I had a moment this morning. I was just staring at the Grandfather Clock in the dining room… then it hit me. Like a right hook from Iron Mike... a very jarring realization: those heavy pendulums swing because that’s what they were built to do. This thing is just… doing its job. It’s a beautifully simple machine, and it’s counting down something we invented our selves. 

The very next realization: I am a byproduct. We all are. We are byproducts of a construct we spent forever perfecting, and now it’s our master. We’ve reached a point where the invention consumes the inventor. We dont live our lives anymore; we manage our allocations. We don’t produce work; we “hit windows.”

The realization was simple: those pendulums don’t care about me, my life, my work, or my worth. Just mechanical weights caught in a loop of mindless momentum. Once you realize you’re stuck inside your own cage, you realize you’re the one who holds the keys.