The Inner Monologue

“The most important invention in your lifetime is…”

—I can’t tell you. I’m not dead yet.

Anything I name now is just a midpoint dressed up as a conclusion. The printing press looked finished until electricity showed up. Electricity looked finished until computation arrived. Computation looked finished until it escaped the desktop, crawled into your pocket, and started whispering suggestions.

Ask me again when my obituary can close the loop. Only then do you get to see which invention actually bent the arc of a life, rather than just impressed it for a while.