Working Notes
Observations, essays, fragments, and ongoing arguments about culture, creativity, systems, philosophy, and modern attention.
Published irregularly on Play-Doh's Republic. Reposted here when something earns it.
Featured essays.
The Man in the Jar What a Greek philosopher in a clay pot understood about brand strategy.
The Strategy of Play Schiller, safe danger, and work that refuses to be ignored.
In Defense of the Unfinished Simone de Beauvoir and the hard work of staying incomplete.
“The Man in the Jar” — May 19, 2026
“The Strategy of Play” — May 5, 2026
“Part 3 of 3 — The Sovereignty of Taste” — April 19, 2026
“Part 2 of 3 — Kodawari and the Resistance” — March 29, 2026
“Part 1 of 3 — The Consensus Machine” — March 15, 2026
“Am I a Creative Dreaming of Being a Machine?” — March 1, 2026
“Experience Is a Weapon: Bad Bunny, MAGA, and the Architecture of Attention” — February 15, 2026
“In Defense of the Unfinished” — February 1, 2026
“My Precious” — January 18, 2026
“One Must Imagine the Brand Strategist Happy” — January 4, 2026
“The Small Gods Return: When Sanctuary Becomes Fortress” — December 23, 2025
“Ibn Khaldun and the End of Cohesion” — December 9, 2025
“Wittgenstein’s Language Games: When Brands Stop Saying and Start Showing” — November 30, 2025
“Epicurus and the Ethics of Enough” — November 23, 2025
“bell hooks and the Practice of Love” — November 16, 2025
“The Work of Being Unfinished” — November 9, 2025
“Marcus Aurelius and the Art of Premeditated Failure” — November 2, 2025
“Arendt and the Trouble With Being Good at Your Job” — October 26, 2025
“Derrida and the Shape of Meaning” — October 19, 2025
“Hume and the Art of Uncertainty” — October 12, 2025
“Weil’s Attention Revolution” — October 5, 2025
“Machiavelli’s Brand Prince” — September 27, 2025
“Marketing Has Forgotten How to Think” — September 26, 2025Marginalia
Certainty is easier to sell than judgment.
Most strategy mistakes are fear management systems wearing better suits.
The brief is rarely the brief. The brief is the brand's most flattering self-portrait.
Bad strategy is a slide deck looking for a problem to legitimize.
Inputs aren't strategy. Strategy is the judgment call about what matters and what to do about it.
A category becomes visible the moment its visual language becomes parody-able.
Most "disruption" is the same coin with a shinier stamp.
The market rewards familiarity while claiming to reward originality.
Efficiency is usually downstream of creative exhaustion.
Disagreement is a service. Most strategists provide a different one.