Because my therapist told me so
I've been feeling my brain rot away for quite some time now.
It may be naive of me to think that this would never happen — or at the very least, be this extreme. But it's hard for me to sit here and not admit the obvious:
Using AI has made me lazy.
It has made my brain sluggish, uninspired, and it has made me a worse writer. It's terrifying to think that while I used to revel in writing content — from blog posts on work topics (IoT and the likes) to personal opinion pieces to writing in a journal about my day.
It has now become the thing I dread.
It's not that getting my thoughts onto paper (virtual or otherwise) is the thing I no longer enjoy. In fact, writing is still the superpower that I lean on most in my professional life. It's the fact that I feel intense anxiety that it's not perfect. It lacks structure or cohesiveness.
I find that I am constantly chasing perfection, intending to monetise the thing that used to bring me joy.
The combination of hustle culture, the instant gratification of AI, and the increasing pressure to do more earlier in life has meant that I no longer find joy in creating just for the sake of it.
I've been in therapy for nearly two years now. Initially, it was to curb the burnout from doing work that I care about deeply for a company that didn't seem to care about me at all. Don't feel sorry for me, though — I've come to realise that this is not a unique experience for people who thoroughly enjoy their jobs. Or for people who are an Enneagram 2 (Carer) & 3 (Competitive Achiever).
It's a bleak reality, but it doesn't make me love what I do for money any less. For this, I feel grateful.
Therapy has been good to me, and great for me. Recently, my therapist and I discussed my anxiety and my aforementioned brain rot.
I feel immense pressure to create for the sake of others — whether it's for approval, respect, ego, validation, or to monetise it.
Create an AI agent, build a product, learn a new transferable skill, take on freelance work, start a side business, leverage data, network with people better than you, grow your network of strangers.
Share it all online.
Document your life, take photos of your food, take videos of everything, post your daily activities on your Instagram stories, create a reel, write vulnerable post captions about your shadow self.
Share it all online.
Drink water, eat healthily, log it in MyFitnessPal, go for a run, log the run on Strava, do CrossFit, lift heavy, log your scores, enter a marathon, read a self-help book.
SHARE IT ALL ONLINE.
The pressure to be perfectly imperfect is immense. It's too heavy, and it's evident that I feel this way when reflecting on my own conversations with my therapist.
Recently, she recommended that maybe it might be good for me to start writing again, but writing only for me. About whatever I want, when I want. How I want. No running it through AI to make it "witty" or "easy-to-understand" or "relatable". No asking "is this good enough to post?" or "will this illicit engagement?".
Which brings us to the present.
And brings us to this blog. My own little space on the internet, with a domain that is all mine, to share the things that I want to share from my brain.
So, I guess we'll see where this takes us. From someone who is obsessive about structure, perfection, consistency, clarity, and cohesion in my professional life, my hope for this blog is to be anything but that.
Maybe I'll write about the books I read, or the adventures I fantasize about on my walks, or what it's like to be a snail crossing the road, or how I feel about my job and the things I learn. Maybe I'll write about my imposter syndrome, or how the mountains looked on my evening runs. Maybe this will last a couple of posts, maybe it will go on for years. Maybe it won't — maybe this will be my first official, and final, post.
I guess we'll see where this takes me.
Maybe because my therapist told me so.
But, maybe — just maybe:
Because I want to see if I can get my creativity back.