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Table of Contents
You don’t have Shower Thoughts
US Treasury Watch
FOMC Review
Euro Losing FX Dominance
Crypto Macro
Price Action
ETFs
Conclusion
1. You Don’t Have Shower Thoughts
This isn’t the first time I’ve had this idea. It’s not new to me in any form.
Modern people are only ever free from technological distractions in their showers. It’s the only place where they can’t be distracted by a screen or a buzz/chime. Because of that, it’s one of the few places where a modern person’s brain stretches out in the manner a brain normally does when free from distraction.
It’s no coincidence that the phrase “shower thoughts” didn’t really enter our lexicon in any meaningful way until the 21st century. Meanwhile, the first shower was invented in 1767, and showers became a widespread appliance in home bathrooms in the 1950s and ’60s.
These aren’t shower thoughts. You’re just having thoughts, but the shower is the only remaining place where the average person can think. And even then, there are people who bring technology with them into the shower. They play music, or bring in their cell phones as most these days are now waterproof and so distract themselves even here.
Similarly, we have found ways to bring distraction into every place and facet of life that would otherwise offer us some refuge. Go to the gym or running on trails and you’ll see headphones everywhere. Or worse, hike a National Park and there is undoubtedly at least one group of people who think a Bluetooth speaker is better than the wind in the trees, the birds overhead, or the running water below.
People are weird about silence. For the vast majority of human existence, silence was the norm. Not only was silence the norm, but we vastly overestimated just how much of the day in the past was filled with actual activities.
Our ancestors spent large portions of their days doing nothing.
Most people who live in primitive ways these days spend the most time each day doing nothing. They are just sitting or standing still. Not talking to anyone, not fixing anything, not gathering anything, not sowing/knitting, nothing. Just staring off into space, thinking about whatever.
If you can’t do this without needing to reach for something/do something, consider setting aside some time to intentionally do nothing. Just 15 or 30 minutes. Set an alarm, and don’t touch any technology for the entire time. Turn off whatever background noise you may have going. Not much time is necessary. But intentional time where you aren’t going to do anything unless an emergency pops up. More than anything else, this time doing nothing allows you to think. It’s similar to other menial tasks. There are certain things you can do with your brain essentially turned off. Exercise, driving, cleaning, and manual labor come to mind. The urge to multitask is strong. The urge to turn on the news, turn on a podcast, listen to music, call a friend or relative, etc. DON’T. Just do the task by itself, nothing more.
You don’t need to hyperstimulate yourself. The reason for this might surprise you. Your brain has an auto-pilot circuit, the scientists and psychologists call this the Default Mode Network of your brain. It’s the part of your brain that gets active when your brain simply isn’t needed.
I quote this book often, but it bears repeating. If you have not read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, you absolutely should. Technology is great for all of the things it allows us to do, but it takes away many things that we don’t realize we are losing if we are not careful. Can you bear to spend 30 minutes with yourself, an hour, or a whole day without distraction? Your ancestors could, and often did. Should we throw away this tradition without first contemplating what it does for us?
The French have a phrase for something similar to this. L’esprit de l’escalier. Translated - The Spirit of the Staircase. Essentially, it’s that feeling of walking out of a cafe or a friend's home and suddenly realizing what the perfect comeback or conversational response would have been. They had this because the stimulation of the conversation had ended and their brain had entered auto-pilot for the walk home. We have smartphones now, so we often don’t experience this phenomenon at all until our next shower.
The kind of thinking you can manage when you aren’t distracted is far and away different from the kind of short, flighty thinking that you engage in while distracted. When I am engaged in my brain’s “Task Positive Network,” I can jump around from topic to topic, idea to idea, and can drop what I’m doing instantly only to pick it back up 20 seconds later. I can be a model of productivity in such settings. But my depth and character aren’t quite easily reached when I’m in this setting. It is still there and I can call it out when I need it, but if I need a new thought, one that I haven’t had before, I have to drop everything for a bit in order to find it.
Many people have never met their true selves and don’t even know who they are because they do not spend enough alone time with themselves. You are a different person with technology than you are without it. You are a different person with stimulus than without it. You are a different person when using substances that impact you than without them.
When is the last time you have spent more than a few minutes without all three at once? A few hours? A few days? That is the last time you’ve been with yourself. Don’t be your own stranger.
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