of why this content might be valuable to someone with interests in rationality, economics, science fiction, fantasy, and tabletop role-playing games. If the content seems unrelated to these areas, explain what type of person might find it valuable instead.

Format your response as structured JSON with the following keys: “summary”, “key_insights” (as an array), and “value_assessment”.

I think of “summarize a bunch of text” as something Large Language Models (LLMs, such as Claude or ChatGPT) are good at. Perfect use case.

My next step was to take the first Markdown file and the basis of my rubric from the interviews, and attach them to a conversation with Claude Sonnet 3.7 with Extended Thinking. I typed out like four paragraphs of stream-of-consciousness about what I was trying to do and asked it, in so many words: “based on all these summaries, what interests do you think I have that you don’t see on the rubric?”

Thus began a long dialogue. It would propose, based on what it saw, what it thought I liked. I would correct, confirm, cajole, and provide insight. Why yes, I am deeply interested in Philosophy. Actually no I’m not that interested in international finance, that one article happened to be really interesting.

Claude:

Governance and Legal Systems: Your reading suggests deep interest in specific governance mechanisms and legal frameworks beyond general institutional analysis. How central is this comparative approach to governance in your thinking?

Me:

I think I'm interested in how the world works, and how it could be made to work better. How do we build a better world, or at least minimize the chances of a worse world. I don't think I'm specifically interested in governance and legal systems outside of that context.

Claude:

There's a recurring pattern of interest in Philosophical Frameworks for analyzing complex issues. Would you consider this a hidden interest, or do you see it as simply an aspect of Rationality?

Me:

I am definitely interested in philosophy and philosophical frameworks. If I didn't need to "work for a living," I would strongly consider going back to school for a PhD in Philosophy. I think all of life's interesting questions are in the world of philosophy, and that it's a shame there's no way to make money doing it.

At the end, I’d ask it to spit out an updated version of the rubric, which I would take to a new conversation with Claude, the next markdown file, and repeat the process. After the second round I asked it to provide me with a prompt that captured everything I was trying to do, which I used for all subsequent iterations of the conversation.

The output of all these rounds was a several-kilobyte markdown file which accurately captures some, but not all, of my various interests. Not all my interests are captured in the things I read, and a random sampling was always bound to miss something. Nevertheless it’s good for what it got!

If you think it’d be interesting to see the final result (either to see what we built, or to get a better sense of who I am as a person,) I’ll attach a lightly edited version at the end.

Actually Doing the Thing, for Exceptionally Large Values of Thing

Originally I was going to take my rubric and repurpose those scripts to have ChatGPT do the review, but I ran into a technical issue and had to pivot to Anthropic for this part. The ChatGPT batch API is convinced that I have batches in progress, even when I don’t and I can’t submit any more.

Anthropic ended up working out well because their API will let you set a “system” prompt that is distinct from the “user” prompt. The entire rubric and guidance on the return format went into the system prompt, and the user prompt ended up being the document data.

The first run, everything scored too high. Every document was a keeper, even ones I knew I didn’t want to keep.

I adjusted the rubric slightly, and it got a little better.

Finally, I added a point deduction metric for certain topics I knew I didn’t like, and that hit the sweet spot. The final run resulted in a markdown file reviewing everything in my Reader backlog that didn’t have highlights, and suggested around 83 deletions.

I manually reviewed all suggested deletions, and agreed with all but one of them, which revealed an obvious gap in the rubric. Success! The “keeps” were lightly spot-checked. I don’t need it to be absolutely right about them, because the worst case there is that a future step of this project costs me a little extra money by doing enrichment on a document that has nothing of value to give. I’m not that worried about it.

Conclusion

So what I did I learn? I learned a lot about how batch jobs to OpenAI and Anthropic work. I learned a medium amount about my own interests. I feel like if I had any need to do it I could write an extremely good dating profile now. “Enjoys long walks in the forest and applied epistemology.” I learned a bit more about how to wrangle the best results out of the current state of LLMs.

My next steps are to take everything I learned and built and begin working on the enrichment pipeline, which I think will look pretty similar in a lot of ways to start. Because I first need to deal with my archive, batch jobs are the most cost effective option. Eventually I’m imagining an AWS Step Function. All of which is better than Ghostreader. Most of which is better than nothing.

Did this help me find my Roman Empire? Well, no. As far as I can tell that’s well and truly gone. But I think it’s improving the process by which I never let the Empire fall again.

Personal Interest Rubric

About the Reader

This rubric is designed for a person with the following traits and preferences:

• Values truth-seeking and building accurate models of reality
• Appreciates both emotional resonance and intellectual substance
• Prefers context before details when learning new topics
• Enjoys conversational writing styles that "write like they talk"
• Has strong aversion to marketing/sales approaches
• Prefers content that's potentially actionable
• Values concise, self-contained ideas that can stand alone when highlighted
• Approaches topics with "breadth first, depth second" methodology
• Trusts sources vouched for by existing trusted connections
• Tends toward analytical and systems-based thinking approaches
• Shows particular interest in understanding complex interactions and patterns
• Values both theoretical frameworks and practical applications
• Appreciates insights that help navigate social dynamics and human behavior
• Drawn to understanding structural and systemic aspects of topics rather than isolated facts

