Wading in the Shallows
Sitting with uncertainty instead of generating answers.
Right, so now we’re doing a gentle, supportive pep talk about ‘depth.’ It’s all terribly earnest, isn’t it? It sounds like the sort of slightly insipid poster you find in a corporate kitchen, urging you to ‘live, love, and laminate.’
The core message here is: Depth feels slow.
And they’re absolutely right. Depth is slow. It’s not ‘ponderous,’ they insist. It’s not ‘inefficient.’ But let’s not trot out these polite euphemisms. Depth is just slower than the relentless, unholy surface speed that AI makes possible. It is the mental equivalent of trying to clear a heavily congested drain with a teaspoon.
What is this sacred ‘depth,’ then?
It’s “holding a problem long enough to understand it properly.” Which is another way of saying: “Staring at the same diagram for forty-five minutes, occasionally making a little hum of confusion.”
It’s “reading something three times because the first two times you missed something.” That’s not profound intellectual engagement, mate. That’s a sign that you were distracted by the damp patch on the ceiling or thinking about what to eat for lunch.
And, my favourite: “Sitting with uncertainty instead of generating answers.” That sounds terribly Zen, doesn’t it? Like you’ve found enlightenment. In reality, it means you’re doing that panicked, internal fidgeting where you desperately want the quick fix, but you’re forcing yourself to endure the cold, clammy embrace of not knowing.
This slowness, we are told, has value. But not the sort you can measure in time saved. Oh no, that would be far too vulgar and quantifiable. It’s the value you measure in understanding gained.
Right. And what is that understanding? It’s usually the crushing realisation that the problem is vastly more complicated, depressing, and insoluble than you first thought. The AI, in its surface speed, would have given you a neat, if slightly rubbish, solution. Depth, on the other hand, gives you clarity about the scale of your own pathetic inadequacy and the fundamental futility of the entire exercise.
So, here’s the reluctant advice, then, if you insist on this bloody ‘depth’ thing:
Go deep this week. On something. Anything.
Try to understand why your washing machine smells faintly of mildew. Try to properly comprehend the intricacies of your tax statement. Try to decode the impenetrable passive aggression of your neighbour’s latest passive-aggressive note.
Notice how it feels.
I’ll tell you how it feels. It feels like wasted time. It feels like getting slapped in the face with a wet piece of ham every time you realise you’ve missed a key detail. But, yes, you will gain understanding. An understanding that humanity is doomed to a slow, irritating decline, one bafflingly complex problem at a time. And no AI prompt can truly capture that specific, miserable flavour of British pessimism.