One Of Us Is Focused

Yesterday an agent did four hours of my work in six minutes, and I spent those six minutes checking three apps in rotation.

That’s the whole situation. Both halves of it.

I used to be able to grind. Four hours on one thing, head down, door closed, the full monk act. I was proud of it the way people are proud of being able to parallel park. Somewhere in the last couple of years the ability left. Quietly. The way flexibility leaves. No goodbye, just one day you bend down and the hamstrings say no.

I handled it maturely, by which I mean I developed a rotation. Same three apps, round and round, like a security guard doing rounds. Nothing is ever new in any of them. I check again anyway. You never know.

For a while I was ashamed about all this. I read the articles. I tried the routines. I tried meditating and sat there watching my brain check imaginary apps.

Then I noticed the thing that saved me. Or the thing that flatters me. Still deciding which.

The grinding was never the valuable part. It just looked valuable because it hurt.

The long linear push is machine work. It was always machine work. The machines were just late. I spent years training myself to do an impression of software, and now real software exists, and my impression is worthless. Nobody mourns the person who was really good at long division.

The agent doesn’t need the monk act. It doesn’t need the door closed. It doesn’t need snacks, or a little walk, or to be told it’s doing great. It just goes. Watching it work is like watching a dishwasher, if the dishwasher were better at your job.

But something is still required of me, and this is the part I keep flunking.

The leftover work is small and sharp. Know what I want before I ask. Ask clearly. Then the hard one: look at what comes back and actually see it. Not skim it. See it. Catch the error in the third paragraph. Notice it’s mediocre, which is harder than noticing it’s wrong, because mediocre shows up wearing done’s clothes.

None of that needs four hours. It needs about twenty clear minutes with an actual mind behind the eyes.

Twenty minutes. That’s the new four hours. The exchange rate is humiliating for the old currency.

And here’s the confession: I don’t reliably have the twenty minutes. The same noise that killed the grinding is coming for the seeing. If I let it, I become a button-pusher. The machines do the labor, the feed does the thinking, and I’m the moist bit in the middle clicking accept. A warm approval mechanism. My one remaining edge over the machines is knowing what I want, and some days that edge is extremely thin.

So I’m practicing something new, badly. Not concentration. More like clarity on demand. Close everything, hold one question, actually look. A smaller skill than the old one and somehow harder, the way balancing is harder than pushing.

Some days it’s there. Twenty clear minutes that buy what four hours used to.

Some days I spend the twenty minutes deciding which twenty minutes to use.

I’d tell you I’m getting better, but the agent wrote three drafts of this post while I checked my phone.

One of us is focused.