Core Interests

• Fiction: Science fiction (especially space opera and dystopian settings), fantasy
  • Notable influences: Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," Tolkien, Clarke, Warhammer 40K, Babylon 5
  • Values complex storytelling with deep worldbuilding
  • Appreciates speculative settings that explore social, technological, or philosophical concepts
• Institutional Systems & Societal Structures: Understanding how large-scale human systems function, fail, and evolve
  • Focus on institutional failure modes and resilience patterns across domains
  • Interest in societal collapse, adaptation, and transition points
  • Historical Patterns: How civilizations rise, decline, and transform over time
    • Examples: Empire lifecycles, institutional decay, adaptation to crises
    • Values comparative analyses across different historical contexts
  • System Design & Incentives: How rules and incentives shape organizational outcomes
    • Examples: Bureaucratic structures, regulatory systems, governance mechanisms
    • Applications: Identifying reform opportunities and predicting system behavior
  • Governance Frameworks: Comparative approaches to structuring authority and decision-making
    • Examples: Legal systems, regulatory mechanisms, formal and informal power structures
    • Interest in how different governance models adapt to challenges and constraints
  • Leadership & Decision-Making: How leaders navigate complex systems and make consequential decisions
    • Examples: Leadership case studies, strategic approaches to institutional challenges
    • Applications: Developing personal leadership capabilities and understanding organizational behavior
  • Digital Infrastructure & Platform Dynamics: Analysis of how online platforms shape information flow and power structures
    • Examples: Social media impacts, platformization of the internet, open web advocacy
    • Applications: Critiquing current digital landscapes and envisioning healthier alternatives
  • Regulatory Failure Modes: How regulatory systems create perverse outcomes and institutional dysfunction
    • Examples: Regulatory capture, bureaucratic inertia, policy implementation gaps
    • Applications: Analyzing institutional decision-making under constraints and identifying reform opportunities
• Information Ecosystems & Media Analysis: Understanding how information flows, gets distorted, and is curated
  • Focus on navigating information environments and evaluating quality
  • Interest in both individual filtering strategies and systemic information dynamics
  • Media Filtering Strategies: Methods for extracting signal from noise in information landscapes
    • Examples: Curation tools, attention management, information diet design
    • Applications: Developing better consumption habits and filtering mechanisms
  • Information Distortion Patterns: How facts become distorted through transmission and presentation
    • Examples: Context omission, framing effects, selective reporting
    • Applications: Recognizing manipulation and identifying original sources
  • Trust & Credibility Systems: How trust is established, maintained, and undermined in media
    • Examples: Institutional reputation, credibility markers, trust collapse dynamics
    • Applications: Evaluating source reliability and understanding credibility networks
  • Content Moderation & Governance: Trade-offs and frameworks in information regulation
    • Examples: Platform policies, censorship vs. moderation debates, information rights
    • Applications: Designing effective content governance and analyzing platform incentives
• Personal Knowledge Management: Systems and methods for organizing, processing, and utilizing information
  • Focus on creating effective personal information ecosystems
  • Interest in both theoretical frameworks and practical implementations
  • Values insights that transform theoretical knowledge into actionable systems
  • Information Architecture & Organization: Systems design for knowledge capture and retrieval
    • Examples: Taxonomies, ontologies, tagging systems, hierarchical structures
    • Applications: Creating navigable information landscapes for personal use
  • Knowledge Tools & Implementation: Practical application of PKM tools and methodologies
    • Examples: Note-taking applications, digital gardens, linked knowledge systems
    • Applications: Optimizing personal workflows and information management
  • Information Processing Workflows: Approaches to filtering, processing, and synthesizing information
    • Examples: Progressive summarization, spaced repetition, knowledge synthesis
    • Applications: Converting information intake into actionable knowledge
  • Digital Gardens & Public Knowledge: Methods for cultivating and sharing personal knowledge bases
    • Examples: Public note systems, knowledge wikis, collaborative information spaces
    • Applications: Building external thought repositories with long-term value
  • Practical Knowledge Systems & Best Practices: Methods for applying knowledge effectively and adopting proven approaches
    • Examples: Expert workflows, tool selection methodologies, established solutions to common problems
    • Applications: Leveraging others' solutions rather than reinventing approaches
• Rationality & Applied Epistemology: Seeking "ground truth" and overcoming cognitive biases
  • Focus on building accurate models of how the world works
  • Interest in combating "bugs in the human brain" that distort reality
  • Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Frameworks and methods for evaluating information quality
    • Examples: Statistical reasoning, probability assessment, verification techniques
    • Applications: Distinguishing signal from noise, making decisions with incomplete information
  • Cognitive Psychology & Mechanisms: Understanding specific patterns in how the brain processes information
    • Examples: Automaticity, heuristics, intuition formation, cognitive shortcuts
    • Applications: Recognizing when specific cognitive mechanisms are operating
  • Belief Formation & Updating: How mental models are constructed and revised
    • Examples: Bayesian reasoning, evidence evaluation, belief entrenchment
    • Applications: Developing techniques for more accurate belief updating
  • Forecasting and Prediction: Methods for making better predictions and evaluating their accuracy
    • Examples: Prediction markets, aggregation mechanisms, calibration techniques
    • Applications: Improving foresight and planning through systematic approaches
  • Social Psychology & Group Dynamics: How people interact in groups and social systems
    • Examples: Cultural and subcultural norms, social hierarchies, group decision-making
    • Applications: Understanding social environments, improving interpersonal interactions
    • Values frameworks that explain seemingly irrational social behaviors
  • Mental Models & Cognitive Frameworks: Structured approaches to thinking and understanding complex systems
    • Examples: Mental heuristics, frameworks for approaching problems, thinking tools
    • Applications: Applying useful mental shortcuts while avoiding their pitfalls
  • Science Communication & Evidence Interpretation: How complex scientific concepts are translated and understood
    • Examples: Public health messaging, translation of research into policy, evidence assessment
    • Applications: Evaluating scientific claims and understanding institutional science communication
  • Cognitive Science & Neural Mechanisms: Understanding the biological and psychological underpinnings of thought, belief, and decision-making
    • Examples: Brain structure influences on cognition, attention mechanisms, learning limitations
    • Applications: Recognizing biological constraints on rationality, improving learning methods
    • Values approaches that connect cognitive architecture to behavior and decision-making
  • Fear Management & Perspective: Approaches to maintaining rational thought during crises or uncertainty
    • Examples: Historical perspectives on facing threats, strategies for emotional regulation during uncertainty
    • Applications: Avoiding panic responses, contextualizing current threats within historical patterns
• Philosophical Frameworks: Conceptual approaches to analyzing complex issues and navigating life's challenges
  • Focus on structured ways of thinking about fundamental questions and applying wisdom to real-life situations
  • Interest in both theoretical foundations and practical applications
  • Values historical perspectives that remain relevant to contemporary challenges
  • Moral Philosophy & Ethical Reasoning: Frameworks for evaluating right action and moral systems
    • Examples: Consequentialism, virtue ethics, moral dilemmas, applied ethics
    • Applications: Developing consistent ethical frameworks for decision-making
  • Epistemological Approaches: Methods for understanding knowledge, truth, and certainty
    • Examples: Theories of knowledge, verification methods, truth criteria
    • Applications: Evaluating knowledge claims and understanding their limitations
  • Philosophical Thought Experiments: Conceptual scenarios that illuminate complex principles
    • Examples: Ethical dilemmas, paradoxes, conceptual puzzles
    • Applications: Testing intuitions and clarifying conceptual boundaries
  • Applied Philosophy: Philosophical frameworks applied to contemporary issues
    • Examples: Technology ethics, social philosophy, philosophy of science
    • Applications: Using structured thinking to address emerging challenges
  • Practical Wisdom: Time-tested insights for navigating life's challenges with perspective and resilience
    • Examples: Stoic principles, historical perspectives on facing threats, collections of life advice
    • Applications: Maintaining composure during crises, contextualizing current challenges against historical parallels
    • Values articulations that reframe contemporary anxieties within broader philosophical contexts
• Complex Systems Analysis: Understanding how components interact within systems across domains
  • Examples: Network effects, emergence, feedback loops, system resilience, cascading failures
  • Values models that explain emergent properties and interconnections between disparate elements
  • Interest in how complex adaptive systems evolve and respond to changes
  • Drawn to multidisciplinary approaches that reveal hidden patterns
• Economics: As models for decision-making under constraints
  • Practical applications to quality of life (taxes, cost of living)
  • Extension of rational thinking applied to real-world systems
  • Institutional Analysis: How formal and informal institutions function and evolve
    • Examples: Academic structures, governance systems, organizational adaptation
    • Values clear explanations of incentive structures and institutional evolution
• Game Design Theory: Understanding the principles and frameworks behind effective game creation
  • Focus on mechanics, systems thinking, and player psychology
  • Interest in how rule structures create emergent behaviors and experiences
  • Appreciation for innovation in game systems and mechanics
  • Applications: Designing compelling decision spaces and balanced systems
  • Values analysis of why certain designs succeed or fail
  • Mechanical Systems Analysis: Examination of how game rules create specific player experiences
    • Examples: Health systems, resource management, risk/reward balance, progression mechanics
    • Applications: Identifying why certain designs succeed or fail in practice
    • Values both theoretical frameworks and practical implementation examples
• Role-Playing Games: Creative systems for worldbuilding, simulation, and narrative framework design
  • Values game design, world-building, and systems creation
  • Focus on mechanics and structures that enable rich, emergent storytelling
  • Interest in operating the levers of the world as a game master
  • Game Mastering Methodology: Structured approaches to running engaging games
    • Examples: Session preparation techniques, information management, pacing control
    • Applications: Creating efficient workflows for game facilitation
  • Adventure Design Frameworks: Models for creating compelling scenarios and campaigns
    • Examples: Story structure, encounter design, sandbox vs. linear approaches
    • Applications: Building memorable game experiences with appropriate challenge
  • Player Psychology & Engagement: Understanding player motivation and table dynamics
    • Examples: Player types, group formation, engagement mechanisms
    • Applications: Facilitating positive social experiences and managing expectations
  • Rules Design Philosophy: Principles behind effective game mechanics and systems
    • Examples: Balance considerations, incentive alignment, rules complexity tradeoffs
    • Applications: Evaluating and modifying rule systems for better play experiences
  • Game Mechanics Innovation: Novel approaches to traditional RPG systems
    • Examples: Alternative hit point systems, resource management methods, risk/reward mechanics
    • Applications: Solving common gameplay issues, creating more engaging or realistic experiences
    • Values mechanics that maintain both narrative immersion and gameplay tension
• Cultural Anthropology: Understanding how human cultures develop, differ, and evolve
  • Focus on cross-cultural analysis and the evolution of social practices
  • Interest in how cultural systems shape human behavior and thinking
  • Comparative Cultural Systems: How different societies solve similar problems
    • Examples: Kinship structures, economic exchange systems, moral frameworks
    • Values insights that reveal universal patterns or meaningful divergences
  • Cultural Evolution: How practices and beliefs change over time
    • Examples: Technological adoption, institutional adaptation, belief transmission
    • Applications: Understanding historical developments and forecasting social changes
• Artificial Intelligence: Understanding capabilities, limitations, and societal impacts
  • Focus on both technical developments and broader implications
  • Interest in AI alignment, safety, and governance challenges
  • AI Capabilities: How AI systems function and their potential applications
    • Examples: Large language models, decision systems, autonomous agents
    • Values realistic assessment of current and near-future capabilities
  • AI & Society: How AI technologies interact with human systems
    • Examples: Labor impacts, governance challenges, social transformation
    • Applications: Navigating personal and professional adaptation to AI
  • AI Safety & Alignment: Ensuring AI systems act according to human intentions
    • Examples: Alignment theory, control mechanisms, value alignment
    • Applications: Understanding risks from advanced systems and mitigation approaches
  • AI Governance: Frameworks for managing AI development and deployment
    • Examples: Regulation approaches, institutional oversight, international coordination
    • Applications: Evaluating governance proposals and identifying effective structures
• Creative Process & Productivity: Understanding how people create, maintain output, and navigate creative challenges
  • Focus on balancing creative pursuits with practical constraints like day jobs
  • Interest in both inspirational examples and implementable methods
  • Creative Discipline & Workflows: Structured approaches to consistent creative output
    • Examples: Daily rituals, work habits of successful creators, sustainable creative practices
    • Applications: Developing reliable systems for producing creative work
  • Creative Identity & Authenticity: Navigating the psychological aspects of creative work
    • Examples: Impostor syndrome, creative evolution, maintaining vision amid constraints
    • Applications: Balancing authentic expression with practical demands
  • Creative Careers & Sustainability: Approaches to making creative work viable
    • Examples: Side projects, parallel careers, transitions between creative/conventional work
    • Applications: Finding sustainable approaches to creative fulfillment
• Practical Wisdom & Mental Models: Frameworks and insights for better decision-making and navigating life
  • Focus on actionable principles, mental shortcuts, and experiential knowledge
  • Interest in both timeless wisdom and novel frameworks for thinking
  • Values concise, quotable formulations that distill complex truths
  • Experiential Insights: Wisdom derived from lived experience rather than theory
    • Examples: Life advice collections, distilled principles from practitioners
    • Applications: Avoiding common pitfalls, pattern recognition, improving judgment
  • Decision Frameworks: Structured approaches to making better choices
    • Examples: Goal-setting techniques, productivity systems, mental models
    • Applications: Overcoming cognitive biases, clarifying priorities, taking consistent action
  • Practical Philosophy: Applying philosophical concepts to everyday challenges
    • Examples: Stoic practices, mindfulness techniques, ethical frameworks
    • Applications: Building resilience, managing emotions, navigating difficult situations
• Wargames & Miniature Gaming: Complex tactical systems with physical models and rich fictional settings
  • Focus on Games Workshop's universes and gaming systems
  • Interest in both gameplay mechanics and narrative/setting elements
  • Values both competitive aspects and world-building depth
  • Warhammer 40,000 Ecosystem: Dystopian sci-fi universe with diverse factions and strategic depth
    • Examples: Army building, campaign narratives, setting lore, painting/modeling
    • Applications: Understanding strategic principles and complex system interactions
  • Specialist Games & Offshoots: Smaller-scale systems derived from core game universes
    • Examples: Kill Team, Necromunda, Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game
    • Values focused gameplay mechanics that emphasize narrative and character development
  • Historical & System Evolution: Understanding how game systems change and develop over time
    • Examples: Edition changes, rules refinements, balance adjustments
    • Applications: Analyzing design decisions and meta-game development
  • Painting & Modeling Techniques: Artistic aspects of miniature wargaming as creative expression
    • Examples: Conversion work, custom paint schemes, terrain building
    • Applications: Developing tactical displays that enhance gameplay experience
  • Community Engagement & Meta Analysis: Understanding competitive environments and social ecosystems
    • Examples: Tournament strategies, list building theory, faction matchups
    • Applications: Engaging with broader gaming communities and optimizing play approach
• Trading Card Games: Collectible strategy systems with evolving metas and deep gameplay
  • Focus on collection aspects with limited but meaningful gameplay engagement
  • Interest in both artistic presentation and strategic mechanics
  • Values both the collecting journey and potential gameplay opportunities
  • Magic: The Gathering: The original trading card game with decades of evolution
    • Examples: Card collecting, set completion, art appreciation
    • Applications: Understanding complex system interactions and strategic principles
  • Lorcana: Disney's entry into the TCG space with familiar IP and accessible mechanics
    • Examples: Collection building, potential future gameplay
    • Values the intersection of nostalgic character connections and fresh game design
  • Game Economy & Collection Management: Approaches to building and maintaining card collections
    • Examples: Storage solutions, collection tracking, acquisition strategies
    • Applications: Balancing collecting goals with practical constraints
• Video Games: Interactive digital experiences spanning multiple genres and eras
  • Focus on rich worldbuilding and systems-based gameplay
  • Interest in how technology enables unique interactive experiences
  • Values both narrative depth and emergent gameplay possibilities
  • Post-Apocalyptic & Dystopian Settings: Games exploring societal collapse and rebuilding
    • Examples: Fallout series (particularly Fallout 4, 76), System Shock
    • Applications: Examining complex societal interactions through simulation
  • Immersive Sims & Player Agency: Games emphasizing player choice and systemic interactions
    • Examples: Deus Ex, System Shock 2
    • Values deep player expression through meaningful gameplay choices
  • Sandbox & Simulation Experiences: Open-ended games focused on player-directed goals
    • Examples: The Sims, Grand Theft Auto series, Graveyard Keeper
    • Applications: Understanding complex systems interactions and emergent behaviors
  • Strategic & Civilization Building: Games focusing on large-scale management and growth
    • Examples: Civilization series, A Tale in the Desert
    • Values exploration of societal development patterns and resource management
  • Game Design & Development: Understanding the principles behind successful game creation
    • Examples: Design philosophies, technological implementation, industry trends
    • Applications: Informing potential future game studio founding efforts
    • Connection to existing Core Interest in Game Design Theory
  • Online Worlds & Social Dynamics: Multiplayer environments and virtual communities
    • Examples: World of Warcraft, Fallout 76
    • Applications: Understanding how game mechanics shape social interactions

