Linearize Your Thinking

Your thoughts are lying to you.

Not maliciously. They're just compressed in a way that makes them seem more coherent than they actually are. When you reach for a thought, what you grab isn't pure information – it's a blob. A warm, comfortable blob of emotions, received wisdom, half-formed theories, and supporting concepts that somehow feel right together.

This blob-based thinking isn't a bug. It's how humans work. The problem only emerges when you need to translate these blobs into decisions: Which features should we build? Which startup idea should we pursue? Which person should we marry?

These are what I call "collapse-required decisions." You can't execute on vibes.

Think about a decision you're wrestling with right now - a product direction, strategic choice, whatever. You probably have a gut feeling about the right path. You might even feel real conviction.

Now try writing down your complete chain of reasoning, including all those gnawing counter-arguments you've been trying to ignore. Often clarity fades quickly.

This happens because we're walking around with quantum thoughts. Like Schrödinger's cat, we can believe A and not-A simultaneously. In any given moment, we'll agree with whichever version is convenient. Our minds are excellent at maintaining this superposition of contradictory beliefs.

"But that's just being nuanced!" you might protest. "Reality is complex!"

Sure. But at some point, you have to make actual decisions. You have to commit to specific actions. You have to collapse the wave function.

To exit the quantum position you must linearize your thoughts. The strongest tool for this is writing.

Writing is where your thought blobs go to die. Or rather, where they go to be reformed as coherent thoughts. When you write, you can't maintain the comfortable superposition of contradictory beliefs. You have to commit words to the page in a specific order. Each sentence has to flow logically from the one before it.

This process is often painful. You might write down two deeply held beliefs and suddenly realize they can't both be true. Most people stop here. They feel the discomfort of cognitive dissonance and retreat to the safety of their quantum thoughts.

This is exactly backwards. The moment when you realize your thoughts don't cohere is the moment you should lean in. It's not a sign of failure – it's a step towards real success in your thinking process.

Writing down your complete thinking about a complex topic should change your mind at least once during the process. If it doesn't, you're probably doing it wrong.

How could you possibly know the optimal way to collapse your quantum thought-blob before you've actually gone through the process of trying?

You are allowed to try multiple versions from the same raw inputs. Each attempt at linearization reveals new connections, exposes hidden contradictions, and forces you to engage with the messy reality of your own reasoning.

The implications of this go beyond just "write more." Our confidence in our own thoughts should match our ability to linearize them. The harder it is to write something down clearly, the less we should trust our blob-level understanding of it.

This matters deeply in our current economy, where most value creation comes from making good decisions with limited information. We can't afford to operate on vibes alone.

The next time you feel confident about something, try to write it down. Not as bullet points or fragments, but as a linear sequence of thoughts that someone else could follow. If you can't, you might still be right – but you can't hold confidence you're right.

And in collapse-required decisions, that's the same as being wrong.