Then I noticed my best moves weren’t “planned,” but felt, and then executed.

I would often find myself overwhelmed by the fact that there never seems to be enough time to truly learn and memorise everything that one could want to — that learning new things to the extent that is actually useful isn’t worth it for the sheer time it takes.

But our brains don’t actually work like that.

I recently had a dream in which I remembered a very small detail about something in real life that, consciously, I would not have been able to recall if questioned.

This got me thinking…

In reality, our brains store everything they see or experience, then surface what is needed as instinct when the relevant situation arises.

You could compare this to the training of an AI model.

Training data goes in quietly as input, and the output shows up when it matters and is requested in context.

This shift meant I realised that we don’t have to place so much pressure on conscious learning to memory.

If you can train yourself to truly trust your gut - even over in-depth analysis at times - and feed it with good experiences, resources, and “data”, you’ll be able to instinctively make decisions that, consciously, might have been more difficult or just straight up wrong.

This is backed by research.

In his book Gut Feelings, Gerd Gigerenzer outlines how instinctive decision-making often outperforms complex analytical models, especially when made under uncertainty. Our brains run pattern-matching algorithms on our entire library of experience without us consciously being aware of it happening.

Gary Klein’s Recognition-Primed Decision Model (RPD) studied firefighters, military commanders, and nurses, and showed that experts across domains are not required to weigh pros and cons to make good decisions. They pattern-match against thousands of their stored experiences instantly.

Stepping away and letting the subconscious finish the job is also helpful. Ap Dijksterhuis discovered with the Unconscious Thought Theory that people who were distracted when making complex decisions, such as buying a car or choosing an apartment, made better choices than people who deliberately analysed. The subconscious is able to process more variables simultaneously than the conscious mind can.

But what is important to caveat all this is that your instinct is only as good as what it is fed.

Daniel Kahneman showed that intuition fails in low-validity environments, essentially when you don’t have as many consistent patterns to have learned from.

This is why the “trusting your instinct” methodology doesn’t work unless you are feeding it a wide array of real experience.

Once you load the subconscious with so much high-quality input: resources, experiences, trials/failures — you make your instinct so loud that it becomes impossible to ignore.

Eventually it’s not “I must do this because X person said it’s right,” but more “this feels right.”

This makes sense even with my music career.

When creating, I don’t make conscious strategic decisions. They’ve become part of my instinct as a result of 20 years of musical information, resources, experience, and trials and failures loaded into my brain.

I just know what I like, I know what works, and I follow it. I could do so with even more conviction, though, and that’s what I’ll be working towards in the future.

The same applies for my language learning, using the Comprehensible Input theory, which states that it is all about taking in content of the target language just above your level and that, by doing that, the output (speaking, writing) takes care of itself. I can attest to this from my experience of learning French to fluency, it really does work like this.

When reading, I have the tendency to, after finishing a book, worry about the fact that I cannot recall certain details from its contents. This shift in my thinking eliminates that because I can feel confident that it is building my subconscious decision-making framework. It also allows me to stop overcomplicating decisions on what to read or learn or spend my time on, and just do whatever I feel is good to feed my mind and not what I feel I can consciously learn or need at that exact moment.

Whatever it is that you are doing, this shift should allow you to see that action beats planning every time. You do not need a picture-perfect map, just a direction and movement. You can redirect at any time. I believe it is the best way.

Feed the subconscious, let instinct drive, then learn from the results and repeat.

To be addicted is to be ‘physically or mentally dependent on a particular substance’. To be dependent is to be ‘unable to do without’. In a world of unlimited entertainment, dopamine on tap, and a rampant attention economy, addiction has evolved far beyond substance abuse. It has become acceptable to seek addiction externally, and when we inevitably find it, we feel empty and search for more. In reality, Life itself should be what we are addicted to.

Nietzsche’s concept of Amor Fati (love of fate) is to love what is—to make life itself what we desire rather than its vices. It is to not want things to be different, neither in the future, present nor past; not just bearing things, but loving them, no matter their state. “I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth!” To live a life worth living is to live a beautiful one, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Your life cannot be beautiful if you don’t deem it to be.

His idea of eternal recurrence asks: would you be willing to live your exact life over and over infinitely? If the answer is no, escapism has infected your life. If you knew you were writing the script of a movie you would have to watch for all eternity, how would you live? Addiction to life means stopping the resistance and loving it for what it is—being dependent on it to the point that you’d live it over and over again.

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The rewards of life aren’t where real pleasure lies; it’s in the activities themselves that bear fruit to these rewards. Aristotle’s concept of Eudaimonia is all about searching for activity over outcome. Enjoy the act of doing more than what comes from doing. Pleasure is but a byproduct. The agency one feels when acting on something is what makes things so addictive.

