Tom
e25b2c05d1
Theory revised and narrowed to what the evidence supports; renamed The
Relevance Theory. Project split into two books and six essays, with the
three-tier relevance model promoted to the flagship.
- EVIDENCE.md claims sorted into four tiers, governs what may be claimed
- CRAFT.md lyric/landscape register, governs how it may be said
- PORTFOLIO.md the two-book plus six-essay split, and what was cut
- BOOK_ONE_CHAPTERS.md walk spine on the Stezka Ceskou Kanadou,
beats for all 14 units, argument ledger
- FIELD_BRIEF.md what to capture on the trail
- drafts/ prologue, ch 3, ch 5 (register tests, specifics are placeholders)
- archive/ original theory and outline, unchanged
Cut: the foreign-policy argument, the weight-loss protocol, the diagnostic
scoring, the I/me labels, the seasonal network mapping (demoted to metaphor
in Book Two).
4.4 KiB
Seasonal Intelligence — project overview
Restructured July 2026. What was one fourteen-chapter book is now two books and six essays, with every claim sorted by how much evidence it can carry.
What changed, and why
The original project bundled four books that shared a theory but not a reader: a media critique, a seasonal-living book, a leadership manual, and a nature/health book. It also had its priorities inverted — the three-tier relevance model is the original idea here, and it sat at chapter 3 of 14, while the seasonal frame, the least-evidenced part and the most crowded shelf in the category, got the title and the spine.
The restructure does three things:
- Promotes the relevance model to its own book and gives it the full argument.
- Reframes the seasonal material as cultural history plus practical design rather than neuroscience — because the neuroscience isn't there, and the design argument doesn't need it.
- Sorts every claim into evidence tiers that govern the voice each chapter may be written in.
Files
Start here
PORTFOLIO.md— the split: two books, six essays, what was cut and why, and the sequence to work in.EVIDENCE.md— every load-bearing claim sorted into four tiers, with sources. This file governs what register each chapter can be written in. It also identifies an internal contradiction in the original theory that has to be resolved before drafting.
The books
BOOK_ONE_CHAPTERS.md— A Day's Walk, chapter by chapter. The drafting document. The eight-day walk spine, opening scene and numbered argument beats for all 14 units, and the argument ledger tracking every claim from where it's raised to where it's paid off.CRAFT.md— how the book is written: lyric/landscape register, scene-before-claim, the recurring objects, and the rule that keeps Part IV from turning into self-help. Governs voice the wayEVIDENCE.mdgoverns claims.BOOK_ONE_OUTLINE.md— the strategic rationale behind Book One's shape. Superseded byBOOK_ONE_CHAPTERS.mdfor drafting.BOOK_TWO_OUTLINE.md— Seasonal Intelligence. 10 chapters, reframed as design rather than brain states. Chapter beats to come once Book One's voice is settled.
The theory
THEORY.md— revised and renamed The Relevance Theory. Narrowed to what the evidence supports, with the cut material and the reasons listed at the end.
Doing the walk
FIELD_BRIEF.md— what each chapter needs from the ground, the nightly capture protocol, the chapter-6 phone protocol, what not to do on the trail, and a map-verification checklist. Carry this.drafts/— prologue, chapter 3, chapter 5. Register tests; the specifics are placeholders.
Archive
archive/THEORY_v1.mdandarchive/BOOK_OUTLINE_v1.md— the originals, unchanged. Nothing has been lost; check here before assuming something was deleted.
The four evidence tiers
| Tier | Meaning | How to write it |
|---|---|---|
| A | Well-supported, multiple sources | State it, cite it, move on |
| B | Contested — real dispute in the literature | Present both sides in the text |
| C | Plausible, untested — your hypothesis | Mark as hypothesis, in the text, every time |
| D | Speculative or personal | Memoir or metaphor; cannot carry an argument |
The failure mode this whole restructure exists to prevent is a Tier C chapter written in a Tier A voice. Most of Part II of Book One — the original contribution — is Tier C. Saying so plainly is what makes the rest believable.
Status
- Theory: revised, narrowed, evidence-checked
- Book One: outlined, unwritten
- Book Two: outlined, unwritten, needs a year of case-study collection first
- Essays: outlined, unwritten
- Manuscript: still zero words — and this is now the only thing that matters
Next step
Write essay 1, "Stress Hunger," this weekend. Roughly 2,000 words on being ravenous after a day at a desk and barely hungry after four days walking. It's the shortest distance between you and a finished piece, it's pure voice, and it's the lowest-stakes way to find out how you write at length.
Everything in these files is a guess until there are sentences. The outline will be rearranged by the drafting regardless — that's what drafting is for. The only irreversible mistake available right now is spending another twelve months on structure.