> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://www.isaacbowen.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://www.isaacbowen.com/2024/12/26.md).

# 20241226

Deferring to best practices feels ... dangerous? Or at the very least, inefficient, if you have enough presence of mind to choose otherwise.

I deferred to the room for ages. (I might mean that literally? Can't tell.) I knew that I couldn't know all of the factors that had gone into precedent-cum-practice.

It wasn't until all those deferences drowned me that I dared to do the only thing I hadn't yet: I made a small space of my own, a pocket universe that no one else could see, underneath or behind or something all of the others.

It slowly sprouted connections to what I *began* to recognize as not best practices but neighboring pocket universes.

And now, here we are: alive together, supporting each other.

(This is the story of that-which-became-Lightward-Inc, among other things.)


---

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