on thinking

I have more exciting ideas when I don’t feel shame about what excites me, when I allow myself to be stupid and naive and boring. I try not to judge myself in the act of giving birth to ideas.

we live in an era where analysis is conflated with emotional depth, where second-guessing is seen as intellectual responsibility, where being “too self-aware” has become a quiet badge of honor.

emotional hygiene is recognizing the early symptoms of overstimulation and choosing not to intellectualize your way through them.

But in a ​recent podcast appearance​, James Mariott, a critic and columnist for The Times of London ,summarized a hypothesis that has been gaining traction: as we switch our information consumption from print to digital devices, our ability to think deeply degrades.

Socrates once said: The unexamined life is not worth living. But the overexamined life is not worth living either. The Watts trap: “A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So they lose touch with reality and live in a world of illusions.”

you practice seeing your overthinking not as a flaw, but as a system that needs routine maintenance