a layer below

🌱 This post is in the growth phase. It may still be useful as it grows up.

Every few years, the layer I’m working on starts to feel unstable.

Favorite text editors stop getting updates.
A framework I bet on loses momentum.
A company I built my workflow around starts tightening the screws.

When that happens, I go deeper.

TextMate died. Sublime died. I learned Vim.
React libraries churned. I pressed into React fundamentals.
AI started threatening the dev role. I learned how agents actually work.
Anthropic started locking down harnesses. I found the open one.

Financially, it’s the same. Dave Ramsey Baby Steps or GTFO.
I don’t trust the layer. I trust what’s underneath it.

I think most people respond to instability by looking for a better version of the thing they’re losing.
A new editor. A new framework. A new job that feels like the old one.

I go the other direction.
I go to the layer that all of those things sit on.
And I get good enough there that the layer above becomes optional.

Freedom is being capable.

Not capable in the abstract.
Capable enough that when the thing you depend on disappears, you don’t.

(seed from pi)