The Time It Takes to Care

This post will take you one minute and twenty seconds to read.

That’s the average time people spend on my work.

So I wrote this for you — for exactly that long.

You will finish this in the time it takes for a video to buffer, for an ad to end, for you to decide whether to keep scrolling. You will finish this before your attention wanders. But if you stop here, if you close the tab early, you’ll prove the point better than I ever could.

Every second you shave off reflection is a second given to the people who profit from your distraction. Every skipped paragraph is a small surrender. Every glance instead of engagement keeps power exactly where it is.

When you move too fast to understand, you become easy to manage. When you can’t sit with discomfort, you lose the ability to tell right from easy. When you skim through truth, you start mistaking performance for progress.

That’s what they want. A public that can’t bear to pay attention. A conscience trained to check out before it feels too much.

You have forty seconds left. Stay with me.

This — this stillness, this choice to finish — is the smallest rebellion you can make.

Now you’ve reached the end.

You’ve proved it can be done.

The question is: will you do it again?

You’ll finish this before the sand runs out. The question is: will you stay?