I decided to take a month off of watching YouTube and other videos. 10 days in, I see massive differences. It’s not only in my ability to think, but the amount of time I spend thinking. I was filling my ears up with other people’s voices and letting my own thoughts become jelly. I’d noticed the decline, noticed that I was having trouble concentrating, noticing that I was starting to lose odd words here and there. I’d chalked it up to age, to stress, to laziness. I had no idea – none whatsoever – that I was doing it to myself.

In the short story Harrison Bergeron (link to the story – do go read it if you haven’t), everyone is required to be absolutely equal. In order to make the intelligent more dull, they are required to wear earpieces that irregularly shriek at them. In order to make the strong weak, they must carry heavy weights. In order to make the beautiful “normal”, they have to wear masks. Etc.

Self-induced Harrison Bergeron… I was wearing headphones that, while they didn’t shriek 21-gun salutes at me, did keep me distracted from the thoughts in my head, the ones I didn’t want to deal with. I’m strong too, but I carry too much fat around, which causes pain, which makes me weak. I think of all the pretty girls in the world, endlessly wearing hideous clothing when pretty dresses are a dime a dozen. They’re making themselves “normal”, because they’d rather be normal than breathtaking.

How were we convinced to indulge in self-induced Harrison Bergeron-ing? Oh, it went gradually. I’ve always been prone to distraction and disassociation. Long has been the joke that I can do anything while reading except sleep. So that’s me – but when did reading become listening? And when did listening turn into scrolling? It was just so easy. And ease is deadly.

We don’t have to be forced to listen to painful sounds to avoid real thinking. We can feed ourselves pleasant sounds of people living their ordinary lives. And because people living ordinary lives are so naturally appealing, we tune into them and away from the thoughts that disturb us. But if we never think about what disturbs us, we’ll deal with the reason we were disturbed in the first place.

I’ll be honest with you – I miss the distraction of wearing my headphones and letting people ramble on in my ears. It’s still uncomfortable, especially when I am tired and jelly-like and would really like to rest and watch silly videos. It was *nice* to turn my brain off when I was stressed. But then I think… how weak did I let my mind get, that my mental muscles are so flabby that they lack endurance to this level?

It’s been some years since I read Deep Work, but I remember what he had to say about the necessity for a distraction free life. It’s always been “tomorrow, tomorrow” to put those bits of advice in place – but I think that tomorrow is here.