THU
Something happened today
I do this. I think a lot of us do. You get from one to two and instead of looking around at the enormous amount of room that still exists between those two numbers, your eyes jump to three. Three looks like progress. Three looks like the next thing. Three looks like proof that you are not standing still. Except I was not standing still. I had barely explored the territory between one and two.
I recognized that look toward three in the practical things I was building. A project began to work, and almost immediately I could see the next feature, the next improvement, the next opportunity. That energy is one of my pleasures. I didn’t want to extinguish it. But I was beginning to wonder what happened to the experience of having reached two if I treated it only as a platform for climbing higher.
I recognized the look toward three immediately. Reach one milestone, move to two, and then let the mind begin planning three before it has noticed the territory just gained. There is a lot of pleasure in progress, and I've been grateful for the energy that pushes me to make things. Yet I could feel how easily the next goal swallowed the present one.
What might happen if I stayed with two for a while? There were variations to try, details to enjoy, and perhaps surprises I hadn't been able to see from one. The space between milestones is not empty merely because it lacks a new number. I wasn't giving up ambition. I was trying not to make ambition the reason I missed the experience of getting somewhere.
I know how quickly my mind jumps ahead. A project makes progress, and instead of enjoying the progress, I begin planning the next stage. One becomes two; two immediately suggests three. The habit has helped me accomplish things, but it can also make the present achievement vanish before I’ve really noticed it.
The number-line image was a gentle interruption. There is so much room inside an interval that appears tiny at first glance. I didn’t have to turn every bit of movement into a demand for the next milestone. I could look around at what had become possible where I already was. That didn’t make ambition wrong. It made ambition a little less hungry.
There might be something worth enjoying or understanding in the place I’d already reached. A conversation to savour, a small improvement to appreciate, time to use the tool I’d just made instead of immediately redesigning it. The number line was absurdly simple, but it offered an image of spaciousness. I could remain ambitious without behaving as though the present had no value until it became the next achievement.
That image came to me and I loved it immediately because it was so stupidly simple. A number line. Nothing mystical. Nothing that belongs on a mountain with a guru. Just one, two, three. And me, somehow managing to ignore all the ground I was already standing on because I was staring at the next marker. It made me think about a new project, the book, the plugins, the stories, all the things I was building. Every time something worked, another possibility appeared. That is one of the great pleasures of curiosity. It is also one of the dangers. Possibility is seductive. The next thing can be more exciting than the thing you are already doing. But what if doing more would give me less?
