Volume 2 · The Discipline of Hours · Essay 217
Scaffolding Ideas
Some ideas arrive wearing uniforms. Scaffolding Ideas arrives in a kurta — plain, comfortable, and ready for work.
The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.
What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.
Every January, the gym fills; by March, the regulars have the place to themselves again. The calendar changed nothing. The people who stayed simply stopped asking the calendar for permission.
Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. The name is new; the wisdom stood at bus stops long before either of us.