The Problem Is Never In The Tool
The unspoken motivation behind what no longer works.
We know the feeling when a tool we use starts to decline in efficiency. We notice how its entropy scales and the problems appear. At that moment, our mind builds a gap between the tool and the carrier, like two external and disconnected objects. In this letter, we’ll explore this pattern in relation to the over-identification with a tool.
A tool is something specific or abstract that we use to move forward, like a methodology, a philosophy, a hammer, or a spreadsheet. It has two perspectives: a technical and a social one. The first one, we can learn in different places like the internet, AI platforms, and books. The second is the emotional component involved in the process of learning that one individual uses to integrate that knowledge.
How Is Our Relationship With A Tool
Often, we saw news emphasizing so much on tools, finding titles like: ‘AI will replace you’, ‘Change management is dead’, ’Agile philosophy arrives at its end’. This endless reflection on this technical aspect generates an internal emotional reaction of fight, flee, or freeze that crystallizes the carrier and prevents any transformation. When this happens, a defense or attack mechanism of opinions around the tool emerges; in that moment, we may not realize we are commanded by the tool.
The easy part of this dynamic is to blame the tool instead of deeply understanding who is behind it. A tool is only moved by a carrier, giving us a temporary new way of learning, but it is never responsible for the results we are.
Results are about transforming ourselves in order to continually detach our value from the tool.
This pattern is related to the perception of value, which was moved from the person to the tool, defining human value and limiting their growth. Also, this pattern pushes us to forget that, like individuals, we not only have value over the tool, but the value just for being, before grabbing the tool, this is the big shift.
So, what change do we need to engage with that will transform any tool in consequence? This question puts the focus in the right place to learn about ourselves in the experience of using the tool and ultimately who we are while using it. Indeed, let us understand that every tool is evidence of the creator's journey transformation, and in essence, we never know the deepest truth of how it was created, because it was wired in another human being.
Tools will not work if the intention for transformation and the commitment to finding your way are not there. -Bruce Lee.
The Importance Of Detaching Us From The Tool.
Creation is a byproduct of change, which is activated when something in our current reality doesn’t exist. Also, when something is already there but not functional in our context, it's a call for a new creation. Focusing on this, change belongs to a personal journey, it’s based on decisions in an internal and unique truth. When we internalize this, we conserve our individual freedom regardless of things that are, or are not, in our control.
This individuality can become a collective shared agreement with others; this type of consensus represents or has a perspective that resonates with some part of a personal truth. But, it is just that, it is not a truth, a truth doesn’t exist collectively, it’s impossible.
This distinction is important because there is only one step from a shared agreement to a kind of global authority. We have plenty of evidence that almost always authorities have been selling a well-packed “truth”; the school system, religion, prefabricated paths, methodologies. Nothing is wrong with this; those are temporary tools for learning, experiencing, comparing, and choosing, but we must take the step to create our own.
The problem is never in the tool, it is in the carrier of the tool. This switch is the ultimate path to change.
In this dynamic life, change and creation are interchangeable words, and we must be aware of when we “buy” tools like synonyms of authority. We can keep using them as long as we know there is so much potential to unfold if we permit ourselves to be the artists to build our unique truth.
See you in the next letter.
Julian.-