Iterating on who we are...

In today’s (somewhat incoherent) writing rant, I’m riffing on what Claude would call the missing translation layer aka (occasionally loosey goosey) high level advice that Makes Sense, but when it comes to actually Doing The Thing, … uhhhh.

This general (just) Do This advice is not wrong but it’s also not super helpful when you’re… standing in the store, sitting at your desk, … essentially trying to make a decision about exactly what to do when you only have a hand wavy idea.

When I am talking about this to clients at work, I usually phrase it along the lines of using a t-shirt cannon in terms of precision instead of tweezers.

To go with the Topic du Jour (aka summer 2026):

Eat More Protein → What has protein in it? How much is more? What about this other stuff that comes with the protein? How long should I do this (… forever)? Is it better to eat more protein in the morning and/or before/after/during (lol) a workout?

In case it’s not obvious, if you’ve clicked into any of the other posts like this one, sitting down and Just Writing, for me, seemingly falls into the Eat More Protein jurisdiction. What should I write about? What if I write the wrong thing? What if I can’t think of anything to write?

Hopefully, by airing my cognitive grievances throughout my scribbling exercise, others feel less inhibited by similar mental hurdles and booby traps.

A lot of people talk about the benefits of writing, but I think not enough people talk about how we mentally trip ourselves into thinking we can’t, or not today, or what’s the point.