Smaller and smaller things
As I get older, I've noticed a weird trend in what I like -- I'm starting to prefer smaller things over bigger ones.
Younger me wanted the 15-inch MacBook Pro. All the power. All the screen real estate.
Younger me wanted the Pro Max iPhone. A giant slab for all the content.
Younger me wanted the 40-inch OLED screen front and center of my desk. The big bookshelf speakers. The biggest version of basically everything, because bigger seemed like the obvious upgrade.
And to be fair, sometimes it was. Bigger did feel better. Bigger felt safer. Bigger felt like I was getting the more serious, more capable, more grown-up option.
But lately I've been realizing that I don't actually want more most of the time. I want less friction.
A smaller phone fits better in my pocket and in my hand. I chose the previous-gen iPhone Pro because it's just so nice to bring along.
A smaller laptop is easier to carry around and easier to just open and use. I "downgraded" from the M4 Max Macbook Pro to the M5 Air since it's mostly just tmux and ssh these days for me anyways. Heck, I'm enjoying writing again because the Air is just so unobtrusive.
That's the part that keeps surprising me. Big things are fun to want. Small things are fun to live with.
But I think I've come around to the idea that the best thing is often just the thing that gets out of my way. The thing that fits into my day without asking me to rearrange my life around it. The thing that doesn't turn a normal task into a front-loaded chore.
I don't need everything to feel maximal anymore. I just want things to feel easy.
Maybe that's age. Maybe that's laziness? Neurodivergent flip-flopping? Maybe that's just what happens when you finally stop confusing size with quality.
Either way, I keep reaching for the smaller version more often than I used to. Maybe when things can get out of the way and into the periphery, you have more room to enjoy the things that matter.