Throughout my childhood, I was addicted to video games—specifically strategy and simulation. What made me so dependent on them was simple: the feeling of being in control kept me coming back. Tight feedback loops created every time I made a change in my in-game strategy and saw it play out in real time gave me the feeling that what I did actually means something. This is why power itself is so addictive, as well as substances that alter our perception of reality.

Life itself can be the most addictive of all—it is the most complex and has so many different ways to affect it. We don’t default to this because the feedback loops so tightly engineered in video games appear long and boring in real life, and our dopamine reliance is increasingly preyed on by accessible media. But with careful rewiring, it is possible to change this.

At our lowest points, we ask: why? Why would I even want to progress, or whatever society’s idea of progress is? What’s the meaning? Jean-Paul Sartre argues that we create meaning through our actions.

An analogy I’ve always loved is that of a canvas. At the start of life, each person has a canvas divided into various shapes, with the middle few already painted in different colours—a configuration unique to each person. This represents our uniqueness at birth and the circumstances we were born into. The painting doesn’t become complete until all the shapes have colour, which is done through our actions and choices from the inside out. You could choose to not see the meaning in it all, and your painting would end up a massive splash of grey. You can’t change what you’ve already painted, but at any point you can start painting a beautiful picture, with many colours and strokes, knowing that yours is totally unique. When painting each shape, the colours don’t make sense in isolation—that’s because you are in the process of constructing its meaning. The meaning of the painting is created by you, not searched for externally. You choose: the grey blob or the colourful kaleidoscope.

Flow theory supports this. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines Flow as complete absorption where the activity itself is the reward. It is closely linked with autotelism—the act of doing something for its own sake. Someone with an autotelic personality turns anything into an engaging challenge. In his book Flow, Csikszentmihalyi describes a factory worker on an assembly line who turned an inherently boring job into an addictive game by forensically optimising his performance like an Olympic athlete. This not only made him flourish but thoroughly enjoy himself in the process. You can consciously make life addictive; doing so is all about perspective.

Intrinsic motivation will always beat external reward because externally, we always need more. But when searching for pleasure intrinsically in life’s activities, life has more to offer than we could ever want. It is always enough. When we adopt philosophies like creating more than we consume and gaining understanding to tighten our grip around the control we have over our lives, the video-game-like addiction that offers is priceless.

In Good Will Hunting, Will Hunting is a maths genius seemingly overwhelmed by his talent, seeking to find meaning in it and the responsibility it bore on him. He could do anything with his life, yet didn’t see the point. His deduction that climbing society’s ladder was equal to becoming a ‘lab rat’ was quickly shut down by his closest friend, Chuckie, who said if Will didn’t use his genius, he’d be very disappointed. The feeling Will had, I’m sure a lot of people can identify with. His realisation that previous events were not his fault—and didn’t need to be blockers to his future—combined with the understanding that he could make the ‘lab rat’ job mean whatever he wanted, allowed him to be at peace and move on.

Life is for the taking. It’s not just something to consume—it is a rich, infinite game worth playing and worth getting addicted to.

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The same questions pop up such as: ‘Why am I doing this?’, ‘What’s the point? Are the ‘benefits’ worth it?’, ‘What’s the end goal? And when I get there will I be happy?’

In a time of an overabundance of choice and possibility, where things achievable for most human beings are being made easier and lazier by the day, it is easy to feel this sensation of meaninglessness.

Complacency creeps in when activities, challenges and quests just don’t require enough effort.

When the going gets tough, it’s painful, but when not tough enough, aimless.

For those who tend to overthink and overanalyse, this feeling of existential dread happens more often. Our minds are susceptible to this sinking feeling when we think too far ahead or we try to plan our lives too perfectly.

In a world where corporations, culture and individuals alike are all wrestling for our attention, our needs can be fulfilled all too easily.

The notion that ‘people just aren’t proud of their profession anymore’ has truth to it, but more importantly people no longer have as much of a need to be proud of who they are and what they do.

The world seems so well-supplied and saturated that we as cogs in society’s machine can easily fall into the trap of feeling surplus to requirements and sitting back and becoming observers.

Building an internal sense of accomplishment, resilience and purpose alone gets increasingly difficult as the cost for not doing so becomes less and less. Most of the time you have the choice to live life on autopilot, without much repercussion.

Humanity feels accomplished in the material sense so much nowadays to the point that so many lose sight of the human side, with emotion and happiness so often pushed to the side in favour of logical ‘progress’.