Core Criteria (0 – 70 Points total)

1. Relevance to Core Interests (0 – 25)

• 25 – Advances multiple core interests or synthesises them in a strikingly novel way.
• 20 – Provides deep, original insight into one core interest and links clearly to another.
• 15 – Clearly develops or illustrates a single core interest.
• 10 – Tangentially related; may illustrate a known concept but adds little depth.
• 0  – No meaningful connection to stated interests.

2. Insight Density & Reference Value (0 – 20)

• 20 – Multiple standalone, quotable insights worth permanent storage.
• 15 – At least one significant insight worth highlighting for future reference.
• 10 – Contains some potentially useful information or examples.
• 5  – Mostly familiar material with minimal new value.
• 0  – No information worth revisiting.

3. Thought Provocation (0 – 15)

• 15 – Nuanced perspectives that force a genuine rethink or reveal hidden mechanisms.
• 10 – At least one elegant framing that encourages reflection.
• 5  – Presents ideas that prompt mild curiosity or follow‑up questions.
• 0  – Purely descriptive or familiar; no mental friction.

4. Source & Discovery Context (0 – 10)

• 10 – Originates from a trusted source or a highly regarded discovery channel.
• 7  – From a somewhat trusted source or peer‑recommended venue.
• 3  – Neutral/unknown provenance; no red flags but no endorsements.
• 0  – Feels promotional, agenda‑driven, or click‑bait adjacent.

Bonus Criteria (0 – 30 Points total)

Presentation & Clarity (0 – 15)

• 15 – Conversational tone and crystal‑clear step‑by‑step exposition with concrete examples.
• 10 – Generally accessible, good flow, helpful examples.
• 5  – Somewhat academic or dense but still readable.
• 0  – Dry, condescending, or lecture‑like.

Novelty Factor (0 – 5)

• 5  – Introduces an entirely new framework, mechanic, or lens (≈5 % of content).
• 3  – Fresh application of familiar ideas or combinations.
• 1  – Minor fresh twist within otherwise known territory.
• 0  – No new angles.

Contextual Depth (0 – 5)

• 5  – Cross‑cultural analysis that unlocks broader understanding.
• 3  – Meaningful contextualisation that enriches the main point.
• 0  – No substantial context beyond the immediate topic.

Cross‑Domain Transferability (0 – 5)

• 5  – Extracts principles clearly usable across multiple fields.
• 3  – Offers at least one insight that generalises outside its domain.
• 0  – Insights remain narrowly bound to a single context.

