What has mass
You can draw people with flash and repetition, but they won't stay long.
“Attention economy” falls into the pile with every other magical meme of the moment. Recognize anything?
The gig economy.
This one weird trick.
My life was falling apart, and then somebody sold me this app/book, and now I’m succeeding beyond my wildest dreams.
Counter-intuitive statements grab curiosity, at least for a while. Platforms peddling these memes become magnetic, under the banner of “money flows where attention goes.” Nothing new here; go to the library and pick up an ancient newspaper — same thing: Shakespeare’s “cure-all” parade, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
False mass
Central to this approach is the appearance of gravity without the underlying density. My grandmother had a shorter and more profane word for it, but I try not to talk like that any more. Performance theater fits nicely, lumping in all sorts of variations:
Big tech companies that hire lots of decorative PhDs, touting capabilities and promoting the image of senior leaders to cover products, built by a shallow staff of relevant disciplines, that predictably never quite catch on.
Small app subscription jungles, built of simple ideas whipped up into small-dollar monthly leeches. Note that all those creators have other jobs or a patient working spouse.
Politicians who promise a zealous return to old values, even though those charlatans have never practiced nor believed in any morals; over time, the falsehoods start to show through the cloth, but it’s hard to give up on them.
Friends, neighbors and relatives who love you for your money, your lawn equipment, your beer, your influence, your handiness with a wrench, or your willingness to spend hours working at the church.
Ancient ideas can now be propelled by instant messaging into a weather system of viral brands, passing like rain and consumed like candy. Meanwhile, another class of achievements mystifies us: the infrastructure feeding our ADHD, and the boring, authentic characters behind it, people we don’t quite know how to take.
Find your mission
Bastions of any technology follow Thoreau’s different drummer and ask different questions. What seems to fit my mind, my moods, my temperament? How can I turn my interests into a decent (or even an indecent) living? What draws me back every time, even though it makes no sense (and no money) at first?
These are the college majors in micropaleontology or art history that curate legendary museums, the “incredibly boring” mathematicians and engineers that run search engines, the microbiologists who stopped Covid’s roar. Fame and fortune aren’t starting points, but gravity builds with every hard-won idea until tides eventually rise toward their particular mountain.
Finding your own music is step one, hard quests easier skipped, but necessary. Magic bullets don’t help here, but careful attention bears the load nicely. Avoid eye-candy for a half-hour a day and instead explore personally magnetic subjects, and don’t hurry away when the thirty minutes are up. Follow desire, let interest lead.
Find your tools
Thor’s (mythical) hammer demonstrates a key principle. Mjolnir lifts only for him, flying back to his hand when called. Everyone discovers similar tools. I unashamedly embrace Emacs — an obscure, inexplicable miscreant even among the digital priesthood. Some gloves just fit; explore until you find yours.
Read your resistance
Resistance and friction measure two things: level of difficulty, and lack of authenticity. Differentiate them by stubbornness, but deal with both. Every life presents mundane drag: laundry; taxes; vines climbing up the brick wall. Nobility demands attention without task inflation or angst: do the right thing, and then move on.
Conceptual pushback is different. Wisdom shows layers, gateways, and levels. Every apparent wall represents rising knowledge and increased capability. Climb aggressively, building lasting foundations
Become the mountain
Flash and repetition draw (very) temporary attention; attaching forgettable subscriptions builds a living, but not a following. Water won’t flow uphill without a second source of gravity. Lunar tidal forces, anyone? Strong personal gravity requires presenting results that are undeniably rare and valuable. Coming full circle, a very old meme offers a mirror: “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.” Simplify, distill, build what matters. Transform personal values into dependable, useful methods and tools, valued reasonably.
Remember that islands and sandbars both grow organically. Choose the island.