Entrepreneur
“She has so much potential” is usually heard as a report about a larger, finished version of a person stored inside them. Derived from the foundation’s tenth primitive, read before the first mark is made, the phrase carries three things at once — the form, the forecast and the response — and only the last one belongs to her. … readWhat Is Potential
An artifact records or supports a change; an outcome is what the action brings about. The deeper question is who carries an intention through to the state that establishes completion. … readOutcomes Are State Changes
Surprise is one number made from two, and the feeling does not come labelled with which term moved: a world that fell short and an expectation that had grown produce readings identical to the third decimal. A single reading is a line of position, not a fix — which is why the numerator gets convicted, why disagreement is the only gauge of a denominator, and why a forecast written before the world arrives is the one artifact that makes the next reading identifiable. … readOne Reading, Two Unknowns
Company is counted by who is in the room. Derived from the step inside the relation result that does the work — an end that cannot be altered cannot stand in relation — company turns out to be a rate rather than a state, which is why a full room can hold none of it, why two strangers can have it inside an hour, and why nobody can be owed any. … readWhat Is Company
Hope and fear are the same fiction with different endings. Neither one is happening. You do not live in the future — you manufacture history, one artifact at a time. … readFire Your Hopium Dealer
A first time is treated as an event with more in it than the ones that follow. Nothing in the event is different. Derived from the two halves of the Arrow Theorem’s antecedent, a first time is a reading taken where expectation holds no term — which is why nothing is lost at the second time, and why no first time can be arranged. … readWhat Is a First Time
Fear and Hope ask the present to pay emotional costs for futures that do not yet exist. Readiness prepares without confusing anticipation with Reality. … readDo Not Pay Tomorrow in Advance
A near miss is described as the thing that almost happened. The foundation I work from says there is nothing at that address: a record with all its mass on one outcome holds no runner-up, so the alternative is not a small entry but not an entry at all. What the word measures is how cheap it was to describe what did not happen, and that is a fact about the describer rather than about the intersection. … readWhat Is a Near Miss
A reputation is pictured as a possession — something you build, hold, and can have taken from you. The foundation I work from says it has no single location: it is a set of present marks plus a term in the denominator of every host who has read them, and not one component of it is in you. That is why you have never inspected the thing you call yours, why four hundred people hold four hundred different ones, and why the thousandth decent act is worth almost nothing while the first lapse can be worth four hundred and fifty-eight times as much. … readWhat Is a Reputation
A language is pictured either as a neutral container you pour thoughts into, or as the thing that cuts the world into the pieces you are then stuck with. Both pictures assume the only two relations on offer are causing and doing nothing. The foundation I work from has a third one, and the ordinary business of learning a word is where it can be watched operating. … readWhat Is a Language