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De-Brainrot Vacations

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Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#11

Post by holden_nelson »

A number of years ago I had a period of my life where I decided to shut my laptop for a while.

I was working as a line cook and trying to find time and energy to code study so I could land a role in software (no degree). I was really struggling with my mental health and was having issues making or maintaining progress in pretty much any area of my life.

I got a new job, cooking breakfast in a small mountain town at a bakery. Before I left I sold my laptop and borrowed a bunch of books from some friends.

I really did feel much better a few months later. Taking the time to decompress allowed me to get my priorities in order and surface some biases / blind spots I had. I ended up re-enrolling in school the next spring and am now happily employed in software.

I don’t think the modality is particularly important - coding vs reading vs anything else - but taking the time to put your goals away for a little while and decompress can make you more effective in actually reaching them

Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#12

Post by cube00 »

> Nothing is that novel anymore, and solving day to day problems, more than requiring mental exhaustion, mostly require spending some time at them.

You're the largest fish in your bowl, time to move to a larger bowl. It's OK to be comfortable but if you're unhappy there's always another level to aim for.

Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#13

Post by hectdev »

holden_nelson wrote: post #11

A number of years ago I had a period of my life where I decided to shut my laptop for a while. I was working as a line cook and trying to find time and energy to code study so I could land a role in software (no degree). I was really struggling with my mental health and was having issues making or maintaining progress in pretty much any area of my life. I got a new job, cooking breakfast in a small mountain town at a…

Just want to say hello fellow culinary -> software engineer migrator.

Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#14

Post by aa-jv »

My daily de-brainrot vacation is .. playing with synthesizers. Nothing gets the webs cleared out faster than a quick jam, maybe laying down a couple loops, getting some ideas fleashed out into a bigger structure.

Music-making and musicianship in general is great de-brainrot.

Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#15

Post by gryfft »

holden_nelson wrote: post #11

A number of years ago I had a period of my life where I decided to shut my laptop for a while. I was working as a line cook and trying to find time and energy to code study so I could land a role in software (no degree). I was really struggling with my mental health and was having issues making or maintaining progress in pretty much any area of my life. I got a new job, cooking breakfast in a small mountain town at a…

This is something I've felt very deeply intuitively. (It's also something that it feels like my life actively optimizes against to prevent me being able to do it.)

Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#18

Post by FinnLobsien »

I think the „my brain isn’t the same anymore“ sensation is pretty universal.

Between addictive online media in our personal lives and AI at work, I think we’ve made mental effort largely optional.

That must be a horrible thing.

One of my favorite theories is the physical activity transition.

In my grandparents‘ generation, physical movement became more optional as work shifted from manual labor to knowledge work or operating machines and transportation became motorized.

Exercise was an ambient byproduct of daily life. Then it disappeared (exercise as a hobby was viewed as extremely weird, runners used to be arrested!) and a few decades later heart disease, diabetes, and so on became deadly epidemics.

We now know exercise is not optional for health. And we’ve reintroduced it via gyms, clubs, etc.

But that took decades. And I believe we’re now in the Mental Activity Transition.

We’ve stripped away ambient mental effort so we practice it much less.

I don’t know what the decades-long consequences of that may be, but they can’t be good.

I hope it won’t take decades for societies to rediscover its value and figure out how to reintroduce it.

Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#19

Post by friendly_chap »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #18

I think the „my brain isn’t the same anymore“ sensation is pretty universal. Between addictive online media in our personal lives and AI at work, I think we’ve made mental effort largely optional. That must be a horrible thing. One of my favorite theories is the physical activity transition. In my grandparents‘ generation, physical movement became more optional as work shifted from manual labor to knowledge work or o…

I have bad news for you: for the majority of the population mental effort was always a foreign concept. That's exactly what got us in this mess in the first place.

Re: De-Brainrot Vacations

#20

Post by orwin »

technotarek wrote: post #7

I spend a big chunk of my summers in nowhere cow-ville France (la Creuse). No Michelin star restaurants, no art galleries, no shopping worth note. Just landscapes, hiking, lakes and slower life. BUT what surprises me most is how often I describe this to people, even the French, and they’re like “why / pourquoi ?!” Is it not obvious? There’s a reason people say they need a vacation after their vacation. I think it’s t…

I quit paris to work on the coast to sail at least every two weekends (and took up foiling for the evenings), I'd say I now need way, way less vacations than I used to.
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