Your brain as a DDOS target. Use critical thinking, please. Feed yourself better content. Is it real, or a PR attempt? Convenience is weakening us. Speed versus accuracy. Keep your eyes on the near term prize.
“A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning,
‘Today I’m going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.”
― Leo Tolstoy
1. “Cognitive bandwidth is being DDoS’d constantly”
The Discourse is a Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack – Joan Westenberg – (Blog)
Probably because it’s a concept that resonates with my technical nature, I found framing our public discourse as a DDoS attack surprisingly accurate.
What I do know is that the feeling of being overwhelmed, of never being able to keep up, of having strong opinions about everything and confident understanding of nothing, is not a personal failing. It’s a predictable response to an impossible situation. Your brain is being DDoS’d, and the fact that you’re struggling to think clearly under that onslaught is evidence that your brain is working normally.
I’d even go a little further: a DDoS attack is designed to overwhelm and prevent access to certain resources. Manufactured crises (Venezuela, Greenland, etc.) seem designed to overwhelm, distract, and prevent access to more important matters (Epstein files). Sounds like an intentional and targeted DDoS to me.
Do this: Try not be overwhelmed. Perhaps choose fewer items to care about, and care more deeply and thoroughly.
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2. “Even if you think, ‘That could never be me'”
Why critical thinking matters now more than ever – Tony Martignetti – (Fast Company)
Even if you don’t think it’s you, it’s you. We’re all guilty of spending too much time in our comfortable bubbles of self-reinforcing information and opinion. I don’t care which “side” you’re on; it’s you.
Every piece of information, every opinion, and every expert claim deserves scrutiny. Ask yourself:
- Who benefits from this narrative?
- What evidence supports this claim, and is it peer-reviewed or independently verified?
- Does this person or group have a track record of integrity, or are they selling certainty at the expense of truth?
Even for those claims you’re inclined to agree with. Yes, it’s extra work, but if you look around you, you’ll see it’s clear we need that extra work now more than ever … from everyone.
Do this: Do the work.
3. “Content is as important as food or exercise”
Your Mind Is Not an Open Sewer! – Annie Scott – (Annie Scott’s Wankery Watch)
What you let into your head all day is not neutral. It’s not just “information”. You are not just “consuming content”. You are training your expectations of life and yourself.
If you spend your days bathing in things that tell you the world is on fire and you are failing to keep up, you quietly start to assume that things won’t work, that you’ll probably fail, and that there’s not much point trying.
In other words: whether you realise it or not, you are on a mental diet. And most of us are eating absolute shit.
I know that most will read that and immediately jump to social media as the current boogyman, but it’s about much, much more than that. The news we consume (or, rather, expose ourselves to), the stories we pay attention to, even the people we associate with all impact our mental state. Of late that impact might well be overwhelmingly negative, depressing, and hopeless.
Scott’s solution is a rule: “nothing goes into my brain by default.” The trouble, of course, is that this means we need to pay attention to what it is trying to get in, and make choices rather than remaining a passive consumer of whatever comes along.
Do this: Make better choices.
4. “The goal is to stop being programmable.”
Why everything feels like propaganda now – Stepfanie Tyler – (Bad Girl Media)
we have lost the ability to distinguish between a genuine statement and a public relations strategy
Everything we read, be it news headlines, fake news headlines, thought pieces, personal essays, detailed analysis, all come with baggage these days, and that baggage is suspicion. It feels like we can’t trust anyone not to be driven more by an agenda than an actual desire to share objective information.
Healthy skepticism has mutated into ambient paranoia.
In other words, everything feels like propaganda. It’s hard not to feel it. It feels like we’ve lost the rocks of objectivity and truth that we once relied on. It leaves us to try and figure it all out on our own, in what ironically is an information void, filled with competing voices all trying to influence us in some way.
Propaganda thrives when people stop thinking for themselves, but it dissolves the moment we remember how.
And yet, thinking for ourselves is exactly what’s required. The “algorithm” insists we move quickly. Rational thought requires otherwise.
Do this: Take the time to think for yourself. Deeply.
5. “Building up tolerance for ‘inconvenience'”
In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing – Kathryn Jezer-Morton – (The Cut)
This reminds me of the over-protective parent scenario, where kids don’t learn life’s important realities because their parents protect them from everything unpleasant. In this case, it applies to us all, and it’s a side-effect of how we’ve come to view our lives and interactions.
Reading is boring; talking is awkward; moving is tiring; leaving the house is daunting. Thinking is hard. Interacting with strangers is scary. Risking an unexpected reaction from someone isn’t worth it. Speaking at all — overrated.
We’re all avoiding inconvenience. Jezer-Morton’s angle remains the kids: what it is we’re modeling to them as we avoid as much friction in our lives as possible. The reality, though, is that we’re leading lesser lives and are more easily manipulated when the least little bit of inconvenience is enough to prevent us from carrying on with something of value.
Do this: Accept, even encourage, more friction in your life.
6. “In a system tuned for speed, authority is ornamental.”
Velocity Is the New Authority. Here’s Why – Om Malik – (On My Om)
Today’s media landscape in a nutshell: speed matters more the accuracy. The system is designed to reward those who publish something quickly, regardless of whether it’s actually right, over those who take the time to dive more deeply and more accurately into whatever topic is at hand.
Algorithms on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter do not optimize for truth or depth. They optimize for motion. A piece that moves fast is considered “good.” A piece that hesitates disappears.
As Malik also says, we’re becoming “a culture optimized for first takes, not best takes”. I think we lose something very important as a result.
Do this: Take the time to look for (and reward) better takes.
7. “Your focus must stay on this side of the horizon”
Cover Your Twenty-Five Miles, Then Rest Up and Sleep – David Cain – (Raptitude)
This (and the quote at the top of this issue) kinda hit home.
For each such trek, the twenty-five-mile day will be something different, but it’s always a day with a clear standard that requires a push to meet it. It might mean spending the first three hours of each weekday drumming up clients until you’re in the black. It might be yet another day of dutifully rehabbing your injury, achieving a caloric deficit, or staying sober.
(Emphasis mine.) That’s exactly where I’m at. I have a lengthy rehab ahead of me, mostly dealing with strength, balance, and tingling in my hands. Progress is positive, albeit slow. There’s a good chance that it’ll take upwards of a year or more for full recovery, or at least arrival at the new normal. That’s too long a timeframe to motivate on a daily basis. “Getting my laps in today”, or whatever other rehab activity is on tap for today, on the other hand, is significantly more tangible, do-able, and psychologically rewarding. The goal remains the same, and sets the direction of travel, but the focus is on the more immediate steps to make progress in the correct direction.
Do this: Focus on the steps, not necessarily the far-away destination.
What I’m reading now
- It’s Easier Than You Think – Sylvia Boorstein (re-read)
- F**k You Optimism – A User’s Guide to Optimism with Teeth – Joan Westenberg
- The Nature of Things – Lucretius
My Reading List – everything I’ve read since 2021.
My Sources Page – the common sources I scan/read regularly.
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Your 7 Takeaways never fail to give me a chuckle, make me stop and think, and give me an insight (or two) that I can mull over and put to work, perhaps. Thank you for the thought-provoking content. (And so glad that you’re improving.)
Re: twenty-five miles
When my sister had surgery for a torn ACL, she drew a picture of Mt. Rainier and put it on her refrigerator. Each step of her rehab was a section of a climb up the mountain that she traced on that sheet. When she finished her rehab, she was at the top. Then she went and climbed the real one!
I love it!