Warrior vs Worrier: The difference between hope and proof
When your inner world runs on possibility and the people you love live in the land of proof, even the simplest conversation can become a negotiation. This is the quiet tension between the warrior who dreams and the worrier who carries the weight — and how masking, momentum, and misalignment turn everyday moments into behavioural crossroads.
Prompt Theatre: The Ethics of Drift
When visibility becomes validation, systems reward performance over purpose. The Ethics of Drift explores how automation, culture, and metrics reshape meaning — and how to reclaim authorship, balance, and intent in the age of generative AI.
It Works on My Machine: When Passion Becomes Possession
When passion narrows into possession, collaboration starts to feel like interference. This is how good intentions harden into certainty — and how certainty isolates us from the very systems we’re trying to improve.
The Rhetoric Virus: Why Systems Reward Certainty Over Substance
Confidence has become a contagion. Systems now reward certainty over truth, amplifying fluency while silencing doubt. This piece traces how the rhetoric virus spreads — through authority, metrics, and performance — and how we can rebuild cultural immunity through curiosity.
The UX of Competence: How Performance becomes the Product
Trust is fragile, but loyalty is blind. Every system built on human judgement eventually drifts from substance toward spectacle. In a world where visibility has become the new validity, we’re performing credibility rather than practising it.
Effort Discounting: Avoidance of Sustained Effort
Effort discounting is the tendency to value rewards less when they require greater effort. It explains why we often choose easier paths even when harder ones yield bigger gains.
Reward Undermining Effect: The Paradox of Motivation
External rewards can unintentionally reduce intrinsic motivation. The reward undermining effect shows how over-justifying effort with incentives shifts focus from enjoyment to obligation.
Reward Processing Deficits: Dopamine–Motivation Disconnect
Reward processing deficits in ADHD arise from atypical dopamine activity in the brain’s reward circuits, leading to a preference for immediate gratification and difficulty sustaining motivation for delayed rewards.
Growth Mindset: Belief in Potential
A belief that intelligence and ability can be developed through effort, good strategies, and learning. Growth mindset encourages resilience, curiosity, and improvement, contrasting the fixed view of innate talent.
Rejection-Sensitivity Dysphoria: The Pain of Perceived Rejection
Rejection-Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) describes extreme emotional pain triggered by perceived rejection or criticism, often linked to ADHD. It impacts confidence, relationships, and self-worth.