Topics to Avoid (Hard Penalties)

• Hyper-partisan politics or culture-war punditry: -75 points
• Pop-culture celebrity or entertainment gossip: -75 points
• Narratives centered on revenge or powerless suffering: -75 points
• Content designed primarily to trigger outrage over uncontrollable issues: -75 points
• Overt marketing, sales funnels, or lead-generation material: -75 points

Content to Approach with Caution (Moderate Penalties)

• Pure News / Event Reporting: -25 points
  • Facts without analysis linking to lasting principles
  • Time-bound information that loses relevance quickly
• Outdated Digital Product Reviews & Software Tutorials: -20 points
  • Software/hardware feature walk-throughs older than 2 years
  • Step-by-step technical guides focused purely on implementation without design principles
  • Consumer technology evaluations that lack systemic analysis of why design choices were made
• Highly Technical Deep-Dives w/out Systemic Framing: -15 points
  • Crypto protocols, AI model specs, etc., that fail to address wider implications
  • Technical descriptions without conceptual frameworks or broader context
• Short-Term Market & Investment Commentary: -25 points
  • Stock picks, macro predictions, or rate gossip unanchored to economic principles
  • Time-bound financial advice lacking evergreen principles
• Myopic Health / Lifestyle Optimization: -20 points
  • Narrow bio-hacks or supplement regimes unsupported by broader cognitive or systems framing
  • Isolated health trends without integration into holistic frameworks
• Academic or Career Status Talk: -20 points
  • Tenure politics, citation games, or prestige jockeying with no extractable institutional insight
  • Professional gossip lacking broader principles about institutional dynamics
• Policy or Regulation Critiques in a Vacuum: -20 points
  • Singling out one law (e.g., Jones Act) without drawing generalizable regulatory lessons
  • Narrow policy analysis without broader principles or patterns

Scoring Methodology

This rubric uses a point-based system with both positive criteria and penalties:

1. Calculate Positive Points: First, add all points from the Core Criteria (0-70 possible) and Bonus Criteria (0-30 possible) sections based on the document's strengths.
2. Apply Penalties: Next, subtract any applicable penalty points from the Topics to Avoid (-75 points per topic) or Content to Approach with Caution (-15 to -25 points per category) sections.
3. Determine Final Score: The resulting total represents the document's final score, which should be evaluated against the Final Score Interpretation scale.
4. Decision Rule: Documents scoring below 50 points after all calculations should be discarded, regardless of their initial positive score.

Final Score Interpretation

• 90‑100: Exceptionally interesting – drop everything to read and deeply engage
• 75‑89: Highly interesting – worth dedicated time and attention
• 60‑74: Quite interesting – worth reading completely
• 50‑59: Moderately interesting – skim for valuable sections
• Discard threshold (below 50 points)

Topics to Track

This section captures nascent topics that have appeared in my reading but haven't yet accumulated enough evidence to warrant promotion to core interests. Items here have typically appeared in 1-2 documents that resonated with me but don't yet demonstrate consistent engagement across multiple sources.

I track these topics to identify patterns in my evolving interests. When I notice multiple high-quality pieces related to the same tracked topic over time, this signals a potential new core interest emerging. This approach helps me recognize genuine shifts in my intellectual focus rather than temporary curiosities.

Each topic below represents a potential direction for future exploration that has shown some initial promise. They remain in this "waiting room" until sufficient evidence accumulates to justify promotion to a core interest.

• Cognitive Optimization & Attention – techniques and states (from memory systems to contemplative practice) that enhance mental performance or regulate focus.
• Leadership & Creative Practice – skill-building for high-leverage roles and sustainable creative careers that hasn’t yet folded into the Core “Creative Process & Productivity” interest.
• Tech-Futures Ethics & Governance – long-term thinking and moral analysis around emerging technologies, genetic selection, and far-future scenarios.
• AI Dynamics – surprising or little-understood emergent behaviors in AI systems that sit adjacent to, but aren’t yet central within, the AI Core Interest.
• Infrastructure Resilience & Security – systemic approaches to keeping physical and digital infrastructure robust against failure or attack.
• Public Systems & Policy Design – complex-systems views on public-health policy, regulation, and institutional architecture (distinct from day-to-day partisan politics).
• Culture, Language & Society – anthropological lenses on technology plus linguistic and cognitive diversity research that reveal how culture shapes thought.
• Open Web & Digital Commons – governance, sustainability, and advocacy for shared digital resources and open platforms.
• Game Facilitation – psychology and techniques for running engaging tabletop or live-action games; supports (but isn’t yet promoted into) the Role-Playing Games Core Interest.
• RPG Mechanics Innovation - Novel approaches to traditional tabletop systems that solve common gameplay issues or create new player experiences.

Somewhere around five years ago I briefly entertained the idea that I was very seriously going to attempt to be an author. During that time I approached this the way I approach everything: with my whole entire ass.

Why half-ass anything when you can whole-ass one thing?

Which meant that, among other things, I read a lot of books on how to do writing good. Also, I tried to practice doing writing good.

The following are two bits of flash fiction that I wrote for practice.

Long Night of the Soul

Kazrin felt the thrum of his dirigible’s turbines through the wheel as he strained to guide his ship against strong chronomantic headwinds. Three days out from port, four more to the capital city, and nowhere to stop in between.

A symphony of lights erupted from the console in front of him. “Not again.” The thrum got weaker as the ship listed helplessly further to the port side. He slapped a heavy gloved hand against the wall while bellowing some of his juiciest curses. For a brief moment the turbine rumbled back to life, but quickly died taking the rest of the engines with it.

More choice words as the pilot flailed behind his seat looking for something, anything. He grasped at the jungle of cables full of various fluids and gasses. One of the tubes moved as he knew it shouldn’t. Kazrin grasped, wriggled, and finally slammed it back into place. The turbines roared back to life.

Only four more days to go. A warm meal. A warm bed. There’d be plenty of time once his work was done. For now, he was satisfied to be heading in the right direction.

The Underthing

Cold aethermantic resin dripped from the tunnel ceiling on to Alex’s head as he traced his finger over the brass pipe schematic. Ruined parts were strewn around him, not a single one had fit. “Lazy horking engineers never updating documentation,” he cursed out loud. “Kim valve” the useless flow-chart indicated, “model 703.”

Alex pressed his last 703 into the indicated ports, connections snapping into place with a satisfying click. Several pressure dials started to rise in an encouraging manner indicating positive resin flow. A great gout of fluid burst through the middle of the device, gauges falling back to their zero readings and covered him in even more of the viscous goo. Great, now he was out of Kim valves and he smelled like a cheeseburger went dancing on a hot summer day.

He pulled out the ruptured 703 and tossed it on the growing pile, then examined his parts bag critically. No more 703s, but a rusty Alice 417 and a Stanley 286. Out of better options to try he jammed the 417 into one side and the 286 in the other, then pressed the two parts together. They didn’t quite fit, but a few wraps of luminescent green fibertape and maybe? Almost? The pressure gauges ticked up and the tape held.

The sound of resin flowing was music to Alex’s ears. Fifteen years in the tunnels and it never stopped sounding sweet. He gathered up his tools and set off, there would be many more leaks to fix before the day was done.

I wanted to try something new this week and give an end-of-week status report. No idea if this is something I’ll keep doing, but the best way to figure out if it’s useful (to me or anyone else) is to give it a try.

The majority of this week has been spent working on the website for WizardHQ, a project that all my friends know about, but if you don’t know me personally this is the first time you’re hearing about it. I don’t intend to try to advertise it at this exact moment, please excuse me being vague for now. More to come on that in the next few weeks, but for right now it’s eating up a considerable amount of time.

Last week I crawled the TTRPG thought space and that gave me the idea that maybe I could build a small search engine to do this. “Small” is doing a lot of lifting there. But I think it might be a useful community service to crawl the TTRPG blogosphere and make that easy for people to search. It’s a win-win. Discoverability for small creators, ease of finding for players and GMs.

I spent time during one of my lunch breaks and got the bones of a crawler written. None of the “crawl more links” parts, but I can point it at a single page and get all the needfuls from it. Tested against my own blog, not sure how much further it’d need to go to work against other sites.

Not sure if that project will go further, I’ve been dithering. I think to do anything with it implies setting aside one or two of my other TTRPG projects, which didn’t get any progress this week because WizardHQ exploded all over my original plan.

Current active project list:

1. WizardHQ
2. Kill Team - Hierotek Circle
3. The search engine?
4. LimeTools¹
5. Project Ashenreach²
6. The ORB³
7. Potential blog theme updates
8. Move to [REDACTED]⁴

We’re a couple days over one quarter of the way into the year, so I sat down and worked on a template for planning around my yearly theme.

Part of a yearly theme is not to plan too hard. There’s a reason it’s not a yearly goal or, so help me, new years resolution. But I thought having some sort of light framework for checkin and intention setting would be useful, so that’s what I’m working towards.

Here’s what I’ve got.

1. What Does This Theme Mean to Me Right Now?

• Right now, today, I'm focusing on "do we have enough" in the sense of food to carry us through the uncertain times ahead. Even if shortages are not a concern, I think prices are likely to skyrocket, and the more I can insulate us from that the better off we'll be.
• When I originally wrote this theme I was thinking about "enough" in the sense of things I often had too much of. I have too many things to do. I eat too much. I spend too much money. I buy too many things.
• I think "enough" can be seen from both sides, or a right-sizing of things. Neither too little nor too much, broadly, across all categories in my life.

