The best solution is usually hidden three questions deeper than anyone is asking.

Every practitioner faces this:

Wittgenstein: Wanted to show philosophy was mostly confusion. Ended up creating... more philosophy that people debate.

Zen masters: "The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon." But we study their words as if they're the thing itself.

Every practitioner faces this:

Marcus Aurelius: Wrote Meditations as personal practice notes. Never meant for publication. Now it's sold as "Stoic Philosophy."

Every practitioner faces this:

The Buddha: Supposedly said "Don't take my word for it, test it yourself." But then Buddhism became dogma, complete philosophy, metaphysical system.

Dev streamlining:

1. `.venv`: `make bootstrap`, `make shell`, auto-activate (.envrc).
2. Makefile: PYTHON, linters, test targets (`lint`, `type`, `test`, `coverage`)
3. CI: `make check` (lint/type/test)
4. .venv validate: `scripts/which-python.py`, pre-commit
5. Docs: `make shell` or .venv/bin/tool