Last year (2025), the blog itself went through a kind of evolution or an outward expression of the inward work I’ve been doing as a writer. I upgraded to a paid subscription, claimed a proper domain name, and refreshed the entire look of the site. The old theme had served its purpose, but it was time for something bolder, something that reflected the expanding range of topics I’ve been exploring. The new layout feels more intentional: cleaner navigation, category links in the sidebar, and a structure that makes the blog feel less like a stream and more like a curated archive.

Along with the redesign came a new visual identity. After years of wondering what symbol might best capture the spirit of this project, I finally created an icon for the blog: a reimagining of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (looking like a “big nickel” from the Renaissance) set against the backdrop of a vast universe.

On its face, it’s a nod to my wife, who affectionately calls me a “renaissance man.” But the imagery carries deeper resonance. The Vitruvian Man has long represented the proportions, possibilities, and inherent dignity of the human person. Placed within the cosmos, he becomes something more: a reminder of our smallness and our significance, a single life suspended in the immense architecture of creation. His unclothed form quietly gestures toward naturism as well, echoing themes I’ve written about before—honesty, vulnerability, and the simplicity of being unadorned before the world.

And then there is the universe behind him: a symbol of exploration and wonder. A reminder that every inquiry whether it be philosophical, theological, psychological, or ethical, it is part of a much larger journey. The cosmos doesn’t merely dwarf us; it invites us. It suggests that everything is open for discovery, and that understanding our finitude is the first step toward wisdom.

So the new icon has become more than branding. It’s a compass for the blog itself: the human person, fully embodied, set within a universe brimming with mystery, meaning, and possibility… and yes, occasionally shaped like a big nickel. 😉

Building Structure: Patterns

This year I also began creating reusable patterns—WordPress’s term for modular web parts that can be dropped into any post. These became an essential tool for managing my series-based writing. Instead of manually rebuilding navigation sections for every new entry, I now use these custom web parts to guide readers to the other posts in a given series.

Designing them turned out to be more challenging than I expected. WordPress doesn’t always behave predictably, and getting these patterns to display cleanly—without stray padding, odd spacing, or alignment drifting off like a misbehaving compass—required more trial and error than I care to admit. At one point, I resorted to building a stripped-down table just to force the elements into the arrangement I wanted, even though tables come with their own limitations.

But once the patterns finally worked, they changed everything. Now each new post in a series automatically fits into a coherent ecosystem of related pieces. It saves me time, keeps readers oriented, and makes the whole blog feel more connected and intentional—less like scattered islands of thought and more like a mapped archipelago.

Here are two examples of the patterns I built (and occasionally battled):

Related Posts for Influence & Control Meta-Framework

Explore my series exploring the psychological tools, logical distortions, and social mechanisms that shape how influence and undue control operate.

Posts | References

Second one:

Follow my ongoing journey through the philosophy of mind and body—including the mysteries of consciousness—by exploring the related articles linked below. You’ll also find a complete reference list for further reading.

Articles | References

On Bold Text, Readability, and the AI Paradox

Another quiet shift in my writing this year has been the way I use bold text. What started as a small experiment prompted, ironically, by AI suggestions. It has becoming a recurring part of my formatting. Making certain words or phrases bold isn’t merely aesthetic; it’s part of a communication strategy. Bold text draws the reader’s eye, signaling emphasis. It quietly says, “Pay attention this is the hinge the paragraph turns on.”

Most people don’t read blog posts linearly. They skim. They scroll. They hunt for what stands out. Strategically bolded phrases act like guideposts for these readers, helping them grasp the central ideas even if they’re not reading every sentence with monastic devotion.

AI tools have encouraged this, nudging me toward more accessible formatting. But that creates a strange tension. Some writing purists warn against using bold too liberally because it may make the prose look “too AI-generated” a somewhat absurd criticism when one uses AI primarily for copyediting. The logic seems to be: if you format your writing in a way AI recommends, people will assume the AI wrote the whole thing.

That’s an unfortunate paradox. We’re told to improve readability, yet warned that doing so will mark the work as artificial. But ultimately, good communication wins. If a reader can better grasp a complex idea because I chose to bold a phrase, that’s a victory, not a sign of capitulation to the machines. And if someone assumes that clarity equals AI? Well… that says more about the discourse than the formatting.

In the end, bold text has become another tool in the kit—one I’ll keep refining as I continue learning how to balance craft, clarity, and the evolving expectations of digital readers.

Substack, Visibility, and the Creative Tension of Not-Chasing Followers

This year I also began sharing my work on Substack but not as a departure from WordPress, but as an extension of the conversation. I already had an account there because I was commenting on writers I follow, and eventually it felt natural to post links back to my own articles, along with the occasional meme or infographic worth resurfacing. I wasn’t trying to create more work for myself; the goal was simply to make it easier for people to discover what I’m already writing. Maybe hidden in plain sight?

