Curiosity Rooms
Hi, I am Nitish Chauhan. This is my public thinking library.
Start anywhere
This is not a book. It is a set of rooms. Open one door, wander, leave.
Library vs Labs
Library = process, questions, trails.
Labs = finished products and demos.
The missing ingredient was permission
I had a problem. I already knew the friction. I already knew what kind of experience I wanted. What I did not have was a mental model that allowed a certain class of solution to exist.
Then, while poking around Raycast, one detail clicked: extensions are basically mini-apps. Same software on the desk. Completely different map of what it can host.
The moment the model shifted from “Raycast launches things” to “Raycast can host things I create,” a constraint disappeared. The idea surfaced almost immediately. Not because I suddenly learned twenty new facts. Because I finally had permission to search in that part of the possibility space.
Permission, not knowledge
Sometimes the bottleneck is not competence. It is an invisible "Road Closed" sign in your model of what tools can do. Remove one assumption, and an entire neighborhood of ideas becomes walkable.
What this episode is really about
Not “Nitish Chauhan discovered Raycast and had a cool app idea.” That flattens it.
One afternoon produced several stories wearing the same clothes:
| Lens | What shifted |
|---|---|
| Permission | The solution was blocked by what I thought was possible |
| Constraint removal | Removing a restriction unlocked capacity I already had |
| Regenerative thinking | One abstraction generated a family of new questions |
| Launchpad | The tool is temporary. The expanded action space remains |
| Problem-first learning | Notice friction first. Learn implementation as needed |
Regenerative, not accumulative
A shortcut is useful once. An abstraction like “a host app can become a platform” keeps generating. That is the difference between storing information and creating it.
A museum-guide way to use this library
Treat every room the way that Raycast moment treated software: not as a destination to master, but as a launchpad.
- Notice a friction or a spark.
- Ask what assumption is fencing off the solution space.
- Follow the trail into a room. Leave when the energy drops.
- Prefer notes that regenerate questions over notes that only store answers.
If you want the concrete write-up of this arc (permission slips, affordances, AI as a permission engine, why branching thoughts hate premature conclusions), start here:
Final: The missing ingredient was permission
Still on the wall, and still worth walking:
Mental Models Reality Engine
A calm place to feel the gap between linear intuition and statistical reality. Ten models, one flip: what your brain expects, then what the math says.
Continue exploring: the rooms
Reading code
Final = best current take · Trajectory = how it evolved · Index = raw capture
10 rooms
| # | Room | What you will find |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Body already thinking | Movement, anticipation, embodied cognition |
| 02 | Mind fills up fast | Working memory, overload, mental friction |
| 03 | Systems grow quietly | Compounding, learning systems, capability |
| 04 | Knowledge at a glance | Visual maps, compression, retrieval |
| 05 | Thought becomes speech | Fluency, latency, finding words |
| 06 | Tools beside me | AI, software, cognitive tools |
| 07 | Rooms for ideas | Products, UI, thinking spaces |
| 08 | Ideas find people | Funnels, content, outreach |
| 09 | What holds a life | Resilience, identity, daily systems |
| 10 | Behind the scenes | How notes are sorted and published |
60-second path (if you want one)
- Permission note (today’s door)
- What if the body is already thinking
- Why does the mind fill up so fast
Then ignore the path and open whatever room pulls harder.
Nothing here is fixed forever. Ideas evolve, notes grow, connections appear.
Curiosity is the only recommended reading order.