companion note to the cost of legibility. these are the more fragmented, less polished thoughts that didn't make it into that post.
illegibility is sometimes a feature, not a bug. the messy desk that only its owner can navigate. the undocumented tribal knowledge that makes a team fast. the informal process that works precisely because nobody has formalized it into a twelve-step procedure.
the urge to make everything legible, to document, standardize, and systematize, comes from good intentions. but the act of making something legible can destroy the thing that made it work. a jazz band doesn't improve by writing down every improvisation. a startup doesn't improve by documenting every decision process.
the skill is knowing which things benefit from legibility (compliance processes, onboarding, disaster recovery) and which things are killed by it (creative work, rapid iteration, trust-based collaboration).
status: early notes. might merge into the blog post or might stay separate. unclear.