Volume 4 · The Ledger and the Loom · Essay 238

Shiny Idea Syndrome

A syndrome is a pattern with a medical air about it. Shiny Idea Syndrome needs no doctor, only a mirror.

The syndrome feeds on a simple confusion: mistaking motion for progress, or intensity for importance. Once the confusion sets in, everything feels urgent and nothing gets finished.

The vegetable vendor with a tin box knows what the salaried man with three apps forgets: count the cash at the end of the day, every day, without drama.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. Keep it like a good key: accessible, unlabelled, and used often.