Cal Newport

So care about writing.

Don't automate it with AI.

Hard is not bad.

Strain is not bad.

It's like lifting a weight.

You want the burn.

You want to feel the burn of a blank page.

And self-reflection is going for a walk and thinking about something in your head without a phone.

Can I maintain my mind's eye on an internal subject like myself, some problem I'm having, something I'm trying to figure out, and make progress on it with just internal dialogue?

Those three things, reading, writing, self-reflections, I think are the primary activities to strengthen your cognitive fitness, right?

It's like what would be in the athletic context like doing cardio and strength training and stretching.

I think it's roughly that equivalent.

All right.

That's all we have from our inbox for this week.

Also on Mondays, we like to finish with an update about what I am up to.

I finished last week my fifth book of the month, Jesse.

I reread In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan because, again, my rough idea for a new book, which I'm not sure if I'm doing yet or not, but I have this idea for a book tentatively titled In Defense of Thinking.

And I want to go back and read Pollan's manifesto about eating to see what did he do there that might be relevant for how I think about structuring this book about thinking.

And so it was interesting to go back.

It was kind of nostalgic.