Volume 2 · The Discipline of Hours · Essay 91

Enshittification

Enshittification is a lens. Nothing in the world changes when you pick it up, but quite a lot becomes visible.

The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.

It is worth keeping in your pocket not because it is always right, but because it is always available. A tool you carry beats a perfect tool you left at home.

A pressure cooker teaches more about time than any seminar: sealed, steady heat does in twenty minutes what an open pot cannot do in an hour. Attention is the lid.

Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. Write it on the wall of the mind, not the wall of the house. The house already has enough instructions.