Caveats
How to read this site
I want to write plainly without beginning every sentence with a paragraph of self-defense. These are the qualifications I would otherwise repeat everywhere.
This is a notebook, not a platform.
I write to find out what I think. Some pages are conclusions; others are evidence of thinking in public. A dated idea is a record of what made sense to me then, not a promise that I will defend it forever.
Clarity is not certainty.
A sentence can be direct without claiming to be universal. I would rather state an idea clearly enough to be wrong than bury it under so many qualifiers that nobody can tell what I mean.
Most advice has a target.
Advice that corrects one person may exaggerate another person's worst tendency. When I say that something is useful, I usually mean useful for a particular problem, temperament, or season—not for every person at every time.
A short thing is compressed.
Notes and bumper stickers leave things out on purpose. They are handles for larger ideas, not proofs. An exception does not automatically destroy the point, and the point does not automatically erase the exception.
I am writing from a small sample.
My experience is mostly one life, one family, one faith, a few businesses, and a few schools. I can describe that honestly without pretending it represents everyone.
Conviction is not a claim of perfection.
Christianity is the frame beneath much of this site. Writing about an ideal does not mean I consistently live up to it. Often I am writing because I do not.
Work is rarely solitary.
When I write that I built or ran something, other people usually helped. The Work page is a record of my part, not a claim that every result belongs to me.
People are more important than clean stories.
I omit names and identifying details when the idea matters more than the identity. Memory is imperfect. If a story involves someone else, read it as my recollection, not a transcript or a verdict on them.
I reserve the right to change my mind.
Changing a page silently would make the archive less honest, so substantial reversals should become new notes or visible updates. Contradictions across years may mean I learned something. They may also mean I am inconsistent.
This page will change as I discover which caveats I keep wanting to add elsewhere.