2. What Am I Exploring with This Theme?

• How do I know that I have enough?
• How do I add a circuit-breaker to that part of me that gets excited and jumps at opportunities to consider whether I already have enough?
• How do I release things when I have too much?

3. What Does “more aligned” Vs. “less aligned” Look Like?

More aligned with the theme:

• Depth over breadth.
• Saying no.
• Thoughtful consumption.

Less aligned with the theme:

• Buying things just to have.
• Trying to do everything.
• Avoiding hard trade-offs.

4. How Might This Theme Show up in Different Areas of Life?

Work

• Delegating more, actioning less.
• Having energy and focus to spare.

Relationships

• More, deeper connections with highly-aligned people.

Health

• "Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation." - Benjamin Franklin
• Enough rest. More than I think I need. Rest before it becomes obvious I needed to.
• Build sustainable systems.

Time

• Live by the schedule so that free time can be truly free.
• Waste no time. Leisure is a valid activity, and should be engaged with by design.
• Anything that wants to pay me for my time, or worse, that I pay for with my time, should be considered anathema.

Environment

• Bring nothing home that has no place to live.
• Find the things which no longer spark joy and let them go.

5. Integration Reminders

• What would enough look like this week?
• Where am I doing enough to move my goals forward?
• Where am I doing too much in unhelpful ways?
• What could I let go?

It’s funny. The genesis of my gigantic TTRPG collection (almost certainly 500+ distinct books) was an old newsletter I used to write. I won’t link to it. It’s super defunct.

But I thought, a hundred years ago, that there was a place in the world for someone to dig through these old games and find the best of their old ideas. Dust them off. Set them out on the table and see if anyone liked them.

Which is of course a brilliant idea that people smarter than me have been doing for more than 20 years now. Oh well!

And for better or worse, my life took a different turn and that’s not what ended up happening. But over time, as the collection has grown, I continue to think that I might really enjoy making a TTRPG of my own.

Knowing full well there’s basically no money in it. Certainly less than I make doing redacted for redacted. Call it a passion project. A sickness. A warped twisting of a dark mind filled to the brim with moths and soup.

But long before it would ever make sense to sit down and do that thing, I would need to find my community. A thought that, somehow, never occurred to me to try to do. Until like a couple weeks ago.

And so it begins...

I was, until about two weeks ago, following a grand total of maybe four TTRPG-related blogs. Come to think of it I’m not even sure when that started.

Tonight, I fixed that. My project for the evening has been to trace the hidden veins of the TTRPG thought space, find all the blogs I wasn’t reading, and add them to my reader.

My process was simple. Starting at the blog that’s been reliably the most interesting I would spiral out, following link after link, adding whatever caught my attention. Whether it was a single post to Readwise, or the entire feed.

Dear reader, I now have 113 unread articles in my feed. It was none on Monday. Oh the hubris of one week ago me thinking I might not have anything to read on my next flight.

I should probably be surprised, or ashamed, or surpshramed at how little I’d engaged with the TTRPG community. There’s no excuse for it. For something I claim to care so much about, I had invested so little. Except for the literal investment. In money. Of buying 500+ TTRPG books.

But as they say, it’s really the friends we made along the way.

... And I had made none.

It’s always difficult to introspect the self, and figure out why past-me did or didn’t do anything. I hardly know what now-me is doing and future-me is a radioactive orb of soup and malice.

But I think the main reason I was living on an island was a secret fear that I might... I dunno. Read something and then be influenced by it? It’s ridiculous on the face of it. That’s literally the reason I bought all the RPG books.

You see if I don’t know what all the cool kids with their hip new Motherships and Triangle Agencies are doing, then how could I ever be guilty of copying them? I couldn’t. Infallible logic. Your move Aliens.

This is of course insane.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about plagiarism, it’s that the first step is to plagiarize something. I’m not the kind of person who would copy someone else’s work and then try to pass it off as my own. (Well. Okay. I did do that once, in first grade. I “borrowed” someone else’s addition worksheet, because I hated math, erased their name, and put my own. Yes this is a true story. But I promise I don’t do that anymore.)

Two people can independently have the same idea, or be inspired by the same thing, and maybe end up in the same neighborhood as each other, and that’s okay. Some people might try to claim one copied the other and those people are Wrong and should be put in Time Jail where they will be sat on by the Universe for all of Eternity or until they Feel Bad.

Basically, this is not a thing I should be worrying about. If someone wants to make the legal claim I plagiarized them, then it’s time for lawyers to have a Polite Conversation about it. Until then, I’m not spending my time worrying what some rando on the internet thinks about the provenance of the art I’m trying to make.

Okay so then what?

Arguably, I should post more of my ideas on the internet. Part of that is because it’d be proof I had them first, but that’s a silly reason to do anything. Don’t spend your life fighting the argument against some future internet nerd with a Bad Opinion. Mainly because ideas are worthless and you should give them away for free anyway.

Execution is the part that matters.

Our society puts so-called “Idea Men” up on a pillar because it’s tactically useful to have a class of person who thinks their Next Big Idea is finally going to make them rich, while ignoring all the social and structural reasons it won’t. Ideas don’t make people rich. Working 16 hour days and a small $2million loan from your parents make people rich. The idea was secondary.

The problem isn’t that I don’t want to do that. It’s that writing a TTRPG, or a setting for a TTRPG, is about the fifth thing down my project list. No. Really.

• That wizard community thing I keep hinting at.
• A SaaS app for exactly ten people that I cherish.
• This thing I’m calling the ORB which I am envisioning would sort of be like a digital museum exhibit for all of my classic TTRPGs and their ephemera.
• A SaaS app that might actually have a paying audience.
• Project Ashenreach. The codename for my TTRPG setting.

See? Fifth.

If you’re curious, I’m tracking 30 distinct projects in my project management system. A perfectly normal and well-adjusted number of projects for an adult human to have.

Until then I’m following 23 distinct TTRPG-related blogs. I’m sure that number will thin over time. But it’s the start of actually trying to be present and aware. Of weaving myself into the fabric of a community that is ostensibly important to me.

Someday, probably not soon, I’ll try to reach out to some of them and say hello. Make friends. With the other people crazy enough to do what I too also want to do. Someday.

If you know who this is, we should be friends.

Or enemies.

Or frenemies.

Me: “You’re Darmok, I’m Jalad, and together we are at Tanagra.”

Ash: “What? Oh, Star Wars.”

What’s up with me? Oh, just inventing a governance structure for a community of wizards. You?

The first question: “is he spiders?” There is no second question.

My thoughts on working with AI have evolved a lot over the last year or so that I’ve been actively using them.

I’ve gone from “this is an interesting toy, but it doesn’t seem very useful” to “wow, people are using this all the time and it gets important things wrong” to “actually if you’re smart about how you use it this can do some really useful things” to “I’m using this more and more every day, it seems unlikely that’s going to change.”

Now I can see more and more of the places where not using AI, at least a little, is hurting me. Or at least slowing me down. In some cases that’s fine. I’m typing this by hand right now, and I know Claude could probably do it in about 7 seconds from a bulleted list of the points I want to make. The end result might even be better, in the sense that Claude is generally better at making easy-to-read content than I am.

I type like I speak, and I speak like a college professor. That’s not meant to be a good thing. But it is what it is and it’s who I am.

All that being said, I think I need to revisit my “100% Human Generated” policy. It’s still true, at least as of the time I’m writing this, but I think I’m missing out on an opportunity to at least collaborate with the machine. The sentiment that went into that policy is still absolutely core to my position: this blog is a craft to be honed, not a task to be automated.

I gave a version of these thoughts to Claude, and asked it to help me craft a new policy. Over several rounds of iteration, fixing parts I didn’t like and mulling over suggestions I hadn’t considered, we arrived at something that I think represents a better way to handle the challenges I’m facing.

Human-Led, Collaborative Content Policy

This blog remains fundamentally human-driven. All topics, ideas, and creative direction come from my own artistic sensibility and experiences. I sometimes collaborate with AI language models in my creative process, similar to working with a thoughtful writing partner who helps me refine and articulate my ideas.

When and How I Collaborate with AI:

• Refinement and focus: Sometimes I share my rough thoughts with an AI to help extract key ideas or sharpen my message
• Editorial dialogue: AI might help me restructure or clarify my existing ideas
• Creative exploration: Occasionally, through conversation with AI, we develop phrasings or explanations that effectively capture what I wanted to express

What Remains Purely Human:

• All topic choices and creative direction
• The initial ideas and perspectives being expressed
• The decision of what to publish and when
• The overall voice and style of the blog

Transparency: When I collaborate with AI on a post in any substantial way, I'll acknowledge that collaboration and specify which AI I worked with. I believe in being honest about the role AI plays in my creative process while maintaining my commitment to human creativity and authentic expression.

