20.09.2026 Diary XX The Penny Factory

20.09.2026 Diary Page XX

Not everyone who calls you gold holds you like gold. Some are only waiting for you to melt.

Sunday. Yesterday I wrote about money, and at night a story passed through my mind. I could not sleep, I got up and took notes. Today I want to write it properly.

Its name is the Penny Factory.

The building at the edge of town

Imagine a town. At the edge of the town there is a building that everyone sees but no one really knows. Its chimney is always smoking. On its door there is a shiny brass sign: Worth Workshop.

No one calls it the Penny Factory. That name is given later by those who come out of it.

The workshop has an owner. Everyone in town knows him. Smiling, well dressed, soft-voiced. He does not forget names. When he talks with you he does not take his eyes off you. Someone who warms a person inside.

Every morning he goes down into town and picks someone.

The invitation

To the one he picks he always says the same thing:

“You are gold. You do not realise it but you are gold. This town does not see you. I see you.”

It is very good to hear this. Especially for someone who has long thought they were not seen. Especially for someone who always feels a little lacking, a little scattered, a little too much.

“Come,” he says, “let us polish you in the workshop. Become what you should be.”

And people go. Because thinking that someone is seeing you for the first time is one of the doors a person finds hardest to get past.

Inside

The inside of the workshop is warm. The first days are warm too.

The owner takes a great interest in you. He listens to your ideas, says “wonderful,” says “this is exactly what I was looking for.” He gives you a workbench, an apron, a title. And you work. You work a lot. Because at last someone has believed in you.

Then small things begin.

“If you stayed a bit longer this week, things don't work without you.”

“You did this job but let it come out under my name, it will be received better.”

“The payment will be a little late, but we are family, aren't we?”

With each one you take in a little heat. With each one you melt a little. But it happens so slowly that you do not notice. If you are inside the furnace you get used to the heat.

The mould

At the very back of the workshop there is a room he takes no one to. In it stands a single mould. A small, round, ordinary mould.

The penny mould.

Because the owner's secret is this: he has no need of gold. Gold is expensive, gold does not obey, gold can go and be gold somewhere else. What he needs is pennies. A great many pennies. All alike, easily spent, not looked for when lost.

He calls people gold because a person called gold is willing to melt themselves. Then he pours them into that small mould.

The person who comes out of the mould is no longer “things don't work without you.” They become “anyone can do it.” No longer “wonderful idea” but “we had already thought of it.” No longer family, but expense.

Noticing

Noticing that you are a penny does not happen all at once.

First a tiredness comes. Then you catch on a sentence, said as if saying “this is all you are,” but very politely as it leaves the mouth. Then you see someone else being brought in from the town. The same smile, the same voice, the same words:

“You are gold.”

That is the moment you understand. That sentence was not special to you. It was a sign. Of brass, shiny.

Shame

This is the most painful place of the story, I think. Everyone who comes out of the factory is first angry at themselves.

“How did I believe?”

“How did I not see?”

“Am I this naive?”

Yet the whole job of the deceiver is to be good enough to be believed. Being deceived is not the price of stupidity but of trust. And trusting is not a person's flaw.

The one who should be ashamed is the one holding the mould.

My part

I thought a little about why I wrote this.

As someone with ADHD I am very open to the sentence “you are gold.” Because all my life I have been described as scattered, late, too much, lacking, when someone says they see something shining in me my insides warm at once. My excitement comes quickly. My yes comes quickly. I step up to the workbench without thinking.

Impulsivity is not only buying something suddenly. Suddenly believing someone is impulsivity too. Attaching fast, promising fast, opening all the doors at the first praise.

And there is this: the years before the diagnosis do not teach a person much about measuring their own worth. You wait to hear your worth from someone else's mouth. Whoever says it first, you believe. The Penny Factory watches for exactly this gap.

The way out of the factory

As I close the story I want to write a way out, because there is one.

I do not know whether someone who has come out of the penny mould can become gold again. Maybe not. Maybe there is no need. Maybe the point is not to be gold or a penny, but not to leave your own measure in someone else's mould.

Today I wrote a few things to myself:

When someone praises me very fast and very much, stop. Look at what will be asked behind the praise.

If the sentence “we are family” comes while money, labour or a name is being talked about, there is no family at that table.

Write my own name under my own work.

Wait a night before saying yes. If the excitement lasts until morning, it means I really want it.

And when I notice I have been deceived, let me not be angry at myself. I did not pour the mould.

The end

The building at the edge of town is still there. Its chimney still smokes. Its sign is still shiny.

Maybe one day you will pass in front of it too. Maybe someone with a smiling face is waiting at the door, never forgetting your name.

No one has to tell you your worth. Least of all someone with a brass sign on their door.

You are already something. You were, even before you went into the mould.