It is almost impossible for me to repeat a piece of that requires thinking. Maybe you can relate to it, regardless it it was a letter that I was writing, or if had gathered notes from disconnected bits from the internet; if somehow I lose it, I can not make myself go through the process of recreating it. I think there are two aspect to it. The first is, I am recreating it exactly the way I intended to do it the first time. The first time, I let my mind roam free; the second time, I have to walk the same path, but constrained by my memory of how it did it the first time. I find that particularly tiring to pull off. The second aspect, is the inconvenience of it. I grew up with computers, for me, the act of writing happened almost all on computers. So losing a bit of work, almost always feels like it is worth the effort trying to recover it, instead of recreating it. Because computers1 almost never lose data the way we think of losing work on paper.
Either way, it showcases how creating something is hard work; specially if it is results a of long and deliberate thought process2. Which also brings me to my point, which is, thinking as an activity. The way people now have to workout to remain reasonably functional and healthy, I guess we are go to thinking gyms if we are to continue to be functional with our minds. The reason I am worried that this would have to be the case, is because, we are not thinking enough, anymore. At least I am not. I feel my mind atrophy; like I wrote few days ago. Since the rise of LLMs & AI assistants, it is truly astonishing how much of my work I simply do not want to do without an LLM, because it takes effort. Most of the time, it is around my work or work-adjacent tasks, but I see it seep into my life. And why would it not, I use LLMs a third of my day. I used to think, the ability to sit down and think is a muscle, and without use, one loses strength. This is an easy analogy, but I now think it is much worse. It takes much more time for one to lose strength in their arms, than it takes for one to lose their mental faculties.
I do not know why I keep writing about it, maybe I looking for something to save my mind. A mind that was already being chipped away by endless video streams & relentless shopping emails. I am quite certain at this point that I am not alone.
Perhaps the only escape is doing less, a thought for tomorrow maybe. Today, I have hit my five hundred word limit.