I went back and reviewed a full year of my own writing, and what I found was surprisingly interesting.
I realized that my interests are broader than structural engineering itself.
A lot of what I write about comes back to the same questions:
How do engineers think and make decisions when reality becomes complicated?
How do systems, incentives, pressure, uncertainty, and human behavior shape the outcomes of our projects?
And what lies beneath the problem we can actually see?
Whether I’m talking about FEM, structural behavior, codes, project delays, clients, communication, leadership, or organizational culture, I seem to keep coming back to the same ideas:
**Engineering judgment matters as much as calculation.**
**The visible problem is not always the real problem.**
**Pressure reveals our priorities.**
**Systems often shape behavior more than individuals do.**
And **good decisions require understanding the bigger picture, not just optimizing one part of it.**
Perhaps the common thread in all of this is simple:
**I’m interested in what lies beneath engineering decisions — structural behavior, human behavior, system behavior, and the decisions that connect them.**
Thanks for the inspiration. It was a surprisingly useful exercise.
Heya @mogtaba eldirdieri! I’m so glad to hear this exercise was helpful for you. Thanks for sharing your process and what you discovered. It’s good to know that this article resonated well and that others may find it useful too.
I particularly liked these three statements you made:
The visible problem is not always the real problem.
Pressure reveals our priorities.
Systems often shape behaviour more than individuals do.
Powerful phrases. I’m going to keep these in my notes app as prompts for myself in future. They’re excellent. Seems like you’ve got the heart and soul of a writer or poet in you too!
Btw, I took on board your recent suggestions about how you’d like to see and use TEE. Amongst other things, I’ve spent time improving the email client experience and officially launched Chat. Hope you find these improvements valuable! Let me know if I can improve anything else. Regarding the publication schedule, I’ve got an interesting idea that I think you’ll like. More on that soon.
First of all, thank you! I’m glad to hear that I have that spirit in me. 😄 I’ve always considered myself a reader, but I’ve never really seen myself as a writer!
Honestly, the email and Chat experience are both great additions, and I’m really enjoying them—especially the emails. It’s much easier now to find your important articles in the right place without having to jump around and get distracted here and there.
And I’m definitely looking forward to hearing your ideas about the publication schedule. I’m excited to see what you have in mind!
This actually inspired me to do the same.
I went back and reviewed a full year of my own writing, and what I found was surprisingly interesting.
I realized that my interests are broader than structural engineering itself.
A lot of what I write about comes back to the same questions:
How do engineers think and make decisions when reality becomes complicated?
How do systems, incentives, pressure, uncertainty, and human behavior shape the outcomes of our projects?
And what lies beneath the problem we can actually see?
Whether I’m talking about FEM, structural behavior, codes, project delays, clients, communication, leadership, or organizational culture, I seem to keep coming back to the same ideas:
**Engineering judgment matters as much as calculation.**
**The visible problem is not always the real problem.**
**Pressure reveals our priorities.**
**Systems often shape behavior more than individuals do.**
And **good decisions require understanding the bigger picture, not just optimizing one part of it.**
Perhaps the common thread in all of this is simple:
**I’m interested in what lies beneath engineering decisions — structural behavior, human behavior, system behavior, and the decisions that connect them.**
Thanks for the inspiration. It was a surprisingly useful exercise.
Heya @mogtaba eldirdieri! I’m so glad to hear this exercise was helpful for you. Thanks for sharing your process and what you discovered. It’s good to know that this article resonated well and that others may find it useful too.
I particularly liked these three statements you made:
The visible problem is not always the real problem.
Pressure reveals our priorities.
Systems often shape behaviour more than individuals do.
Powerful phrases. I’m going to keep these in my notes app as prompts for myself in future. They’re excellent. Seems like you’ve got the heart and soul of a writer or poet in you too!
Btw, I took on board your recent suggestions about how you’d like to see and use TEE. Amongst other things, I’ve spent time improving the email client experience and officially launched Chat. Hope you find these improvements valuable! Let me know if I can improve anything else. Regarding the publication schedule, I’ve got an interesting idea that I think you’ll like. More on that soon.
First of all, thank you! I’m glad to hear that I have that spirit in me. 😄 I’ve always considered myself a reader, but I’ve never really seen myself as a writer!
Honestly, the email and Chat experience are both great additions, and I’m really enjoying them—especially the emails. It’s much easier now to find your important articles in the right place without having to jump around and get distracted here and there.
And I’m definitely looking forward to hearing your ideas about the publication schedule. I’m excited to see what you have in mind!
Wishing you all the best, as always!