Brain fart
My brain is like a fart. Hot and happening one second, foggy and distant the next.
Trying to focus a brain is like trying to focus a jellyfish. I’ve tried many, many ways to focus my brain. I’ve piped the sound of a cafe into my ears, used a Pomodoro timer, drank coffee, lots and lots of coffee and switched off the internet.
While some of these work for a bit, I never pursue them long enough to form a habit, so they, like my foggy farts, become a distant smelly memory. So by the time my next brain fart/fog/glitch happens, I’ve no device for fixing it and end up staring at a blinking cursor for 48 minutes. It’s quite the pickle.
Brains just aren’t cut out for this level of thinking. They’re 100,000-year-old hardware trying to run 21st-century software. It’s no wonder the levels of stress, depression anxiety (insert mental health issue here) are higher than ever. 1.69 million people reached out to NHS mental health services at the end of December last year. 50 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of mental health condition. It’s pandemic.
But what to do about it? Isn’t the world just going to keep getting faster and faster until our heads explode? Probably. But there is a glimmer of hope - I hope.
Technology.
So far we’ve been great at designing technology that’s made things, perhaps quicker, but more irritating and cognitively demanding. Why the hell should I have to learn a new operating system? Why do I have to figure out the best way to use a calendar online or create a link or type on a keyboard, use a remote, switch a switch or drive a car? All I should be worrying about, like our ancestors, is what I’m gonna eat and how to fend off wolves.
Technology will hopefully get to the point where it will just do the shit we don’t want to do, immediately. Need to throw a spreadsheet together? Get an AI to do it. Want to schedule a haircut? AI.
the minute technology can seamlessly take all off the additional burden of 21st-century living, the better our brains will be.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about today anyway. If only a robot could have typed it for me.