The Da Vinci Effect

You have felt The Da Vinci Effect even if you have never read it. Reading it simply gives your experience a label and a little dignity.

Under the hood it is a trade: the mind exchanges accuracy for speed, or comfort, or belonging. The trade is often worth it. The danger is not the trade but forgetting that a trade was made.

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.

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. A word is a lamp. This one is now yours to carry.