The Weight of Small Design Choices

Well-functioning systems rarely call attention to their design. Everything appears to be in place, then a small misalignment is introduced; a decision left unexamined, a shortcut taken for the sake of speed. Nothing breaks, so it stays. One exception becomes two. What was once noticed becomes normal.

Responsibility shifts quietly, until no one can point to a single cause. Over time, the system no longer fails loudly, it simply becomes harder to understand, harder to maintain, harder to trust.

Systems change the same way gardens do. Not through sudden abundance, but through what is consistently tended, or consistently ignored.

What is cared for early rarely demands correction later.