The thing under the tool

Remember that moment, when you sit in front of your screen and you suddenly realise it's not you doing the thinking anymore? The tool is doing it for you. You can as well grab a bucket of popcorn and watch it.

Maybe you haven't experienced it yet. No one taught me this, I found this on my own.

These tools are all astonishing. They finish my thoughts before I'd started thinking. They make me search for new thoughts I would have never thought about before. And while doing so, they spot patterns in thinking I didn't even realise. This requires staying open.

What these tools don't do is understand why I reached for them in the first place.

When I'm specific enough they grasp the idea I try to convey. If I'm unclear on my questions, I will get lost faster than before. They either act as my megaphone or my disabler. The tool scales what you provide it with.

The outcome can go wrong in two ways. The tool answers questions I never asked. Or the tool answers the questions I asked badly.

The tool didn't fail, it obeys.

This is where it gets harder. They don't need a break. They don't stop mid-sentence for a five second pause to rethink the question. They extend the direction, and without proper re-direction, it drifts off. Imagine an extra pair of hands to create something tangible like a chair. Without the context, knowledge and instruction, they drift off quickly. The chair ends up with legs of uneven length.

My solution: break the context up in pieces, be precise, always go back to the roots of why I was doing this and what I expect it to return.

The tool's job is not to remember for me. It's to help me shape the right framing for my thinking.

Bring emptiness to the tool. It will give back noise and call it full.

This thinking shifts the question from "how do I use the tool" to "what do I need to think through anyway, even without the tool."

That's the part the tool cannot answer. That's the part that decides.