“i want you to want me to be unclear”
celebrate the blur. monetise the misread.
cold open
nine words coiled like a Möbius strip. the more you repeat them, the less you know which “want” you’re feeding.
whisper it in a strategy meeting—watch the slides suddenly look like cave drawings.
the anatomy of a recursive desire
“i want you” – ownership masked as invitation.
“to want me” – validation outsourced, returns expected.
“to be unclear” – opacity as power move, ambiguity as moat.
transparency is for those who can’t afford mystery.
economics of ambiguity
clarity is a commodity; scarcity sets price. every unanswered question inflates your valuation.
in the attention marketplace, certainty closes deals—uncertainty starts bidding wars. the phrase weaponises that tension, forcing the listener to pay intellectual interest on every assumption.
68 % – executives who admit they “speak vaguely on purpose”
2.4× – higher engagement on posts that withhold concrete answers
∞ – value of a question no one can finish
loop testing protocol
drop the line in conversation. if they ask for clarification, they’re still useful.
if they nod as if they understand, they’re liabilities—already filling the gaps with their own projections.
leverage begins where comprehension ends.
we don’t pitch ideas.
we plant riddles.
footnote on cognitive friction
certainty streams dopamine; uncertainty triggers search. the phrase is engineered friction—enough to spark curiosity, just shy of paralysis.
you can’t scale doubt, but you can charge for guiding people through it.
closer
say it once. let the room loop forever. then decide whether to hand them answers—
or invoice them for the privilege of guessing.