against multipurpose tools

You can do almost anything with a phone - and that's Bad, Actually.

Because you can do anything, you end up doing nothing.

The best tools are constrained and specific. They do you a favor by limiting you...

On a typewriter you cannot stream movies, check stock prices, or play online chess. You can only write. On a camera you cannot tweet, google trivia, or order groceries. You can only click. These older tools gave you a tunnel vision that their advanced alternatives just cannot.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, then all your problems look like nails. If the only tool you have is a 7 inch flat screen, then all your problems look like pixel arrangement problems. That is Objectively False. Real problems demand more than tapping, clicking, coding.

The more features a tool has, the more you expect out of it, and the less it actually delivers. The frustration that follows gets channeled into building out more features, which repeats the cycle, this time slightly worse.

A dish that tries to taste like all cuisines will end up tasting like slop.

Everyone's friend is no one's friend.

A tool that tries to do it all, does nothing. (Even virtues cancel each other out. "One virtue is more virtue than two" - Nietzsche)

Embrace the romance of limits. Reject all-in-one solutions. A bridge over a river cannot also be the boat that crosses it. Fill your life with simple tools that do what they say...instead of advanced gadgets that overpromise, underdeliver, & secretly siphon off your life force.

Thank you for reading!

If you enjoyed this short essay, check out my book.