I’m at the gym, taking a breather between sets, when I notice the guy training next to me.
He’s wearing a beat-up pair of Nike Air Force 1s. Visibly old. Creased. Faded. But somehow, the leather still looks better than mine ever did.
That’s when it hit me:
His shoes have been through more, but mine look worse.
I used to have a pair of AF1s I really liked.
Still do, technically — they’re sitting at home, just no longer in rotation.
Not because they broke. Because they aged. Fast.
The leather wrinkled early. The soles yellowed. And they lost that sense of care I thought I had given them.
And here’s the thing: I didn’t beat them up. I didn’t take them on muddy hikes or wear them every day.
I just left them on the porch.
Not by mistake. Not out of laziness.
That’s what I was taught growing up — shoes go outside. They’re dirty. They smell. You don’t bring them in.
And in my case, “outside” means 500 meters from the beach.
Salt in the air. High humidity. Direct sunlight.
The perfect recipe for slow decay.
I didn’t wear them out. I neglected them passively.
And they aged like milk.
You Know This Pattern
This post isn’t about shoes.
It’s about every system, project, or idea we leave “on the porch” without realizing what we’re doing.
It’s the YouTube channel you stopped uploading to because life got in the way.
The side project repo with no README, no structure, no setup guide.
The blog you planned to revive once the timing felt right.
That Notion dashboard you built once with pride but never revisited.
It wasn’t a bad idea. It wasn’t even bad timing.
It was just left in the wrong environment.
And that’s the part that stings — because you did care.
You just didn’t protect it.
Creative Entropy Doesn’t Announce Itself
It doesn’t explode.
It leaks.
You don’t notice it until it gets in your way:
Things feel slower. You lose clarity. You stop shipping.
You look at the thing you used to be excited about and it feels... off.
And when you try to get back into it, the magic is gone.
Not because it wasn’t good.
Because you didn’t store it with care.
What Would’ve Saved The Shoes?
A lid. A box.
Thirty seconds of intention. Just enough to shield them from sun and salt.
In creative work, it’s rarely more complicated:
A folder structure.
A weekly 10-minute review.
A lightweight documentation system.
A decision to stop treating your work like a throwaway draft.
These aren't major overhauls. They're protective acts.
And they add up.
What Are You Leaving On The Porch?
Not everything deserves preservation. Some things are meant to break, stretch, get messy.
But the things you care about — the projects you quietly hope will grow into something — they deserve a little more than ambient neglect.
I still have those AF1s. I wear them less now, not because they stopped functioning, but because I let them age in the wrong environment.
And that’s on me.
What creative work are you letting sit in the salt air?
It might still be useful.
But it won’t feel the same if you leave it too long.