I’ve been thinking quite a lot lately about the appeal of things that are smaller. Not necessarily simpler in every sense. Just smaller.
A smaller computer, doing fewer things. A smaller corner of the internet, where a handful of people write things because they want to write them, rather than because they are feeding an algorithm. A plain text file instead of an app. A Gemini capsule instead of a WordPress blog. A phlog that may be read by six people and is none the worse for that.
There is a strong tendency in technology, and perhaps in life more generally, to assume that bigger is better. More features. More users. More engagement. More integration. More reach.
And yet “more” has a cost.
The bigger the system becomes, the more of our attention it seems to demand. The cleverer the software, the more time we can end up spending learning how it wants us to work. The larger the platform, the more difficult it becomes to remember that the people on it are actually people.
Recently I’ve found myself enjoying tools that ask very little of me.
A text editor. SSH. A calendar that is just a file. A website that doesn’t know who I am. Places online where there is no infinite scroll and no recommendation engine waiting to decide what I ought to look at next.
None of this is a rejection of the modern internet. I use plenty of modern tools and I’m glad they exist. But perhaps I’m becoming more conscious of scale.
There are things that work better when they stay small enough to understand. Small enough to repair. Small enough to belong to the people who use them.
Churches can be like that too. So can communities. So can friendships.
We are often encouraged to grow, expand, optimise and reach more people. Sometimes that is exactly the right thing to do.
But perhaps there is also a vocation in remaining small enough to notice one another. Small enough to listen. Small enough to know what is going on. Small enough to be human.
Perhaps, sometimes, we are called to something smaller.
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richard <AT> deckzero <DOT> uk