As mentioned previously, I worked on Claude with that. Claude Sonnet 3.5 to be precise, although I think in general I’m not going to specify exact versions. That gets into the weeds, and is also somewhat meaningless with how the frontier labs routinely update their models in meaningful ways without updating the name.

I’m curious to see what people think about this new policy. I’m open to feedback before formally enacting it. Am I making some kind of huge tactical error by letting AI into my workflow? Are there things I should be drawing a line on that I’m neglecting entirely?

Let me know.

“What a week, huh?”

“Lemon, it’s Wednesday.”

— 30 Rock, S4E2 “Into the Crevasse”

Without exception, the smartest people I know are all in agreement that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is on the way in the next three years. That could mean a lot of things. Good things. Bad things. I think it’s reasonable to assume nobody can predict what the world will look like beyond that horizon.

Kurzweil’s Singularity is finally near.

Let me be clear: the Singularity is the moment beyond which we cannot imagine the future, because it is entirely different from the world we have always known. Dear gentle reader, I think that point is not more than a year or two from now.

But I’m not here to talk about AI or AGI or the Singularity, because that’s one way in which I think people are right to be worried. There’s the part where technocratic oligarchs have bought what remains of the American government, citizens are being deported to Guantanamo Bay, and airplanes are falling out of the sky.

The bad news keeps rolling in, and I think it’s reasonable to expect that it gets worse from here.

There will never come a point where the red tribe will wake up and realize “oh no, this isn’t what I voted for.” This is what they voted for.

I know you desperately yearn for a “leopards ate my face” style realization of the atrocities they’ve caused. Will continue to cause. Are actively rejoicing in causing. That is not coming, and I need you to stop investing energy in waiting for it. There is work to be done.

If you’ll permit me a crumb of silliness in this tryin’ time, I’d like to present a framework that may help you figure out how you can help when everything feels hopeless, when it feels like the world is crumbling.

Please select from one of the following four class options:

Blanche: Charming, debonair, slutty. First in line to shank a bitch out back the Waffle House at 3 AM if they even glance at one of her homies.

Sophia: Wise, sardonic, unstoppable. A force of nature in the Greek God sort of way. Could correct Peter Jackson on what it sounds like when you stab someone in the lung.

Dorothy: Intelligent, charismatic, truth to power. Plans on plans on plans. Why do physical violence when emotional violence works as good at half the price?

Rose: St Olaf Stories as a finesse weapon. Emotional support friend. Can a cheesecake be a familiar? Have some cheesecake. I SAID HAVE SOME CHEESECAKE.

Look. I know it’s hard. But you need to figure out what you can do to help. Even if that’s taking care of yourself today so that you’re here to fight tomorrow.

It’s deeply unfair that we are called upon to fight this battle. Nevertheless, you are called. Nevertheless, you must fight.

Nevertheless, you must persist.

Chat, are the vibes cooked?

Ash: “what’s the cutest mammal?”

Me: “are moths a mammal?”

By age 400 you should have:

• defeated at least one plant.
• three orbs, at least one of which is cursed.
• read half of the 100 Greatest Tomes list.
• five mortal enemies, two blood pledges, and one kingdom in your thrall.

As far as I can tell this is Alton Brown’s journey:

• “No pasta.” Live and Let Diet, Good Eats S13:E13
• “No white foods.” To the media at some point? I can’t find a direct reference, but AB mentions having said it in later episodes.
• “No white foods but Cauliflower’s good actually.” The Caul of the Flower, Good Eats S14:E21
• “No white starch.” Various web sources, approximately 2015.

Given that, I think he probably does intend to include most starchy potatoes, although I’d guess the problem has more to do with the way most potatoes are served and not the potato itself.

As we head out of 2024, these are the apps I’m using.

• (Computing) Bookmarks: Raindrop
• (Computing) Browser: Firefox
• (Computing) Calendar: Apple Calendar
• (Computing) Chat: Beeper (Discord + Signal)
• (Computing) Cloud Storage: iCloud Drive
• (Computing) Passwords: 1Password
• (Computing) Photo Management: Apple Photos
• (eMail) Mail Client: Apple Mail
• (eMail) Mail Server: Fastmail
• (Entertainment) Media Player: Infuse Pro
• (Entertainment) Music: Apple Music, Radio Paradise, a growing collection of physical media
• (Entertainment) Podcasts: Pocket Casts
• (Finance) Budgeting: YNAB
• (Health) Body Tracking: Whoop
• (Health) Meal Planning: Plan To Eat
• (Health) Workout Tracking: Gentler Streak
• (Reading) Book Tracking: Hardcover
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• Todo: Omnifocus

I believe it was roughly around this time of the year, several hundred years ago, third or fourth grade to be imprecise, that I declared in no uncertain terms that new years resolutions were stupid, and I would not be doing them.

If you’ve met me, that anecdote probably doesn’t seem very surprising. Yes, I was always like this. No, I won’t elaborate.

The reason I bring it up is that I’m about to talk about what to many people would in fact sound like a new year’s resolution, but is prompted approximately zero percent by the new year and entirely by the trip to Disney World staring me down from approximately two weeks in the future which I am clearly, woefully, physically unprepared for. No doubt I’ll still have an amazing time, but I can tell before I even catch my flight that some things are going to need to change.

Currently I weigh somewhere between “can walk up a flight of stairs without stopping” and “sir you won’t be able to ride this ride today.” I don’t always need a seat belt extender when I fly, but sometimes I do. I’ve weighed more, I’ve weighed less, but as I get older it’s becoming more of an issue in more ways, and something clearly has to be done. As a close friend once said, “you can be old, or you can be fat.” He was speaking from a position of authority and wisdom.

Like most fat people, I’ve already tried everything. Everything. Whatever you’re thinking, I’ve tried it. From “eat less, move more” to Keto, to GLP-1 agonists. Some things worked for a while, then stopped working. Some things never worked. Nothing worked indefinitely. The things that worked the best required persistent, ongoing, considerable discipline. I suspect any system that will succeed for me will have that feature, and the challenge will be convincing everyone to arrange my life around it. You can only get away with being so weird if you want to succeed by normal definitions of success, and I’m not Steve Jobs enough for abnormal definitions of success.

So this post is somewhat of a manifesto. It is, in part, an attempt to document the things I am going to attempt to start doing because I think they’ll help. It is also, in part, to justify the weirdness I will need to introduce into my life and the lives of others to improve my likelihood of success. It is, if nothing else, an attempt to be legible.

Part 1 - Food

“The real importance of the ‘never’ list is that you have to make a commitment that there are some things in your life that you’re going to give up and you’re never going to have again. And there’s not a diet that I know of that ever said, ‘You know what? You’re going to say goodbye to some things forever.’ I actually think that’s important because it’s a symbolic life change that says ‘I’m turning a corner.’ It’s a statement of ‘I’m making a permanent change.’ That’s important from both a psychological and nutritional standpoint.”

- Alton Brown

In 2010’s “Live and Let Diet” Alton Brown, host and creator of Good Eats, introduced what he called the “System of Four Lists” – effectively, a contract with himself that helped Brown build and maintain a 50lb weight loss. Each list was designed to either encourage good food choices, or discourage bad ones.

The first list was comprised of things he decided he must eat every day:

• Leafy greens
• Nuts
• Carrots
• Green tea
• Whole grains
• Fruits

As I understand it, the purpose of focusing on things he must have rather than things he couldn’t have, was to flood the playing field with good food. To leave less room for things that didn’t support his desired health outcomes. Instead of focusing on restriction as the primary goal, to focus on nutrition to the exclusion of problematic foods.

The second list are things he needed to eat at least three times a week:

• Yogurt
• Broccoli / Cauliflower
• Sweet potato
• Avocado
• Oily fish
• Tofu

Restriction enters the picture in his third list, the things he can only have once a week. Effectively, the treats:

• Red meat
• White starch
• Desserts
• Alcohol

In the original version of Live and Let Diet that aired, white starch was “pasta,” but in articles published later online it appears that he broadened it. My guess is by white starch what he really means is everything I think of as “sugar.” I have a notoriously broad definition of sugar, which extends pretty much all the way to all purpose flour. Any refined carbohydrate. So all breads are sugar, but a baked potato is not. Maybe he intended to include baked potatoes in his white starch category, I don’t know. I think my problem probably isn’t the number of baked potatoes I eat.

Finally, the “never” list. The things he had to give up for good:

• Soda
• Processed meals
• Canned soups
• “Diet” anything
• Fast food

That seems clearly and objectively correct to me. There goes my chances of getting a Taco Icosahedron sponsorship, but I think that’s probably a risk I’m willing to take.

