Systems upon conception start off trying to solve one problem. Slowly they grow, being twisted with as the solution to the problem is better understood… and as more problems are added.

We don’t get to see it every day; we only get to see the effects. Software projects probably contain the most dependable examples of this; where the time of twisted trees is counted in decades and even centuries, software projects twist brutally fast.

Those who have worked on them in often only get to see one part of the life cycle. Everyone wants to watch the project germinate, but eventually they become unwieldy trees unless they are kept in check, constantly.

It’s an odd metaphor for society, until you realize how much of society is now built on software, and until you realize everything we do with software is simply the culmination and implementation of all we have done before, all the successes we had seen, all the failures we have not, or refused to, or have chosen to ignore.

As we’re all seeing now… the world is quite different when something disruptive comes along…

One of the marks of maturity is the need for solitude: a city should not merely draw men together in many varied activities, but should permit each person to find, near at hand, moments of seclusion and peace.
– Lewis Mumford, “Planning for the Phases of Life”, The Urban Prospect: Essays (1968)