The mental model of content today means you publish when you are done. It means you must be perfect, you must be someone of authority to be taken seriously, or at least self aware and disclose that you are not. Unintended errors, incomplete works are looked at negatively and discouraged. What if this was different? What if we published on save? What if we become self aware, vulnerable yet resistent to the world and accepted feedback for when we are wrong or incomplete? What if our primary goal was to learn, not to summarize, analyze, dissect or preach?
What if we were never "done" with a blog post or a book? What if we versioned it and maintained it like we do software? Code is Poetry after all, right?
We would have more insights into the author, a closer connection to their mind. As opposed today, a world of violent words at war with polarizing viewpoints written to take a side. The New York Times ("the authority") wrote a "hit" piece on Bitcoin. Pick your team as you read and hate or love the article. This mental model is passive aggressive at best.
What if when we saw mistakes in the "facts" we read, we submitted changes like we do Pull Requests? What if as authors we were ok with being wrong (unintentionally)? What if we thought of ourselves like editors to our own content and writers that that of which we read? It would be a much better world to learn and communicate in for sure. But no, today we pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to college and be trained by the "smartest", most educated among us who have authority over us so that one day we can be educated and experts in a field too. Only then, at the end of the road, are we complete...until we're not. Even Einstein was wrong at times.
What if we were not judged on the outcome of a single piece of work or performance in a game? What if we were judged on how far we have changed. If "most improved" award winners were the real MVP's. What if we tracked it and the change was just as important as the content itself. If all you ever do is focus on improving yourself vs yesterday, as a society we will thrive. When in reality those who are not the MVP often lose passion because they are not the best.
The mental model today is wrong. I'm far from perfect and certainly not the best in anything. Why must I attempt to be perfect when I speak, write, or publish. Why am I offended when others "correct" me. It should be seen as additional perspective to learn from or ignore.
What if we never stopped thinking of ourselves as students and our creations were malleable to thoughts of others, their views, and their words? Our writings are not carved on cave walls like they used to be. We are in a digital age with technology that facilitates change. Let's change.
You may think website is not professional. The homepage is the content from https://docusaurus.io/ after installing it. I have not gotten around to making it my own...yet. Why wait to publish? Why not allow others to contribute?
The new mental model is distributed, selfless, passionate, and open to change. It can still be negative, but the negativity is aimed at those of us who claim authority, who are not open to feedback, who publish finished and perfect works. Not many articles, books, or words stand the test of time. Why must we claim to be right, like its a truth that spans eternity? It is clear our views change over long periods of time, but in the short term we are absolute in what we know. It doesn't add up.