for most of history, the scarcest resource was space. land, territory, and physical materials were the foundation of power, and so we built our civilizations, industries, and identities around controlling them. this was the era of empire, steel, oil, and manufacturing — a time when wealth was seen as finite, and taking more meant someone else had less. eventually, as the world industrialized and global systems matured, we ran out of “new” space to conquer. so the scarce resource shifted: from space to time. post-WWII, economic value revolved around how people spent their limited 24 hours. media, advertising, consumer finance – these industries sell ways to fill time. “time is money”, right? but time, too, had limits. when we maxxed out our schedules and attention spans, the battleground shifted again: this time to attention itself. in the internet era, attention became the most sought-after resource. whoever could command it – through content, platforms, or sheer novelty – held economic power. algorithms were trained to keep us hooked, creators self-trained to keep us scrolling. attention became fragmented, hyper-optimized, and exhausted. and now, we’re reaching the edge of that model too. we are running out of attention. the signs are all around us: information overload, burnout, decision fatigue, and the creeping sense that no matter how much we consume, it’s never enough. in a world where anyone can publish slop at scale, we need something more than just more information. we need perspective. perspective is the next scarce resource. not raw knowledge, but the ability to make meaning out of complexity. it’s the capacity to see the bigger picture, to choose what matters, and to orient ourselves toward what’s worth caring about. it's cultivating taste. it’s knowing *how* to think and being able to synthesize insights into a coherent direction. this is especially urgent in the age of AI, where content is no longer scarce at all. now anyone can generate infinite ideas, images, and text. but it can’t choose your values. it can’t give you a sense of purpose. this is where i think meaning-making becomes vital. in the perspective era, we need to actively train our meaning-making muscles, and become steady beacons of perspective: people who can hold complexity without collapsing, who can see through the fog and help others find their footing too. i worry what happens if we let these muscles atrophy. i think we already see our collective sense-making systems starting to break down because of it. as they do, the consequences are not abstract. we fall prey to misinformation. we outsource our thinking to algorithms or ideologues. we start electing leaders who exploit fear rather than lead with vision.