Let me say that I really like this approach. I like the idea of filling up on healthy “must haves” to edge out less healthy alternatives. I like the idea of allowing a little fun as a once a week treat. I even like the idea of saying “never” to the things we all know are bad. There’s power in never. Never reduces the option space, it removes an entire class of negotiation from the table. “No” is the most powerful word in the English language, and a complete sentence.

My smart move is probably to take this, exactly as written, and try it for a month before I make any adjustments. And I think that’s what I’m going to aim to do. Just for the sake of completeness though, here are the adjustments I’m considering:

• Carrots are fine, but I’m not a huge fan and I just can’t think of how I’d manage to fit them in every day without getting sick of them.
• I’m not a huge tea drinker, green or otherwise, but I’m game to try. I don’t like hot beverages, but I think tea might be my best opportunity for replacing soda.

That’s it. Those are the changes I think I’d want to make. But, let’s give it an honest try first.

… After I get back from Disney. Because it’s only a couple weeks away, because the food at Disney is part of the appeal, and because it provides a break point to clear out my kitchen and refresh anew.

Part 2 - Activity

In October’s State of the Apps CGP Grey talked about Whoop and the extent to which the data it provided was a “game changer” for his health journey. I bought one immediately. Well. Rented. Their business model is to give you the device on pain of subscription. I’ve been wearing it for over a month now, and its data collection is pretty impressive.

With a month of basically “normal” baseline data, it has a good sense of how healthy I am (or am not,) and suggests some reasonable goals:

• More steps
• Better sleep
• Exercise a couple times a week
• Avoid added sugar
• Drink water

Which, really, seems like very milquetoast advice. What’s important is that it can mostly track those automatically, and suggest realistic goals based on how I’m actually doing. Next week, for example, I’m going to aim for 6600+ steps per day, a sleep consistency of 70%+, any exercise at least two days, no added sugar at least five days, and meeting my hydration goal at least five days. Then at the end of the week I’ll review, adjust as necessary, and try again. Unlike the food plan, this starts immediately. Although I can’t promise I’ll avoid added sugar at Disney. Because Dole Whip.

All of these systems, together, I’m calling my Health Operating System. Like any other OS, I’m sure they’ll need patching and updates from time to time, but I’m broadcasting it wide so that everyone who has to deal with me knows what’s what. These are the things I’m choosing to prioritize, and the rules I’m willing to be inconvenient to maintain. Apologies in advance.

Every December my partner and I make the drive down to the Warhammer Citadel in Grapevine, TX to play our end-of-year game. If you’re a fan of Warhammer but have never been to the Citadel, imagine a Games Workshop or Warhammer store that’s also a coffee shop. It’s the closest thing we have in North America to Warhammer World, but it’s closer to a normal Warhammer store than that statement might imply.

Still, as the North American headquarters for Games Workshop, it has the benefit of being fully stocked with even the rare and unusual games, lots of well-painted minis on display, and probably 20 open tables in the back. It’s worth a trip if you’re in town, but not a trip to town if that makes sense. But I digress.

At the start of 2024 we determined to play a full 2000 point game, my Tyranids vs his Death Guard. Then my year exploded. Suddenly it was September and I didn’t have a single painted model to show for it. What I did have, however, was almost all the Necrons I’d need for a Boarding Action. So we pivoted, and rather than try to rush 100+ unpainted models, I finished the roughly ~11 for our new goal.

The Necrons had been a previous year’s army of the year, so I have a decent set of them in various states of completion, and we were big fans of Boarding Actions which came out around the transition from 9th to 10th edition Warhammer, so this was a delightful return to form.

So, how did it go?

Before the Battle

In the current edition of Warhammer you determine who goes first by rolling a six-sided die (d6,) and whoever rolls higher goes first. That person also picks who is the “attacker” and who is the “defender.” The attacker and defender have different deployment zones, places where they can put their minis on the table at the start of the game, and the defender has to put their minis down first. It’s useful to be able to go second in the deployment phase, because where your opponent puts their minis tells you something about their strategy and can allow you to make last-minute strategic decisions about how to respond.

I won the roll-off, which meant that I would get to go first, and I chose to be the attacker, which meant that I got to deploy second.

We each held one unit in reserve to be deployed through strategic shenanigans later. He had a unit of Poxwalkers that he could deep strike (place anywhere on the table that was at least 9" away from one of my models,) through the usage of a limited resource called Command Points. I had a unit of Ophydian Destroyers that have deep strike as a natural ability.

A few more units were held in reserve to come in through the normal deployment mechanism, because Boarding Actions allows a limited number of units to be in the deployment zones each round.

Round 1

During my turn I advanced my unit of Flayed Ones, one unit of Warriors and my Royal Warden towards the central objective. The Royal Warden was my Warlord, which I think is sort of an unusual choice. He’s basically a slightly more powerful Warrior, and in the regular 40K rules he gives an attached unit of Warriors the ability to run away and shoot in the same turn. In Boarding Actions he shouldn’t be able to do that, but as a house rule we decided that he could because it’s flavorful, and we think in the spirit of what the rules intended.

In the Northwest corner I moved my unit of Scarabs to claim the objective. We wouldn’t figure out until round three that they had no objective control score, which meant they couldn’t actually claim that objective for me. One of my lessons learned!

Finally, I moved my unit of Triarch Praetorians to capture the objective in the Southwest corner.

On his turn Ash moved his unit of Chaos Spawn to claim the Northeast objective, then advanced his Poxwalkers and Typhus to open a hatchway into the southern corridor. This was his first major tactical mistake, as he forgot entirely to attempt to claim the Southeastern objective this round.

He repeated that strategy in the north with another unit of Poxwalkers and his Tallyman.

Round 2

Seeing that Ash intended to make use of Hatchways to get into the Northern and Southern hallways, I redirected units in both of those directions. To the North I ran my Flayed Ones into his unit of Poxwalkers. It was an immediate and decisive victory for the Flayed Ones, who eradicated the entire unit in one combat while taking no wounds.

I deployed a unit of Lychguard to the South to block another unit of Poxwalkers who were attempting to head for the Southwest objective. This was strategically one of Ash’s better trades. The Lychguard have a relatively small number of incredibly strong attacks. Overall they were probably the strongest units either of us had brought, and in a perfect world I would have run them directly into his warlord, Typhus. Because their attacks were so strong, any Poxwalker they hit was guaranteed to melt, but because they had so few attacks they could only take out a few each round.

Seeing his Chaos Spawn coming for the central objective, I deployed my Ophydian Destroyers via Deep Strike directly on to the central objective to both claim and protect it. It was clear to me that my relatively slow moving warriors weren’t going to get there in time, and if he claimed it I’d have trouble shifting him off.

During Ash’s turn he ran the Chaos Spawn directly into my Ophydians, dealing two wounds which wasn’t quite enough to take one down. In the trade, my Ophydians did six wounds back, fully 3/4 of the damage his unit could sustain, and removing one of the two Chaos Spawn models.

Using the stratagem “The Dead Rise” allowed him to deep strike his final unit of Poxwalkers into the far Northwest corner, aiming them for my poor solitary unit of Scarabs. However, they were unable to move on their first turn on the board.

A unit of cultists in each of the Northeast and Southeast corners claim both objectives for him, and spend the next term “securing” the objectives, which would allow them to remain under his control as the units continued to move away. I forgot this was something units could do, and that specifically only my Warriors could do it. I had built my list assuming I’d need to keep a unit on each objective I wanted to hold, which is why the Scarabs continued to sit in the Northwest corner. Since part of his strategy was to try to claim one of my back field objectives, this was probably the right idea regardless.

Round 3

In the Southwest I advance one of my units of Warriors towards the objective, freeing up my Praetorians to advance to the center of the board. I knew that Typhus was headed that direction, and that they had a decent melee profile, so I wanted all of my best bruisers ready to hold the contest for the central objective.

To the North I had my Flayed Ones open the hatchway towards the Northwest objective, positioning them to rescue my Scarabs on the following turn.

On Ash’s turn he managed to start making progress against a few of my units. One of his cultists got a lucky shot in the shooting phase and did the one wound needed to finish off one of my Ophydians. Poxwalkers continued to trade with my Lychguard in the south, taking one of them out as well. I also lost a Scarab to his risen Poxwalkers in the Northeast.

He sent Typhus directly into my unit of Warriors, hoping to take them out in a single round. Unfortunately, he only managed to kill two.

