"The drink you drown your troubles in is the trouble you’re in now"

Welcome to the third issue of the Mostly Invisible newsletter. This is a monthly email to share some timely thoughts and what I've worked on in the last month. I do hope that you enjoy it.

I’m a few months into the Year of Small Bets. I took some time this month to review the risks I’ve taken so far and what adjustments I need to make. I’m pleased with how the theme is playing out overall; there are even some places where I haven’t risked enough.

After decades of wanting to launch a personal website, I’ve finally done it! True to its experimental nature, Mostly Invisible is a “site about nothing”. There is even some original photography. I believe I am living up to the spirit of the bet when it comes to sharing my work publicly.

However, every post I’ve published on the site, while thoughtful and sincere, isn’t quite what I hoped it would be when I set out to write it. Don’t get me wrong - I’m proud of the ideas and arguments within the writing, I’m just not happy with the expression, the writing itself.

This isn’t necessarily a problem of quality; I’m not comparing myself to other (better) writers and feeling inadequate. Songwriter Danny Schmidt has a lyric about “the shape inside your head that you can’t carve with your hands”. I am struggling to create writing that represents the “shape” in my head.

Information designer Edward Tufte wrote a book about presentations with the statement, “Pitching out corrupts within”. His idea is that, when sharing publicly, presenters tend to paint the rosiest possible picture of their work. This often leads to harmful over-claiming and a less personal, more transactional relationship with others. An interesting antidote is to actively practice “anti-marketing”: to make a point of focusing publicly on the least rosy parts of one’s projects; what’s confusing, what’s frustrating, what’s not working.

I hope that these interesting challenges become a positive thing: fodder for public conversation, not something to be swept under the rug. At least most of the time, I’m trying to focus on my biggest challenges, rather than what’s going well. I suspect this also builds a deeper, more authentic relationship with my audience.

The pieces of writing I have been the happiest with are the two newsletters issues I have written this year - to you! They feel the most like “me”. There is a germ of a lesson there, I believe, that points to being more personal, more honest, and perhaps, more relaxed as I write. When I write these newsletters, I feel like I’m writing a friend with a few of my thoughts. Writing a post feels like more; it’s heavier, like there’s more at stake. How can I create the friendlier mental space in all my writing?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of talking into the void of the Internet. I am realizing it still requires a mental connection to communicate well - even digitally. Thanks for reading ❤️.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this month, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. The map is not the territory, Mostly Invisible. In a world where AI can generate "hallucinations" that look like facts, we are losing the distinction between knowledge and opinion.

2. The surveyor's guide to reality, Mostly Invisible. How do we personally "know" what is true as we move through the world?

3. From error to ignorance, Mostly Invisible. Our current discourse is stuck in "Error" - the state of holding a wrong opinion without knowing it. We need to return to "Ignorance".

Low cloud over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Facing east on Three Ridges Mountain, near Wintergreen, Virginia, on April 25, 2026.

Best,

BK