His lab has demonstrated that this constant demand for rapid information processing literally reshapes our neural architecture. The brain regions responsible for sustained attention and deep focus show measurably reduced activity when we continually interrupt focused work to seek external stimulation.

Meanwhile, the parts of our brain associated wit

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Because it felt like asking someone to summarize a kiss. Like requesting the bullet points of grief. Like demanding the key takeaways about laughing until your stomach hurts.

Summarization technology is the ultimate device: it promises to deliver the benefits of complex thought without requiring us to do the thinking. But thinking, like fitness, is a practice that can only be developed through regular engagement with resistance. Outsource the resistance, and you lose the capacity. Let machines do your intellectual heavy... See more

Knowledge wasn't something you collected but something that collected you; reshaping your thoughts, your questions, your very way of being in the world.

We want the wisdom without the patient work of becoming wise.

But somewhere along the way, perhaps with the rise of industrial efficiency, perhaps with the commodification of education, perhaps with the acceleration of information capitalism, we began to mistake information for knowledge, and knowledge for wisdom. We began to believe that the value of an experience could be separated from the experience itsel... See more

They understood that repetition wasn't redundancy, but ritual! And each telling was both the same story and a completely new experience, shaped by the particular moment, the specific voices, the quality of attention brought to bear.

We've built temples to the lie that you can skip the line on your own life, that growth is just another thing you can Amazon Prime to your doorstep.

This compression culture doesn't just change how we think, but I argue it changes what we expect from every aspect of human experience! We've trained ourselves to believe that complexity can always be whittled down, that difficulty can always be optimized away, that transformation should be instant and effortless.