I've been writing a book about compression.
The core idea is simple: understanding something means compressing it — distilling its essential structure into something smaller that still predicts how it behaves.
As I wrote, a pattern kept surfacing. It showed up in learning. It showed up in building software. It showed up in how people relate to each other.
The pattern is this: everything sustainable is a producer-consumer loop.
You write code — you're a producer. You read documentation — you're a consumer. You cook dinner — producer. You eat — consumer. You build a product — producer. You use one — consumer.
Most people are good at one side. Very few are good at both.
I started tracing this loop across the full span of a human life. Here's what I found: seven cycles that every person goes through. Not seven "areas" — seven relationships you can't opt out of.
You can only choose how you show up.
One. The family loop — the one that started it all
You arrive as a pure consumer. Food, safety, emotional containment — your parents produce all of it. And without knowing it, you're learning the basic model of human exchange: how to ask, how to trust, how to receive.
Then you grow up. The roles reverse.
You start taking care of them — helping with their phone, going to the hospital with them, giving advice on big decisions. You've become the producer.
Some people get stuck in this reversal forever. They stay the child, or they refuse to admit their parents need them now. Both are the same problem: the role froze, but the cycle didn't stop.
How to show up well: When you're consuming, consume well. Not passively — use what you're given (security, education, space to make mistakes). When it's your turn to produce, don't resent it. You consumed for years. Producing is just the natural rotation of the loop.
Two. The learning loop — where most people stop at consumption
Teacher produces. Student consumes. Then, through homework, exams, and explanations, the student produces back.
This is the first producer-consumer loop most people encounter outside the family.
And it's where most people develop a bad habit: they stay on the consumption side forever.
Listen. Read. Bookmark. Screenshot.
No production. The knowledge dies at the consumer end.
How to show up well: Output after every input. Even a note. A shared insight. Teaching someone once.
If you don't output, the loop stops at you. In the book I'm writing, I call this "encapsulation" — not just understanding for yourself, but packaging it so someone else can pick it up. How well you consume depends on how much you've produced.
Three. The work loop — what you're actually exchanging
To your company: you produce labor, skill, judgment. They consume your output and return salary and growth.
To your colleagues: on task A you're the producer (you write the code, they use it); on task B you're the consumer (they wrote the design doc, you read it).
To your industry: you consume what came before you (open source, methodologies, tools) and produce what comes after.
People hit a wall after three to five years in a job. It's rarely burnout. It's that they stopped being an irreplaceable producer in the loop.
The company runs fine without them. The team makes decisions without them. They're consuming assigned tasks, but they don't occupy a node in the loop anymore.
How to show up well: Ask one question — who in this organization needs what only I can produce?
If your output could be done by anyone, you're not a node. You're a replaceable part. The difference between a part and a node is whether you absorb complexity that no one else can, and output something the next person can consume directly.
This is what "leave complexity to yourself" looks like in a job.
Four. The love loop — the contract no one talks about
Emotional labor. Decision-making. Housework. Presence.
These are all produced and consumed in a relationship.
Most relationships break in one of two ways. One person is always producing and the other is always consuming — no rotation. Or worse: both people are waiting for the other to produce.
"Why didn't you message me first today?"
"Why didn't you care about me first?"
This isn't about love. This is about a loop that seized up.
How to show up well: Know your role right now. If the other person had a hard day, produce. If you had a hard day, consume cleanly — don't feel guilty about receiving while also resenting that you had to ask. Healthy rotation doesn't mean 50-50 every minute. It means no one is stuck in one role for a lifetime.
Five. The creation loop — start small, stay steady, let it build
Write a book. Build a tool. Cultivate a community. You produce value; someone consumes it; their feedback, sharing, and re-creation become the next round of input.
This loop is hardest to start. Because at the beginning, there's no feedback, no readers, no users. You have to produce alone for a while before anyone consumes.
And then it's hardest to sustain. Because between the start and the first signal, most people stop. And after the first signal, most people get complacent.
Both are ways of breaking the loop.
How to show up well: Start smaller than you think you need to. Stabilize before you scale. Whatever time you spend consuming, spend at least as much producing. Not more — at least.
Six. The community loop — from transaction to ecosystem
A single exchange between two people is a transaction.
A group of people exchanging repeatedly becomes a micro-loop.
Multiple micro-loops weaving together — that's an ecosystem.
In an ecosystem, some people build tools, some use them, some teach them. Every participant is both producer and consumer. The system begins to sustain itself beyond any individual contribution.
When you enter a community, you're consuming what others produce — content, atmosphere, connections. But if you only consume, there's no loop that includes you.
How to show up well: Every time you enter a new community, ask yourself — what can I produce here?
It doesn't have to be a long article or a complex tool. A sincere comment. A proactive share. A warning about a pitfall you already stumbled into. It's not about what you produce. It's about having a role in the loop.
People who only consume are passers-through in every community.
Seven. The loop you owe yourself — the one most people ignore
You consume your own time, energy, and attention.
You produce your own health, capability, knowledge, and emotional state.
If this loop is broken, every external loop suffers. When you spend hours scrolling (consuming) without producing anything that gives you energy or fulfillment — you're running a deficit.
Many people's self-loop is negative. Consumption exceeds production. Internal struggle exceeds accumulation.
How to show up well: Honor the contract with yourself. When you consume your own time, produce something of value in return. Not out of guilt — out of contract.
When you're exhausted, give yourself permission to be a pure consumer. But know that you chose it, consciously. Keep the awareness. You don't need to produce 24/7. You need to keep consumption from persistently exceeding production, and to feel when the balance tilts.
One thread through all seven
Spread them out and look again. Every loop shares the same test:
When you produce, absorb the complexity. When you consume, know when to hand it off.
In family. In learning. In work. In love. In creation. In community. With yourself.
And the other two:
Don't internal struggle. Don't be arrogant.
A loop seizes up for one of two reasons. Internal struggle — you keep trying to solve something alone that you should hand off. Arrogance — you think you've already understood it, so you stop the next round.
None of these seven loops are optional. You will pass through every one. The only choice is how.
