I treat company finances like weight training
I don't whittle down the weights (but I'll strip and reload the bar if I need to)
I work out at gyms that I want to help exist, that I want to keep coming back to, where I want my training to continue, gyms-as-systems that are themselves training too
this stuff isn't zero-sum, it's all circulation, and I am training for the circulation itself, vascular/cardiac health for pumping finances, where gains are measured in throughput in a system ready to use what's passing through
I am financially athletic
doesn't mean I'm not efficient
means I *am*
(no I don't want to sign up for an annual plan, I'm circulating constantly, not one big convulsing push per year; no I don't want to pre-purchase service units, that's .. that's not savings, that's like securitizing kinesthetics, that's like asking me to hold your plank so you don't have to in exchange for me not having to plank as long when it's my turn. I'm *embodied* financially; this is not pvp bookkeeping, I *live* here)
(though please note, I don't *only* live here, I am not *always* at the gym. if anything, I'm mostly elsewhere - but I am *consistently* here, moving a bar.)
bonus metaphorical significance: in this structure, "whittling down the weights" is illuminated as straightforwardly insane. carving out mass from a too-heavy plate, in this embodied context, is just vandalism. the other plates are right there. reload the bar. what are you doing. you *can* lift modified plates, but you're taking home your own body, not those.