We are obliged to walk the path expected of us in order to contribute to society rather than walk the path meant for us.

This is so deeply engrained in our society, culture and now in our minds that it is quite hard now to fathom a world that isn’t like this.

Hope remains, though, and it lives in the individual.

Humanity has collectively done a pretty good job at ‘optimising’ the life experience, at the cost of optimising each of ourselves. Happiness, community, family and mental clarity are all suffering as a result of our striving for optimisation. Optimising algorithms, processes and systems are put ahead of taking care of the mind. A shift in mindset to improving oneself turns this around.

This responsibility doesn’t lie with governmental structures or leaders, but instead with you; the human being. Establish what personal growth means to you and consecrate life itself to the pursuit of that rather than anything else.

We search for the ‘point’ of life externally in a collectively curated melting pot of millions of ideas when it has to lie within.

A key moulded from the sum of all locks cannot open every door.

Your uniqueness is a positive because you always stand out, but also means that the instruction manual is only true to you.

For days, weeks or even months you keep this up: waking early, eating clean, deep work blocks adhered to, progress on projects and purpose fulfilled.

You feel like you are floating in a fast flowing river that is taking you with it.

The effort to get on the stream was significant but now that you are on it, you are just moving.

However, there is that nagging feeling deep inside you that sporadically pops into your mind

The feeling is that at any moment you could hit a bend in the stream and be thrown back onto shore.

The gradual increase in this fear is what leads to it eventually happening.

And just like that, your time in stream lasted nowhere near the time it spent to get on it in the first place.

What’s worse is that your brain can’t even remember how you got on the stream the last time in the first place - meaning you have to figure it out again from zero.

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In pursuing an understanding human consciousness, what really intrigues me is this apparent cycle (motivated for weeks and then almost depressed for some time), and how it seems to be prevalent in all human minds.

Some minds, however, have built structures to ride the wave better than others.

And those structures are what I wanted to talk about in this letter.

What is quite sinister, in a certain way, about the self-sabotaging that the modern human mind imposes on these cyclical mood shifts is that when we are on the ‘stream’, we fight every attempt to create preventative structures that will help us stay on the ‘stream’, no matter what bends in the river we encounter.

Why would our brains do such a self-disrupting thing?

This is because in order for us to write a manual on how to get back onto the stream, we have to either be off the stream or, more frighteningly, dive deep into the feelings we have when we are off the stream. Our brains don’t want to do that.

But it is something we have to learn to do.

This letter is also an attempt at doing that. Documenting elements of what I did, how I felt and how I reacted the last time I was in a rut and what I realised about it and how I got out are exactly the kind of instructions that writing down will allow my future self to be grateful.

The more we learn about our minds, the more we can be happier and therefore better deal with the external hardships and pressure that we experience.

Our minds are built to see chaos as disorganising in nature and alien.

So whenever we lose our routine or something out of the ordinary happens, it throws us off, and if we haven’t built strong guardrails to keep us in line, our perception of reality can become chaotic too.

How good we feel or how much we feel like we are in that fast-flowing stream of ease and intrinsic achievement cannot be dependent on our external environment. It comes from a mastery of what is within.

In Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi supports this:

Certainly we should keep on learning how to master the external environment, because our physical survival may depend on it. But such mastery is not going to add one jot to how good we as individuals feel, or reduce the chaos of the world as we experience it. To do that we must learn to achieve mastery of consciousness itself.

The most important thing I interpret from that is that even though when you fall into a rut and feel like crawling inside yourself and blocking out the world, we must remember that the rut, and subsequently the solution to it has absolutely nothing to do with outside events or anything external.

It lies within the parts of our consciousness that are unknown to us.

This is why whilst journaling at all times is powerful (or some sort of writing as a form of expression) it is especially powerful in these times when we are in a rut.

Precisely because these are the times that we will learn the most about our own mind.

What was the trigger that pushed me back off stream? Was it slightly too long spent this week on social media? Whilst spending too much time on social media, was it the comparisons that it concocted that spiraled the narratives of my internal dialogue? Was it how I reacted to an external traumatic event or disruption to life?

These questions written down, and kept could be exactly what’s needed for the next time for us to understand why A led to B.

Then it’s also important to document the realisations and discoveries we made about ourselves that got us back on track.

What framework brought me back? What elements of that framework are sustainable and aren’t vulnerable to me falling back into a rut for the same reasons I did the last time? What triggers are my mind, in particular, vulnerable to that I should stay away from (that are unique to me)?

Whether in a written form or vocal form or video, whatever is easiest for you, the paramount being actually documenting these findings.

