INTERLUDE: Soft Problems, Vol. 1 — Loops You Can Touch
I get the irony of opening this series with the words:
“I know there are people with much bigger problems.”
This isn’t to earn points for being “woke.”
It’s because I literally can’t tell this story without saying that first.
What’s a Soft Problem?
A soft problem is:
Not life-threatening
Entirely solvable in theory
Still disruptive enough to steal your bandwidth if left unmanaged
They’re the micro-loops where the stakes are low — but the pattern is real.
And when the pattern is real, the signal matters.
Example 1 – The Cement Handle
I left a cement-encrusted tool outside for days, knowing full well I’d enjoy scraping it clean later.
Was it “wrong”? Not exactly.
Was it the most efficient use of my future self’s time? Absolutely not.
Here’s what it revealed:
I sometimes engineer messes just to get the satisfaction of fixing them
The fix is fun in isolation — but costly in opportunity
If I want my work and environment to compound positively, I have to choose when to indulge the long cleanup vs. when to close the loop immediately
That’s a soft problem.
Small on paper.
Big in implication.
Example 2 – Re-Cleaning My House
I’ve lived in this property for 4 years. While renovating it, I’ve never had all the rooms clean at once. It’s embarrassing. I don’t host people. And I logically know what it takes to clean a house.
So why the hell can’t I do it?
Every time I get one room clean, I end up shuffling things around — trying to find their “forever home.” I forget where things are, so I assume they’re in the wrong spot.
Which makes me move them again.
Which resets the loop.
Which ruins the “clean.”
The loop:
“I never finish because I keep getting stuck in side quests.”
It’s not laziness.
It’s unresolved recursion in physical form.
Why Soft Problems Matter
They’re safe sandboxes for testing system rules
They strip ego — no one’s handing out awards for “fastest cement handle cleanup”
They expose where logic bends in ways you only notice when you watch yourself closely
They offer a closed field of recursion — where you can’t lie, because the loop always reveals its own logic
If it works here, it’ll work under pressure.
If it breaks here, it’ll break harder when it matters.
That’s the point of Soft Problems.
We solve the loops we can touch —
So the ones we can’t yet touch have a fighting chance.