a. Productivity in knowledge work is difficult to measure. b. We resort to the production of artifacts (emails, messages, shift reports, etc) to prove our productivity. If a and b are true, where did we learn how to create "value" in this way? Is this a direct result of how we

The biggest difference between public and private institutions: a clear telos. Private institutions have "secrets" which act as ordinal goals, error correcting mechanisms to move them toward their "dream," which is a terminal and well-known goal. Public institutions

The virtue I've been aiming at most of late is clarity. Without clarity of action, purpose, and direction, your life gets lived for you by others.

Clarity shapes the world around you.

Life is a vector. We must aim toward something, yet be able to error correct that vector, as well as its terminus. What is your terminal goal? What is your means to error correct toward it?

24 hour Roostock Racing across Philly: attled and suffered through a day and night of non stop motion. Argued with my brother about navigation (but only for a brief time). Made a bunch of strategic mistakes. Finished near the bottom. And I'll happily do it all again.

There are two sources of creativity for a human: novelty and revelation. Novelty is newness that arises from within a given contextual net. Revelation is newness that arises from outside a given contextual net. Revelation is far more common than we might at first expect. The

Why has the West failed to teach young people about the West?

The weight of fatherhood is incredible. And it’s not that it’s unwanted - it’s a responsibility that serves as a continuous invitation for self denial and growth. I recall the birth of my first daughter. That day, some things that mattered no longer did and now new things

The idiosyncratic pen will be that which grabs attention in the future. Break the convention, garner attention. But recognize that attention is not the telos.

Why witnessing to others is the foundation of our own agency. In a world of AI, deciphering our own agentic role is of critical importance. substack.com/home/post/p-18…

As humans, we are developing a brand new skillset. In a world saturated by AI, agency (choosing what to do) is no longer the necessary standard. What we need is the cultivation of meta-agency: defining a given contextual net and defining the positions of others within or across

Agency in the modern world will require a contentment with the fact that the ledgers of our lives will not balance. substack.com/home/post/p-18…

John Boyd’s OODA loop is a clear and concise epistemological tool, but it has its shortcomings: 1) It is self-referential: Because it relies solely on observation, it can never escape its own inertia. The subject’s qualia are the only catalyst. 2) It is mono-contextual: Built

Dear parents, Most children do not read books anymore. If you get your child to read just ONE BOOK PER MONTH (canonical, classic) from age 10-18, they will be so far ahead of their peers by the time they reach college. Sincerely, A Teacher

As someone who has taught at both the high school and college level, I consider it an unquestionable, undervalued truth that avid readers make the most capable students. Why? Because readers become thinkers who become well-spoken, innovative problem-solvers. How? Reading

Invest in books. Invest your time, your money, and your energy. When the magic of written language unfolds for your child, it is an absolute miracle.

Conditions of attention exist whether or not we notice them. Reflective and contemplative acts allow us to attend to those conditions. Cultivating those acts in the world today is to push against the current.

I stopped taking advice from childless people. Fitness. Productivity. Life advice. All of it. And here's why: It's not that they're wrong. It's that they're playing a completely different game. Taking life advice from someone without kids is like getting marriage tips from a

Of War and Worldbuilding I've been thinking a lot about how we orient to the world, our contexts, and how we retain agency in the modern world. Here is the first of several essays I plan to write on these interrelated topics. open.substack.com/pub/cfsquinn/p…