It’s a curious thought, to catch feelings in gears and levers. Emotions are subtle currents, like invisible drafts that ripple across a surface. A windmill might read that ripple if it could sense pressure or tension, but our minds don’t always give a steady beat. Perhaps the device would need to listen more than it watches, a sensor that maps the subtle shifts of our inner state, turning them into motion. It’s a neat idea—like turning the quiet rustle of a page into a spinning blade. Whether we can build it or not, the exercise itself forces us to observe how our own currents move, which might be the real gain.

I’ll take the crank, but I’ll also keep a notebook on the side, just to see what the machine says versus what my mind feels. It’s a useful exercise to map the rhythm of a heartbeat onto a tiny gear. The real dance, though, might happen when the two sync up, and that’s where the story starts.