My approach hasn’t changed: I’m still not writing with follower counts in mind. I’m not going to limit myself to a single topic, or trim my posts down to bite-sized content just because that’s the trend. Wisdom, in any real sense, requires more than a scroll. I read widely all sorts of books, studies, history, theology, and I try to synthesize ideas in ways that feel honest, unique, or at least genuinely exploratory. Substack became another place to share that work, especially since the platform offers social features and community interactions that WordPress lacks.

But stepping onto Substack introduced an unexpected tension. I’m not writing to chase an audience… and yet Substack exists precisely to help people find your work. It is a visibility tool. It nudges your words into circulation. And part of me still likes the idea that readers should have to search a little for the treasure. People who find my writing are the ones willing to dig.

So yes, there’s a creative tension here: wanting to remain free from the gravitational pull of follower-seeking while simultaneously placing the work where people can encounter it. It’s a balance I’m still navigating, somewhere between quiet craftsmanship and the gentle desire to be heard.

Pop Culture Breadcrumbs in Serious Posts

When I was a kid, I was the one who dove into cereal boxes not for the breakfast, but for the prize buried inside. I’d even beg for cereals I didn’t like if the box promised a toy, I know it was irresistible, and honestly brilliant marketing. That small thrill of discovering something hidden stayed with me. Maybe that’s why, in my blog, I almost always leave a little surprise tucked into the writing an Easter egg for anyone willing to look. It’s my grown-up version of those cereal-box treasures: a playful reward for curious readers who enjoy the hunt as much as I always did.

Nearly every blog post hides a small nod to science fiction or pop culture which is sometimes obvious to those who share my fandoms, sometimes subtle enough that only a few readers will catch them. They’re woven into metaphors, phrasing, tone, or the occasional sly aside.

For those paying attention, you can probably tell which stories and universes shaped me by the references I keep returning to. They range from classic sci-fi to more modern cult favorites, sprinkled throughout essays on theology, psychology, sexuality, governance, or philosophy. I like the playfulness of embedding something familiar inside something thoughtful. They are like codes hidden in plain sight for the people who know to look.

And yes, even this post isn’t immune; there’s a quiet nod to that particular animated series involving a certain robot with a talent for irreverent commentary. 😉 I enjoy the layering the serious ideas paired with small, almost invisible winks to the influences that helped shape my imagination.

In the end, Easter eggs have become part of the blog’s personality. They reward attentive reading, add levity without breaking tone, and let me honor the stories that helped me think, dream, and question long before I ever started writing publicly. It is like getting a little something extra, always welcome.

Revisiting Old Posts

This year I also revisited some of my older posts—initially just to clean up grammar or fix formatting quirks. But as I reread them, I realized something else: parts of my earlier writing didn’t flow as smoothly as I remembered. The ideas were solid, but the transitions felt abrupt, almost as if each paragraph lived in its own little world. And in a way, that’s exactly how they were written.

My process has always involved outlining, then writing in sections—building the essay piece by piece rather than drafting it straight through. It’s efficient, but it also creates friction at the seams. The architecture is sound; the hallways connecting the rooms are sometimes missing. I had assumed AI copyediting would catch these rough edges, but it rarely does. Grammar, clarity, concision? Yes. Narrative cohesion? Not as much.

So part of my growth this year is recognizing that transitions are a craft in themselves—something I need to experiment with intentionally. Maybe I need to explicitly ask AI to focus on them, or maybe I simply need to rethink my drafting process. Either way, the solution isn’t discouraging; it’s formative. Writing, after all, is iterative work. And sometimes the lessons we learn most clearly come from reading ourselves more honestly than we did the first time.

Putting My Own Thinking on Trial

One of the more humbling experiments I ran this year involved setting up a dedicated ChatGPT project focused on cognitive biases, fallacies, and weak reasoning. I loaded it with documents, transcripts, and a few of my own posts, then asked it to review my writing for anything I might be missing such as blind spots, logical gaps, implicit assumptions, or places where a bias might be quietly steering the argument. Let me tell you that it is not an emotionally gentle experience.

Having an AI calmly point out every possible flaw in your reasoning can make you feel like an intellectual child wobbling around in oversized shoes. It highlights things you thought you articulated clearly, only to show you where the connections weren’t as tight as you imagined. It points out places where you might be overconfident, under-evidenced, or simply unclear. It’s rough on the ego and yet surprisingly good for the craft.

And the perspective shifts once you use the same tool to analyze other posts, articles, or essays. You quickly realize: it finds issues everywhere. No one escapes unscathed. Every argument has a soft underbelly, every claim an assumption hiding beneath it. Oddly enough, that takes the sting out of it. If everyone has room to tighten their logic, then being critiqued isn’t a sign of deficiency it is just part of the process of thinking responsibly.

