the-next-decade

big-questions

3 min read

Big questions

Domain hub for load-bearing life questions that persist past the inbox. Different from thought-inbox (quick captures, processed weekly) and from wiki/synthesis/ (finished analyses). A big question:

  • Persists for months or years.
  • Has multiple incompatible drives pulling on it.
  • Accumulates new information, constraints, and shifts in framing over time.
  • Resolves into a decision, not a page promotion.

Anticipated split (not yet enforced)

Two sub-categories will likely emerge:

  • Practical — where to live, business direction, money allocation, career move.
  • Psychological — recurring inner patterns, identity tensions, unresolved emotional loops.

For now both live in wiki/questions/ and are distinguished by category: frontmatter. Split into separate hubs only when the volume justifies it.

File layout

One page per question at wiki/questions/<slug>.md. Slug = short kebab-case verb-phrase (“leave-delft”, “what-business-to-build”).

Page template

---
type: question
category: practical | psychological
status: open | narrowing | decided
created: YYYY-MM-DD
updated: YYYY-MM-DD
tags: []
---

Sections (in order):

  1. Question — single sentence stating what’s being decided.
  2. Dimensions — the axes the question lives on (people, money, time, values, geography…).
  3. Constraints — hard limits + known unknowns (marked ?).
  4. Options — concrete candidates under consideration. Empty is fine until they emerge.
  5. Current lean — where Denys is pointing today, in one sentence.
  6. Open sub-questions — bullet list. The things that need answering before the main question can be.
  7. Linked hubs — which of the 9 domain hubs this touches.
  8. Decision log — append-only. Dated entries when the framing shifts, an option is killed, or a partial decision is made. Becomes the historical record of how Denys got to wherever he ends up.

Lifecycle

  • open — question raised, framing being built.
  • narrowing — options identified; sub-questions being closed off.
  • decided — a decision was made. Page stays; do not delete. The reasoning is the value.

Workflow

  • When Denys raises something in conversation that’s bigger than an inbox item — multiple dimensions, persistent, not solvable this week — Claude should propose: “this looks like a big question — file as wiki/questions/<slug>.md?” rather than burying it in inbox-YYYY-MM-DD.md.
  • During weekly-review, scan open questions. For each: did anything happen this week that updates dimensions, constraints, options, or lean? If yes, append to its decision log.
  • Cross-link aggressively — a big question almost always touches 2+ hubs.
  • Capture lane for things not big enough: thought-inbox.
  • Surface-level patterns that recur and might be big-questions in disguise: psyche-observation.
  • Anything bumping against golden-rules gets flagged in the question’s decision log.

Open questions (live index)

(One bullet per open page in wiki/questions/. Update when adding/closing.)

  • leave-delft — should we leave Delft? (practical, open, 2026-06-29)

Graph View

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