If we reframe ruts and bad periods as research opportunities dissecting our own minds, we can help to not necessarily prevent them in the future, but rather be better prepared for them in the future and learn to accept why they are happening, so we can operate at higher levels of human function.

We all want to be happy at the end of the day, with any other material or physical desires that we have deriving from our search for happiness.

Learn to master the mind and the rest follows.

So next time you are in a rut and lose your routine or all sense of motivation, ignore everything external and look within at how your perception of the outside is blocking you.

— E.J.C.

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When that desire did come, it was all I could think about - speaking French fluently.

But no, I didn’t want to just speak French, I wanted to live French.

In other words, I didn’t want to be seen as just another strong-accented learner who just learnt to speak the language; who, once Parisians sensed the slightest struggle in your voice, reverted instantly to English under the guise of ‘I’m doing them a favour, and I can practice my English as well.’

I didn’t want any kind of CEFR certificate for passing some arbitrary language test

that would mean nothing out in the real world of French discourse and interaction.

Far from it.

I wanted to feel like it was part of me, like it was a switch that I could just turn on at any point and bridge the gap between the cultural channel.

I don’t quite know what the spark that ignited this insatiable desire in me was, but I sure knew that it was never going to be quenched until I reached it.

It wasn’t motivation by family members who spoke it, or even friends - frankly I had no real connection to the language other than it just seemed cool and I just needed it in my life.

I researched and tested many different learning methods such as flashcards, online speaking lessons with tutors, and even a language school exchange in Montpellier, but it would honestly be unfair to attribute my eventual arrival at my goal to any one of those methods.

It was simply my hunger to reach mastery that then unlocked the ability to find the right methods that would work for me.

Now having curated my own framework for acquiring a language from beginner to mastery, people often ask me for insights into these methods, and upon giving it to them, their real problem gets highlighted.

They can’t acquire the language because they don’t feel the passion and drive to push through and do it.

They don’t feel like they need it. They are quite content carrying on how they are.

Acquiring a language to mastery is of course not a straightforward ordeal; it requires an obscene amount of mental resilience, especially when you are not learning the language for a sentimental or familial reason.

As such, learning a language uniquely driven by discipline alone is hard. And I would go as far as to say that if your goal is mastery, it’s impossible

You need that extra kick. That extra fleeting

vision of what could be and the future you, that pushes you forward in your studies.

I would argue that this desire can be induced somewhat artificially in you too, and it applies to all forms of learning in all domains, not just languages.

Luckily in language learning specifically, motivation to learn doesn’t have to be intrinsic. Meaning you don’t have to necessarily enjoy the actual act of vocabulary memorisation and grammar practice and so on to still enjoy the act of acquiring that language.

You could really enjoy Spanish telenovelas or the idea of traveling to Ecuador, and that be your motivation to learn Spanish.

This gives us so many motivational triggers that we can utilise to activate our brain and trick us into loving the act of learning Spanish.

Aside from the cultural aspect and the content that you will be able to consume once mastering the language, there is also the communicational and social aspect.

We all have human interactions almost daily and strong relationships can be formed from these interactions. Perhaps, then, the idea that a whole new previously unavailable group of humans becoming available to interact with is your motivation.

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What I have found works for me in the past is coupling already existing interests with the language (or any domain that you are learning).

For example my interest in football tactics doesn’t have to be limited to the English language, but there is a whole world of content to consume in Spanish, French, German and so many other languages that can even open doors to new philosophies.

This means I am doing what I enjoyed anyways, whilst acquiring a new language.

In this unique way, for me language learning isn’t even really a domain, it’s a repairing of fragmented links between humanity that we can restore passively by getting deep into our interests, work and hobbies

Another example of using this to acquire a skill could be if you know you want to learn to draw, but you don’t feel the autotelic passion or motivation or reason to do so, but you still know you want to, couple that with another interest you have like sketching a member of your family.

Other common tactics like changing your device’s system language to your target language are valuable as it gives you that reason you were looking for, in this case - survival.

But I’m not writing this to give my opinion on the best language acquisition methods, that is for future letters (which I will dive into in much detail), but simply to discuss the fact that before diving into learning a new domain, or rekindling an old one, you must trick yourself to focus on the why.

It’s possible to succeed without it, but for true mastery and to reach levels even you couldn’t have imagined possible of yourself, you need that illogical and unstoppable desire in you to make the act of achieving mastery a necessity.

— E.J.C.

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I yearn to obsess over all of them equally, living in some sort of eternal flow state and picturing each one becoming my life’s work.