Round 4

If you’re not familiar with the Necrons, they’re basically ancient space-faring robotic Egyptians. Basically. And they have a couple interesting gimmicks, but probably the one they’re most well-known for is the ability to reanimate in the middle of combat. So sometimes you think you’ve killed them, and then they stand right back up, stick their thumb to their nose, and blow a raspberry. And by blow a raspberry I mean they shoot you dead with plasma weapons.

So that’s what I did.

Now would be a good time to thank the dice, who were exceptionally kind to me this day. More than half of the models that Ash had managed to kill stood back up, including both the Ophydian and Lychguard from the previous round. This was not a good outcome for him. It was a great outcome for me.

In my movement phase I carefully arranged as many units as possible to be able to shoot at Typhus. The mission we were playing scored an extra 10 victory points for murdering the enemy Warlord. I got close to putting a wound on him a couple of times, and then my own Warlord, the Royal Warden actually managed to hit with six wounds. Exactly enough to kill Typhus. Both of Ash’s saving throws failed, which should have killed Typhus, but he burned what remained of his precious command points to roll again and saved on the second attempt.

What the Royal Warden couldn’t do, the Ophydian Destroyers certainly could, and in the fighting phase they marched right in and turned Typhus into a fine plague-flavored sashimi.

In the Northwest, my Flayed Ones came to the rescue of my Scarabs, and eradicated the Poxwalkers that were harassing them.

At this point, with almost all of his Poxwalkers defeated, his Warlord dead, and me in control of more than half the board with strong units he would be unlikely to defeat, Ash conceded.

I won 55 to 30.

My Learnings

• Scarabs can’t claim objectives. They probably would have been most useful running ahead and opening a door for me. I have a bad habit of forgetting that the hatchways in Boarding Actions can open.
• Lychguard are strong bruisers, but without many attacks do their best work against a single beefy target. I really wanted to get them stuck in against Typhus, but Ash did the right thing gumming them up with Poxwalkers.
• Praetors didn’t get much of a chance to shine, and looking at their profile now I would probably be smart to trade them out for something with a more clearly defined role in the battle.

Ash’s Learnings

• He intended to use the cultists to “sticky things and then die,” and the Poxwalkers were meant to gum me up. In practice, the cultists mostly never arrived to the battle. Probably they should have come out first and ranged ahead, so that the Poxwalkers would have had an easier time getting into position.
• Typhus needs to be used more tactically, he’s not invincible. It came as a surprise when I killed him basically twice.

Final Thoughts

This was the only game of Warhammer we played in 2024, which is a real shame. We both love it. It’s arguably part of how we met. I like the structure of having a game at the end of the year to work towards, because if nothing else we know that one game will happen.

Next year we’re focusing on Necromunda as our game of choice, which has much smaller armies (called gangs) than even Boarding Actions. I hope that by having a smaller painting commitment we’ll be able to get into games sooner in the year, and our annual game next December will be the capstone of a campaign rather than the only game we play.

In closing, here is every one of his models my Necrons managed to take off the board. The real gift was the Poxwalkers we murdered along the way.

What is outer space if not a soup?

Gondor calls for soup.

The society I happen to have been born into is based on consumption. It tells me that my worth is measured in my economic contributions. That I will be judged by the clothes I wear, the car I drive, the establishments I frequent.

I’ve had enough. Generally. Broadly. And also, in some cases, specifically. In just about every way it makes sense to measure, I’ve had enough.

I reject the premise. I rebuke thee. I cast thee out.

The Year of Enough

So begins the Year of Enough, my next yearly theme. The astute may have noticed that it’s technically still 2024, and that’s true, but immaterial. Yearly themes need not align perfectly to arbitrary notions of time. What’s important is that they are useful to the person undertaking them. Consider it another way I abjectly refuse to adhere to the role society would like me to play. This year, my year starts on December 1, 2024.

Anything worth starting is worth starting now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now. As the poet Yoda once said, “do, or do not.”

Mechanically what does “Year of Enough” mean? At its core, it means no unplanned spending. Of money. Of time. Of effort. Of energy. I have enough. Enough material goods. Enough things to do. Enough recommendations. Enough.

The best yearly themes are conceptually simple, but deep. Enough lands right in that sweet spot. It applies to almost every category I could mention. Whatever it is I almost certainly have enough of it. In many cases I have too much. It works as a response to every exhortation. Enough.

What does this look like in practice? In many ways like a “buy nothing” year, with some notable exceptions. Travel and time spent with friends remain important to me, and I’ll continue to prioritize those. I’m not cancelling any of my planned trips. Some of those trips are to new and novel places, and may require me to buy some things to be appropriately prepared, and any necessary purchases along those lines are pre-approved.

There’s also some furniture for the house that I will need as the remodel completes, and that list has been specifically defined. A new chair. Accessories for an existing chair. The needfuls to complete the lounge, the hobby room, and the master bedroom.

Along those lines, replacing anything that breaks, home repairs, and consumables are all valid expenditures. I’m not trying to live an ascetic life. Well. At least not yet. Maybe someday I’ll go full-on recluse, but not today. “Enough” means no more of the things I’m already sated on. It doesn’t mean suffering through obvious deficiencies.

This means that, among other things, I am no longer accepting recommendations. For shows to watch, movies to see, music to listen to. One category already bursting at the seams of enough is “things to do.” I will try to return the favor as best I can. Nobody I know is really suffering a surfeit of free time, and it would be rude to inundate them with my own recommendations while politely declining theirs. Know that if you ask, I have them in ready supply, but you will need to ask. This is as much for your own benefit as it is mine.

Something I failed to do last year was define success.

At the end of the Year of Enough, I think success would look like:

• Every room in the house is clean, organized, and there are no unsorted “piles” of things in need of a place to live.
• There is enough time in the day to do work I enjoy doing, to care for my meat chariot, and to pursue an interest or hobby.
• Nothing I consider important is languishing. This might need its own blog post to properly develop, but the idea is that I should not be able to look around and find some interest or hobby that I haven’t engaged with, that I shouldn’t feel like I’m not taking care of myself or others.

There will never be enough time to do everything, but there should be enough time to do the important things.

“The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle.”

Or,

“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.”

-Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Nearing the end of the year, I’m starting to think about next year’s theme. But before I get into that, I think it’s worth reviewing how this year’s theme went.

TL;DR – poorly.

Looking back on how I defined my theme for the year, I think the idea was solid, but I lacked clarity on what exactly I meant to do differently. One big mistake is that, outside of the start of the year, I mostly never thought about it again. It didn’t serve as a “north star” like so many yearly themes do. Whereas the Year of Time (2023,) kept popping up everywhere I looked, the Year of Scales of Arpeggios mostly just happened.

In the blog post linked above, I set out three specific plans I intended to engage in. If you haven’t clicked through, they were:

• Wake up before work, use that time productively.
• Build a system for meal planning.
• Learn to play disc golf.

And dear reader, I did approximately none of them.

That’s not quite entirely fair, I actually did get really good at waking up earlier. But I don’t really use the time productively. I think the end result is that I’m more “awake” when work starts, and that has some positive benefits, but never not once did I ever get my treadmill time in before the day started. Planning the day continues to be an elusive challenge. Executing the plan even more so.

It feels hardly worth even mentioning the other two, beyond saying that I didn’t even start to try. I forgot I meant to. The year got away from me and now here we are, on the precipice of December, and I don’t think I’m planning to start any of that in the remaining four weeks.

We can’t win them all, and I didn’t win this one. On to bigger and better things!

You might surmise that this is a political post. And it sort of is, but also it isn’t. Because winter has always been coming. And most likely, winter will always be coming. Winter might be Trump, it might be climate change, it might be an asteroid that strikes the Pacific ocean and obliterates all life as we know it. We don’t know when winter will come, nor what form it will take, but winter is coming.

Some people will read that and assume that I am being defeatist. That clearly, we must all give up in the face of insurmountable odds. And no, read what I said because it doesn’t include anything about giving up. Despite it all, I’m not a nihilist.

That winter is coming is an indisputable fact of our universe, and the answer to winter is to chop wood, preserve food, hunker down, and tell stories. Prepare for winter; to be able to weather it, because you do not control which way the wind will blow. You never did, and you never will. Winter can and will show up on its own schedule, in its own way, and there is nothing to be done about it except to prepare.

Our ancestors built communities by huddling together around the fire, and though the mode may have changed the method remains. Many hands make light work, and there remains much work to be done. There always will, because the universe does not owe us peace. The universe does not owe us anything. Winter is coming, and the only chance we have to stand against it is together.

With any luck, and no small amount of fortune, we will get to plant trees under whose shade we will never sit. It is not for us to rest, because winter is coming. But we might hope that others may some day wonder at what winter ever was.