Shift
I’ve been exhausted these last several months.
Not just physically exhausted from lack of sleep and chasing around two small children. But mentally wiped out. Any downtime I had was spent mindlessly scrolling, consuming a cocktail of memes, terrible news, and 10-second videos. You know the ones.
I took a break from the internet last year, but that didn’t even seem to touch the fatigue. My screen time was creeping up as I was scrolling more, struggling to focus for even a few minutes. I felt myself fraying in all the usual ways: too many tabs open, too many notifications, too much noise. When I turned to something analog, like a book, my brain was stuck in scroll mode.
Last year, I found a book that put a name to what I was going through: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. It was a startling look at why I wasn’t able to pay attention and how to think deeply again.
As much as it helped initially, it only scratched the surface of a much deeper problem.
I started craving slowness. Pen and paper. Time away from screens. Systems that didn’t require an internet connection. Working and crafting with my hands, not my laptop.
Something has to shift. Not just in how I read, but in how I live.