No Problem

The invention of the Spinning Jenny was no problem at all, as long as spinning wasn’t your job.

The creation of Lotus 1-2-3 was nothing to worry about so long as you hadn’t been knocking out “What If?” scenarios for the Financial Director all day.

The Kodak camera was a marvel of innovation unless you’d spent twenty years perfecting your skills as a portrait painter.

Word processors were a wonderful productivity tool provided you weren’t one of the typing pool making a decent living from your 80 words per minute.

ATMs were incredibly convenient as long as you weren’t a bank teller who knew every regular customer by name.

GPS navigation was brilliantly efficient so long as you weren’t a London cabbie who’d spent three years memorising 25,000 streets for The Knowledge.

Self-checkout is progress as long as you aren’t the cashier who can scan a full trolley in under three minutes.

Industrial robots increase productivity, unless you are the factory worker who’d mastered that assembly line over two decades.

AI-generated art is fascinating technology, provided you aren’t the illustrator who’d spent years honing your craft.

Don’t forget to read my How To Beat ChatGPT

How to Beat ChatGPTwww.amazon.co.uk/How-Beat-…

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Sometimes

Less is more; slow is fast; subtraction allows addition; the obstacle is the way; as you teach, boy do you learn; wisdom gained is humility realised; one must serve in order to lead; let go to hold on.

Once Upon A Time

Books must have appeared to be magic. To open one and plunge into a story of a detective tracking down a ruthless killer through fog-shrouded London streets. To open one and learn how a garden works; the secret language between roots and soil, the patience of seeds.

Now, for many, a book feels too hard. The entry effort seems greater than-for example-the effort of scrolling through Instagram. But as any such scroller will reveal in their more honest moments, there’s little pleasure in that endless scroll. It’s simply the temporary calming of a fix; a scratch that never quite reaches the itch.

Starting a new book is like preparing a meal from nothing or lacing up your boots at the trailhead. There’s a threshold to cross, an initial resistance to overcome. Your mind must shift gears. You must settle in, commit, allow the first pages (or finely chopped onion or scrambling of the first incline) to do their work of pulling you from this world into another.

But it’s worth it for the pleasure that follows.

Because unlike the scattered dopamine hits of social media, a book offers something richer: sustained attention rewarded with depth. The satisfaction of watching a plot unfold across hours, not seconds. The joy of understanding something new by the final chapter. The strange intimacy of spending time inside another consciousness, whether that’s a fictional character or the mind of someone teaching you their craft.

A book demands, no doubt. But in return, it more than repays.

Go read a book.

Good Circles; Poor Circles

Good circles build helpful behaviours. Keep the circle going. Early-coffee-writing-walk to bus etc. Poor circles stop you reaching goals. Break the circle. No ideas-no writing-fed up etc.

Choose your circle.