Entrepreneur
“What was the cause?”, “the root cause” and “what caused it” ask for the one thing that produced an outcome, found at the bottom of a chain of whys. Derived from the definition of a condition, which does not cause, the question welds two others: what the outcome rested on, which has many answers of equal standing, and where the asker will step in, which is the asker’s to say. … readWhat Is the Root Cause
A precondition gets set on Monday and dropped on Wednesday. Derived from the foundation’s primitive that a condition does not happen, the dates in that sentence belong to marks, not to a condition — so the word names two things: a prerequisite nobody can set or drop, and a stipulation its maker answers for. … readWhat Is a Precondition
A requirement is usually read as a share of the outcome — meet them all and the rest should follow. Derived from the foundation’s definition of a condition, a requirement names what an outcome needs and nothing about what it will yield: necessary by definition, sufficient by nothing in it, and able to decide an outcome only by being unmet. … readWhat Is a Requirement
A technicality is ordinarily described as a requirement that decides an outcome while having nothing to do with it. Derived from the foundation’s definition of a condition, the word turns out to name the one place people see conditioning bare — and the word they use for what they see there is only. … readWhat Is a Technicality
An opportunity is ordinarily described as a window that opens, makes something possible, and closes. Derived from the foundation’s definition of a condition, the word turns out to name a prerequisite and then credit it with three things the definition denies — which is why two people can stand in front of the same opening and only one of them is standing in front of anything. … readWhat Is an Opportunity
Curiosity is not an appetite for information: an appetite is not ended by its first bite, and the subjects you know nothing about generate none of it. It is the length of the edge between what you have named and what has become readable — which is why naming lengthens that edge, and why believing you have finished a subject is the only thing that shortens it. … readWhat Is Curiosity
Temptation is usually placed either outside the person, in something with designs on them, or inside, in a flaw of character. Derived from the primitives instead, it is the felt signature of a condition becoming readable — a real relation with nothing intending on either end, and one you did not author. … readWhat Is Temptation
On a line, wanting two things at full strength and wanting nothing at all produce the same number. Conditions do not sit on a line, and the angle between two of them separates a conflict with a price from a conflict with no solution. … readWhat Is Ambivalence
A coincidence is neither a cause nor a chance. Two marks can serve one condition without either touching the other — which makes the alignment real, and means it was not addressed to you. … readWhat Is a Coincidence
You were taught that patience is endurance — the strength to suffer delay without complaint. But endurance cannot tell a patient person from one who has quietly given up. Patience is a position: correction continued, forcing declined, while what you are turned toward is not yet readable. … readWhat Is Patience