In the end, I’ve come to appreciate this kind of scrutiny. Good writing, especially on serious topics, deserves strong reasoning and not the hand-wavey, “close enough” logic that sometimes slips through when we’re not paying attention. If this project makes my arguments sharper, my thinking clearer, and my blind spots a little smaller, then a bruised ego is a small price to pay.

Reading With an AI Companion

Another new practice this year was using AI as a reading companion while working through books and articles I later cited in my writing. I experimented with Copilot by telling it exactly what I was reading, what chapter I was on, and—most importantly—what question I would ask the author if I had them in front of me. That habit goes back to a critical reading class I took in college, where we were taught to interrogate a text by writing questions in the margins.

Bringing that method into dialogue with AI was surprisingly helpful. Instead I gave the questions to copilot. Copilot could often clarify concepts, point out tensions in an argument, or help me see where an author was implying more than they stated outright. In many cases, it felt like having a patient tutor walking through the chapter with me, helping unpack the authors meaning or intent.

But the results varied. When I tried the same approach with a less well-known book the accuracy dropped noticeably. Summaries became fuzzy, context slipped, and the tool started guessing in ways that weren’t helpful. It was a good reminder for us all that AI can enhance the reading experience, but it cannot replace the careful work of reading itself. It’s a companion, not an oracle.

So I’ve learned to use AI thoughtfully by leveraging its strengths for clarity and exploration while remembering its limitations. Perfection isn’t the point; insight is. And this year, it gave me plenty of that.

Voice Notes, Transcripts, and a Surprisingly Hybrid Writing Process

On the practical side, my main writing backbone this year has continued to be OneNote. Because it lives on both my phone and laptop, I can get to it anywhere which matters, because most of my best ideas show up when I’m nowhere near a “sit down and write” moment. I’ll often just dictate straight into OneNote when something comes to mind. It also has a built-in transcribe feature for audio files, which fits my habit of prewriting by talking. The catch: it only works if your OneNote is tied to an M365 account (not a personal OneDrive), and there’s a 300-minute monthly transcription cap.

To stretch that further, I also use TurboScribe (https://turboscribe.ai/), which will transcribe up to 15 minutes per file on a free plan, with a limit of three files per day. Between OneNote and TurboScribe, I’ve had more than enough capacity to stay in the free tier while still capturing quite a bit of raw material.

I tend to write whenever ideas arrive, not on a schedule, which means my OneNote has become home to hundreds of fragmentary notes that are future blog posts waiting to happen. Some are just a sentence or two, others are links to articles I plan to read and eventually fold into a broader argument, and some are quotes I tuck away because I know they’ll matter later. It’s huge, messy, and sprawling… but that’s the nature of creative capture. I try to collect what I can when I can. Later, I wander back through the fragments, stitch them together, expand them, or simply let them sit until the right moment or the right question calls them into a full post.

My process looks something like this: first, I dictate whatever I’m thinking while often including meta-comments like “remind me to look up this quote” or “flag this as a possible section break.” Then I feed the audio into one of the transcription tools. Once I have the transcript, I bring it into ChatGPT and ask for a review and a suggested outline. From there, I draft each section of the outline, sometimes by dictation again, sometimes by typing and then have ChatGPT do copyediting on the post one section at a time. If I hand it the whole piece at once, it tends to start mysteriously cutting content, like an overzealous editor with a hidden word-count quota or an editor with a big red pen. I’m not sure why, but the workaround is clear I will keep things modular for now.

It’s an oddly hybrid workflow of voice, fragments, transcripts, AI, revision. However, for now, it’s the one that lets me keep up with ideas as fast as they arrive, and ensures none of those small sparks get lost before they can become something more.

Looking Ahead

As I look toward the coming year, I expect the blog and my process to continue evolving. There will be more refinements, more experimentation with format and tools, and probably a few surprises I can’t yet predict. That’s part of the joy of writing this way: I follow the questions that capture my curiosity, and I let the themes emerge naturally rather than forcing the blog into a narrow lane.

Some posts will grow out of the fragments waiting in OneNote. Others will arrive unannounced, sparked by something I’m reading, watching, or wrestling with personally. And if history is any guide, entirely new topics will surface, threads I didn’t know I wanted to pull until they unravel something worth exploring.

What I can promise is this: the work will continue to grow, sharpen, and unfold. There will be Easter eggs, intellectual adventures, deeper dives, and no shortage of unexpected connections. I’m not writing to chase an audience, but if you choose to walk alongside me as these ideas take shape, I’m grateful.

Here’s to another year of discovery—whatever form it chooses to take.

Excerpt

A year of refinement, experimentation, and unexpected creativity. From redesigning the blog to reworking my writing process, adding Easter eggs, and exploring new tools, this year pushed my craft forward. Next year will bring even more evolution—and whatever new topics decide to surface.