Volume 6 · The Unfinished Syllabus · Essay 182
Overfunctioning
Overfunctioning is a lens. Nothing in the world changes when you pick it up, but quite a lot becomes visible.
Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.
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.
In every examination hall there are two kinds of silence: the silence of those who prepared, and the silence of those who are preparing excuses. The room can hear the difference.
Learning is the one wealth that survives every partition of fortune. If this page made you think of one specific person, do not send it to them. Apply it to yourself first; that is how these things work.