Daniel Knecht

I hardly recognize the world around me. When I was younger, life was simpler. For those of you who were around in the 90s and early 2000s, you might recall a time before smartphones. A time before AI and LLMs came to mean the same thing. I can’t say that life was easy, but it wasn’t so complicated. The advent of technology promised boundless freedom, the world at your fingertips, every draw of the digital roulette wheel a chance to “make it”. The internet was new and exciting. Authenticity reigned supreme and YouTube was an opportunity that gave enormous reach and power to individuals and away from massive corporate wealth and monopolistic control of information and entertainment. Blog posts gave voice to content creators with something important to say. Every good thing has its limits though, and fast-forward to the 2020s, it has become clear to me that boundaries must be set, and a new philosophy of personal success must be considered. The variables comprising the equation of life mandate a new approach to mitigate the worst parts of this brave new world.

Enter stage: this web log.

I have decided to counter the culture with a guide for anyone who dares redefine what it means to be human. This site will serve as a place to reflect on priorities. Explore together the strategies to awaken from your deep hibernation and to fire back up the prefrontal cortex and quiet the monkey mind. Distraction and ossification of willpower are the currencies of modern society. Our attention, critical thinking, and resolve has suffered major blows thanks to the way technology has evolved. It is now more essential than ever to find balance and live with intention.

Technology is not inherently good or evil. Scientific discovery has helped society overcome the extreme harshness of life. Shelter from the elements, abundance of food in developed countries, access to medical care that renders pain and suffering manageable, extending the years of life far beyond what our ancestors could have imagined was possible. The point I want to make is, the mind left to its own devices is like a garden left without care, it grows impossible to manage weeds and becomes unkempt and disheveled. Muscles left without exercise atrophy and lose their strength. Similarly, left untended; willpower, critical thinking, and navigating the journey of life without a map, without practices that strengthen our most powerful tool – mind, body, and spirit, will lead to the dulling effect that renders us slave to dopamine, attention-grabbing stimuli, and slothful indulgences and comforts. It has a ruinous effect.

So how do we combat the dangers of this new landscape? It begins by becoming aware of the deleterious effects, to begin to feed the mind with a counter-narrative, a recognition that it is possible. Shape our core beliefs and our personal environment to strengthen those attributes which lead to true freedom. Instill new habits, new behavioral patterns that rewards doing the hard things. Embracing and facing fear and discomfort as a new default-mode. The depth of comfort in the modern era is profound, and therefore the depths we must go to balance the scale is quite deep as well.

Today, I started my day at 4:00AM. Went to the gym, did dual n-back training, took an ice-cold shower, spent 30 minutes reading The Einstein Factor by Win Winger, Ph.D., and spent some time writing this web log. I plan to leave my smartphone in the kitchen today, to reduce the pull of distraction. Yes, it’s boring. Yes, it’s not fun. But, It’s necessary.

See you at the top.