This lasts but a few minutes, before the idea of another shiny interest abruptly hijacks the last, leading to a choice.

What should I spend my time on?

The right choice to this question promises limitless potential, unbounded possibility and most importantly protects my ever so guarded ego.

The stakes are sky high.

At least it seems.

I mean, this is my future and legacy we are talking about.

If I don’t spend time doing the thing that will give me the ‘best’ return in the future, that’s a mistake that is irreversible and unforgivable.

So I bathe in the indecisiveness that ensues, curating all kinds of possibilities and utopias in my head that could be born by taking each respective choice.

I tell myself that as long as I don’t make a choice, it’s better than the wrong one because think about all I’d be missing out on if I didn’t choose the right thing!

So I do nothing.

I wait. I say that I need more time to decide.

I say I need some framework or system to decide which choice is best, which I will enjoy more, which will fulfill me more, but will also pay me well enough.

But then there is the choice of which framework?

And stuck I become.

This is a representation of the inner dialogue that we have when we are in analysis paralysis.

The main issue with this vicious cycle is that our minds convince ourselves that our choices are permanent, whether it be a macro, big life decision, or a seemingly mundane one like choosing between household chores.

The choices we make aren’t permanent, however.

They are experiments.

Assuming that you can’t reverse a choice and therefore needing to make sure you pick the right one is rather offensive to your own intelligence.

It presumes that you cannot react to feedback and have control over your choices in the future.

If scientists conducting drug trials always needed to make the ‘right’ drug on the first attempt, the chances are they would not take the risk of making the drug at all and civilisation would have collapsed a long time ago.

The search for the ‘right choice’ is exactly what prevents us from any choice at all.

In other words, your progression is on the other side of the wrong call.

As humans, we have an innate desire to act and do. The inactive state that analysis paralysis induces goes against our nature, making it impossible to be inherently happy when in this state.

The truth is that a choice can only look right in retrospect.

No-one is able to predict the future.

And even if they were, their perception of what is the ‘correct’ decision isn’t necessarily the one that the next person will share.

So if it is physically impossible to make the ‘correct’ decision given any circumstance, how can one come to a decision at all?

Act despite uncertainty

At the base of analysis paralysis, the mind is trying to eliminate uncertainty.

It is trying to run simulations of all the permutations that could arise down each branch of the simulation tree.

Yet, no matter how many simulations our mental CPU runs, there can never be a 100% degree of certainty to the outcome.

The natural choice, therefore needs to be to make a choice even when unsure.

And to be at peace with it.

At times when I don’t know what to plan for my day amongst the plethora of my interests that face me and potential projects that I want to start, complete or master, I feel like doing none of them.

I feel this way because I have thought of all of them, and none of them stand out as the perfect choice that will not leave me with at least a bit of regret.

This feeling of existential perfectionism is so damaging for our brains as often it leads to episodes of meaning collapse, asking ourselves the question ‘well, what’s the point of doing any of them?’

None of the activities seem perfect enough for me to place them in my plan over the other 40 or so options.

So what’s the point of choosing at all?

Wouldn’t it be easier to just choose none and go back to my comfort zone, an array of things at least I know for sure will bring me some quick hit of dopamine?

How do I get out of this?

I set myself an experiment. I say that I will try one of the options for a given period and depending on results, we will see.

Now this feedback loop behavior is positive, but it can become a burden when one has the tendency to set exit criteria. (if i meet X goal in Y time, I will keep going on the project)

I’ve found that this leads me back into another round of paralysis, this time into something called experiment sabotage.

You say to yourself that you will try this project and devote your focus to it (as multi-focus is what led you to the paralysis in the first place), but those KPIs need to be met if you are going to continue, so your brain half-sabotages the project if there is even a whiff of you not meeting those KPIs.

Why?

Because you don’t want to have made the wrong choice.

Your brain would rather know that it failed at that challenge of its own doing than know that it made the wrong choice.

This is ego.

The superior alternative to setting exit criteria (which is often variables not in your control) that I’ve found is for the criteria to be the input itself.

Don’t know what to pick between coding your application or finally learning to draw?

Pick the one that your gut wants (often the one that at the mention of it energises you most) and commit to just doing it for any time period.

Draw something

once a day and do not add any other stipulations to it.

Just the action and the action alone.

Don’t think about where to post it, don’t think about the equipment to buy - just start.

All of humanity’s greatest creations came on the other side of uncertainty and the unknown.

No great discovery was made knowing before that it was the right path do go down.

You don’t find your purpose by analysis, you create your purpose by doing it.

Action, even when the ‘wrong’ one creates clarity, not the reverse.

— E.J.C.