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From Thoreau to “Brain Rot”
“Still we live meanly, like ants… Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
—— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Thoreau’s words from Walden still resonate deeply today, 170 years after they were written. In his time, he chose to live alone by Walden Pond for two years, seeking life’s essence away from the city’s chaos. In our age of information explosion, the emergence of the term “Brain Rot” validates Thoreau’s foresight: our minds are being “corroded” by endless streams of information, just as he warned – we’re being overwhelmed by details, losing our ability to think.
From Distress to Awakening
I stumbled upon the term “Brain Rot” in a BBC piece: Losing your mind looking at memes? The dictionary has a word for that. Reading it hit home hard: I’d been living this reality for years without having the right words to pin it down.
Sure, I’m not big on TikTok or Instagram Reels, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to the information tsunami. Twitter, Facebook, Telegram – it’s like a constant drip of information seeping into my brain. Over time, this digital drip-feed started taking its toll: anxiety crept in, and this weird sense of unease took over both my mind and body.
I found myself stuck in this frustrating loop: starting something, getting sidetracked by notifications, jumping to something else, rinse and repeat. My brain felt like a computer with way too many Chrome tabs open – trying to run everything at once but getting nowhere fast. The fallout was real: scattered focus, short fuse, chain-smoking… like my brain had hit the pause button and checked out for a while.
Finding a Catalyst for Change
The blog wasn’t some grand vision – it started with a simple need: I desperately wanted a quiet space to think straight. When I couldn’t focus worth a damn, this project became my North Star, showing me the way back to clear thinking.
The moment I started building this thing, something shifted. Each day brought new tech puzzles to solve – wrestling with Vercel deployments, untangling GitHub configs, figuring out Cloudflare caching. Before I knew it, I was sliding into these deep focus zones. Sure, the learning curve was steep as hell, but cracking each problem brought this zen-like satisfaction. I could stay locked in for hours, and even though I’d be wiped afterward, there was this solid sense of “I did that.”
Working with GitHub was a game-changer. As I got deeper into version control, I started feeling like I had a real handle on every piece of the Astro project. This sense of control led to an a-ha moment: I wasn’t just chasing tech skills – I was after something bigger. I wanted my brain back. Not just a mind that bounces from notification to notification, but one that can actually think for itself.
Insights from Drucker
While knee-deep in this project, I kept thinking about how I was working. It reminded me of some gold from Peter Drucker’s “The Effective Executive”:
Creating Continuous Time for Thought
Drucker nails it when he says a manager’s MVP resource is uninterrupted time blocks. This got me thinking about fighting “brain rot” differently:
- Hit the deep work when your brain’s firing on all cylinders (morning time for me)
- Mark these blocks as sacred “do not disturb” zones
- Use this time for the heavy lifting that needs serious brain power
These days, my morning routine is all about the blog – no phone, no social media, no email. Just pure, uninterrupted thinking time.
The Triple D Decision Framework
Riffing off Drucker’s “make fewer but better decisions” philosophy, I cooked up my Triple D framework:
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Do
- The stuff that needs handling right now
- Projects that’ll level you up
- Things you’ve committed to and gotta deliver Like learning and building this blog framework – it’s giving me wins every single day
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Don’t
- The obvious time-wasters that drain your energy
- Anything that goes against your core values
- Pure entertainment with zero payoff Think mindless social media scrolling or spending forever deciding what to order for dinner
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Defer
- Decisions that need more intel
- Plans where you’re missing key pieces
- Important stuff that isn’t on fire right now Like upgrading gear – it can wait until you actually need it, plus it teaches you to pump the brakes on instant gratification
Discoveries in Practice
Working this framework hasn’t magically killed all the anxiety, but I’m seeing real changes. The biggest win? My focus is sharper. I can actually sit down and think through problems now, instead of just hunting for quick answers like before.
Three things really stand out:
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The Focus Zone When I’m locked into my “Do” list tasks, I hit this sweet spot where everything flows. Like when I’m debugging Astro issues – each little win feels just right.
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The Art of Letting Go Moving stuff to the “Don’t” list isn’t failing – it’s being smart. Take me deciding not to chase every shiny new blog framework. That decision let me actually master what I’m working with.
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The Power of Pause The “Defer” list taught me something crucial about patience. Some calls, like whether to move the blog to my own server, need time to marinate. Rush them, and you’re just creating tomorrow’s problems.
Refining the Process: Thoughts Behind Technical Choices
Picking Astro over WordPress wasn’t random – it was all about keeping things simple. Like Drucker says, being efficient isn’t about speed – it’s about doing what matters. Astro’s simplicity lets me focus on the content without getting lost in the weeds of complex setups and maintenance.
This choice really shows what I’m trying to do about “brain rot”: strip things down to what matters and focus on that. Keep it simple, keep it focused, keep it real.
Finding Our Digital Walden
Thoreau sought life’s essence by Walden Pond, and through this blog project, I’m seeking the essence of thought in our digital age. As he said, “We should look sharply at near things, not at the dim horizon.” In this era of information overload, perhaps each of us needs to find our own “Walden” – a space where thoughts can settle, a haven safe from the information flood.
For me, this blog is my “Walden.” It’s not just a technical project but an attempt to find freedom of attention in the digital age. When our attention is no longer led by push notifications and social media, when we can consciously choose when to think deeply and when to relax, only then do we truly achieve freedom of thought.
Through this process, I’ve come to understand that the key to fighting “Brain Rot” isn’t about completely isolating ourselves from information, but about finding harmony with it. Just as Thoreau found inner freedom through simple living, we too can find our balance in this complex digital age by consciously choosing where our attention goes – not by escaping, but by learning to swim in the ocean of information; not by passive acceptance, but by actively choosing our own course.