Semi-structured Work

Information is abundant. In our current age, we're bombarded with more data points in a day than our ancestors might have encountered in a lifetime.

There's chaos in abundance. The sheer volume of information creates a natural disorder, patterns hidden within patterns, meaning obscured by meaninglessness. Such a chaotic landscape is both the greatest resource and most significant challenge for meaning-makers.

Interpreting chaos comes with skimming through the excess, it's a skill that's developed through iteration. We learn to separate signal from noise through practice, trying, failing, adjusting.

Through iteration, the idea of perfection is reconciled with reality. We begin to understand that perfection is a direction or guiding principle of sorts and not necessarily a destination to arrive at. Every iteration brings us closer to something valuable, though rarely to something flawless.

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How many iterations until the end goal is achieved? The question itself contains a flawed premise, as the most worthwhile pursuits have no final state. They are processes rather than endpoints.

If the end goal isn't perfection, then it at least ought to be progress. Movement forward, however incremental, validates the effort.

Even when the path ahead remains obscured, the simple act of advancing creates momentum that can carry us through uncertainty.

Progress Over Perfection

A draft is an unfinished work. It exists in potential rather than in completion.

A published work is a draft that's deemed acceptable for now. The qualifier is crucial, because no creative output is ever truly complete, merely abandoned at a point where its current state outweighs the potential gains of further refinement.

Hitting that publish button always comes with a feeling of unease, even if it's just for a brief moment. I wonder why.

It could be that sharing makes manifest our imperfections, exposing them to the light of collective scrutiny. This vulnerability never becomes comfortable, no matter how many times we experience it.

Growing pains never really go away. The tension between where we are and where we could be creates the necessary conditions for growth.

Relative Value Of Information

If social media is a public town square, then most discussions are performative rather than substantive. We speak more so to be seen than to really communicate, crafting interesting personas along the way with exchanging ideas as an afterthought.

Of course, this doesn't negate the fact that the best signals tend to be found at the places with the most noise. Vibrant communities, despite their chaos, generate insights impossible in sterile environments. The friction of diverse perspectives creates the heat necessary for new ideas to form.

In some ways, signals can't exist without noise, just like how light cannot be perceived without darkness.

Contrast creates meaning.
The value of information is relative, defined by what surrounds it rather than by any intrinsic quality, I think.

Look without looking, who is tricking who when we scroll mindlessly?

Games are mostly fun because they offer controlled challenges with clear feedback.

Unlike life's ambiguous struggles, games provide bounded problems with defined solutions, and satisfaction comes through achievement within comprehensible systems.

Fun is a relatively recent concept, derived from the Middle English 'fon' meaning foolish or simple.

What we now celebrate as enjoyment began as something closer to folly, which is a reminder that our values will evolve, and today's wisdom for some will be tomorrow's foolishness for others.


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