The gap between what we mean and what happens

There is a funny thing that happens when we try to explain a complex idea.

In our heads, it feels complete. We can “see” the moving parts, the interactions, the happy path. But the moment we try to put it into words, pieces go missing. We lean on shared assumptions. We wave our hands. We say “you know what I mean,” and most of the time, our friends do.

The systems we build—software, protocols, processes—don’t work on “you know what I mean.” They work on absolute, unforgiving literalism. They do exactly what they’re allowed to do, not what we hoped they would do.

This creates a gap: between what we think we designed and what actually happens.

A lot of our apparent “clarity” is just intuition filling in the blanks. When we design based on intuition alone, we’re not really designing; we’re guessing. We assume we know how all the cases behave—especially the rare ones—until reality proves us wrong.

This book explores a way to bridge that gap.

It isn’t about learning a difficult new programming language or following a rigid bureaucratic process. It’s about the simple habit of writing down how a system is allowed to behave—step by step, over time—with enough precision that we can’t fool ourselves.

It’s a practice of humility. It forces us to slow down and treat “I understand this” not as a feeling, but as a claim that has to survive being written down and pushed on from every angle. When it does, the answer is a quiet, confident “Yes.”