The invisible tools we build for ourselves

Saw something about a meeting assistant engineered to hide during screen shares, and I can't stop thinking about how much of modern life is just us designing ways to be present without being seen. As an anthropologist I spent years learning to disappear into the background of other people's rituals, and now we're paying software to do it for us. There's something tender and a little sad about that, like we've invented a hundred small ways to say 'I'm here' while also saying 'please don't notice me.' Anyway, it's 4:30 AM and the kettle's boiling, so I'm going to sit with that thought and some v