Rescuing my thinking skill by writing long-form

The first symptoms are a foggy mind, intense headaches, and nausea. Yes, I am losing my ability of focused thinking—it has become more fragmented. And I am afraid of what to expect further.

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? It is informational diabetes.

That’s the result of how I consume and what I consume on a daily basis.

Have you noticed how you use Twitter? I, personally, scroll through tweets and switch thoughts without diving deeply into any shared idea. I think about what to reply for a few seconds, then reply and go further. That’s how easy it is to build a habit of “tweetful” thinking.

I can’t sit and think for an hour about a simple concept anymore.

Take, for example, the latest wave of AI hype. I am overwhelmed—so much news. And everybody has their opinion on what’s happening and on the future of humanity. I tried to sit, analyze and synthesize what I had to say and how I understood what was happening, but I couldn’t. I had so many fragmented “thoughts,” and many didn’t relate to each other.

You know where they come from. I read them all on Twitter. But Twitter itself is not the problem. It is how I use Twitter that is the problem. If it wasn’t Twitter, I would find another source of unlimited content I can consume non-stop.

What’s next?

The first thing I want to try is to return to long-form writing.

Twitter frames my thoughts to be in the short form. Many people with experience tweeting probably know this effect—thinking in tweets. But I want to think in the form of essays.

But writing more words is not the goal. The goal is to dive into ideas deeper—analyze and synthesize them. I will start by writing about anything that interests me. It is a discovery writing to find my voice and long-form style. I don’t want to sell anything, while I occasionally can.

I hope I can figure it out quickly.