Experience Is Loud—Turn It Down So You Can Learn
Hard‑won patterns sound like wisdom—until they echo so loudly you miss new ideas. This month I learned: AI model tuning isn’t just prompting, shutter‑speed instincts fail at 60 fps video, and Figma spacing ≠ CSS. Beginner reps, reverse mentorship, and stranger audits keep the channel clear.
Signal / Static
Signal → Patterns you’ve earned the hard way. Static → The same patterns looping until they drown out anything new.
Last week I drafted three posts for Signal Dispatch and kept tossing around “grid‑level thinking.” Sounded crisp—until a friend texted, “Cool phrase, but what’s it mean?” I’d been serenading myself, not the reader. Classic echo.
Three Fresh Blind Spots (This Month Alone)
- AI Upskilling
I can prompt‑engineer a chatbot blindfolded, so tuning a custom model should feel familiar—right? Spent hours chasing temperature settings before realising the real block was my dataset hygiene. Different sport, different rules. - From Stills to Video
Years of shutter‑speed muscle memory? Worth about five minutes when 60 fps enters the chat. My first reel looked like a slideshow narrated by a fog machine. Exposure triangles don’t rotate that way. - DIY Website
“Spacing works this way in Figma, so it has to work that way in CSS.” Thirty commits later: nope. Browsers don’t care how pretty my design tokens look on a mood board.
Each time, the script in my head was the same: I know this in Domain A, so Domain B must play by the same rules. Spoiler: it doesn’t.
How I Turn the Volume Down
| Move | What it Shatters | My Next Rep |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner Reps | The identity of expert. | Shoot an entire roll of 35 mm film—manual focus only. |
| Reverse Mentorship | Status comfort. | Let a junior editor walk me through CapCut shortcuts. |
| Silent Fridays | Voice dominance. | One day a week, no “advice”; only questions. |
| Stranger Audits | Familiarity blur. | Ask a non‑tech friend to break my new site; fix what they find first. |
| Write / Shred / Rewrite | Attachment to takes. | Draft a stance on AI safety, delete, rewrite from the opposite view. |
Dispatch
Ask one naïve question before noon; ship one imperfect draft before bed. Drop your latest “wow, I was wrong” moment in the comments so we can all lower the volume together.
Further Reading
- Range — David Epstein
Breadth as antidote to expert lock‑in. - Liminal Thinking — Dave Gray
Spotting the invisible frames around belief.
