Build reality-graded systems

I recorded a voice note while cooking dinner, describing a feature I wanted. By the time the onions were done, the feature existed — as the blog post itself. A builder's honest account of two weeks running an AI orchestrator, the maddening overhead of making it work, and why the compound returns are worth it.

The cognitive handoff didn't stop at productivity. It kept going—into therapy, teaching, coaching. The economics are brutal, and we're approaching a fork: wake up or become indistinguishable from the algorithms feeding us.

After years of feeding the digital noise, I met two men without phones: one who built Silicon Valley, one who lives in Morocco. Their shared gravity revealed what I had been ignoring: the signal lives in presence, not timelines.

Every system rests on a covenant: I serve, because this service participates in something higher. When that belief collapses, obedience becomes performance. From 18th-century rice fields to modern Slack threads, the pattern repeats—and the consequences are always the same.

The boundary between thought and expression is recursive: speak the unspeakable, and more becomes possible. Ideas choose their vessels as much as we choose them.