Your Brain Isn't Broken - Your Lifestyle Is

Latium, Italy, 2003.

"The Ketchup Song" blasted from the beach resort, competing with Las Ketchup's dance moves erupting spontaneously under the umbrellas. It was the infernal summer of 2003, when Europe melted under an unprecedented heatwave.

The air was so thick you could swim in it, heavy with Nivea sunscreen and the desperate prayers for a breeze. I was ten, sprawled on my towel with a book of Greek Myths, while my Coca-Cola turned warm faster than I could drink it.

Around me, the familiar canvas of Italian beach life unfolded: clusters of pensioners religiously solving La Settimana Enigmistica (the iconic Italian magazine with crosswords); the eternal card players shouting "Briscola!" over the sound of Euro-dance hits; teenagers showing off their tri-band GSM Nokias, pretending to text with their new crushes.

Except for one woman and me, no one was reading a book. While Icarus was flying too close to the sun in my book, I silently promised my ten-year-old self I'd never settle for just crosswords.

Is it just the apps?

Now, reflecting on my last discourse about attention spans, I don't believe we're living through an unprecedented epidemic of distraction. Before social media, people who pursued hobbies and read books still did these activities. The same people who consumed flashy magazines and crosswords are today's scrollers. Nothing changed—only the medium.

Let me trace this back to the origin, which predates even TV.

While my Italian family lived the peak TV-industrial lifestyle, with month-long August vacations, my family from my mother's side lived entirely differently.

Romania, Prahova County, 1999

My Romanian grandmother woke at 5 AM with the rooster's call. She'd brew coffee, and between 6 and 7, neighbors would gather to share cups and conversation. Then came the daily rituals: feeding animals, cleaning the pork pen—these were non-negotiable tasks. The day's work shifted with the seasons (harvest time was always the liveliest). At noon, lunch. From 1 to 3, especially during summer's heat, she'd retreat for a nap in the apartment my grandfather had cleverly designed to stay cool. She'd read, usually theological texts, or work on her crochet there. You thought that my grandmother was ignorant? She taught herself to read Cyrillic from religious almanacs that combined Orthodox Christianity with Byzantine Astrology. If you wanted to talk about God, there she was.

We would only gather in the main hall during dinner or bad weather to watch and discuss the news and politics together.

My Romanian grandparents were undeniably healthier, both physically and mentally, than my city-life Italian grandparents. Women maintained their farming activities well into their 90s, their minds as sharp as ever. Loneliness could make some quirky, true, but the engaged, social grandmothers remained powerhouses until their final days.

I reflected that this lifestyle mirrored pre-industrial existence. The work was physically demanding but mentally engaging. While my grandmother managed the farming, agricultural, and gardening life, my grandfather—a retired petroleum engineer—spent his days fixing, repairing, and crafting instruments and handling bureaucracy and accounting.

Farming, cultivation, harvesting, and crafting all required constant problem-solving. These skills are passed down through generations and are impossible to Google. He'd often open his calculus textbooks and do mathematical proofs to keep his brain refreshed.

Time is more in tune with a natural rhythm.

The industrial impact

Humanity changed after the Industrial Revolution. The introduction of rigid work schedules filled with repetitive tasks replaced creative problem-solving. Mental energy drained through standardized processes. Mass media later transformed us from active participants to passive consumers.

Why are we mentally drained? Standardized processes create two problems:

• Daily exposure to countless minor decisions
• Work so repetitive and monotonous our brains shut down

In the '80s, the average household watched 6 hours of TV daily. Today, we spend 2.5 hours on social media and more on streaming services. Comparing these numbers reveals something interesting: We haven't increased our "mindless" time but shifted it to new mediums. The average person in 1965 spent roughly the same amount of time on passive entertainment as we do today.

The medium changes, but the behavior remains constant.

I've never met someone with ADHD who harvests. Something about the rhythm of physical work—the methodical picking of fruits, the careful sorting of vegetables, the full-body engagement with the earth—seems to quiet the restless mind. Perhaps it's work that makes sense to our ancient brains: You plant, you tend, you harvest, and you eat. The reward is tangible, unlike the abstract metrics of corporate success.

This "attention epidemic" stems from something unnatural: spending our days in climate-controlled boxes, staring at artificial light, and performing tasks that our hunter-gatherer brains struggle to register as meaningful. We work for companies that view us as replaceable parts in their machinery, and our worth is measured in quarterly performance reviews and KPIs that feel disconnected from any real human achievement.

The modern paradox

We live in a modern paradox: We are more educated than ever, yet more mentally exhausted. We have unprecedented access to learning resources, yet less mental energy to use them.

If you're in pain or yearning for change, understand this: We earn just enough to maintain our golden cages—the mortgage payments, the car loans, the streaming subscriptions that help us decompress from jobs we don't love. It's a carefully calibrated system: comfortable enough to keep us from revolting, but not enough to grant us true freedom. By the time we drag ourselves home, depleted by meetings about meetings and emails about emails, what energy remains to create art, build businesses, or pursue the dreams that wake us up at night? We're left with just enough vitality to scroll through others' achievements on social media, planning vacations we need to recover from work rather than building the life that wouldn't require escape.

The irony is that while we're diagnosed with "attention deficits," perhaps our attention is not deficient—it's the nature of what we're being asked to attend to. Our minds aren't broken; they respond naturally to an unnatural way of living.

I hate the "productivity culture." My childhood days in Romania remain my happiest memories because I was physically engaged and in nature daily.

I never saw people "stressed" unless heavy events occurred. The concepts of "vacation" or "free time" didn't exist because every day held its adventures. We'd spend entire days playing in the streets, our laughter echoing off in the streets, while elderly neighbors watched from their benches, their presence a comfortable safety net.

Yes, my grandparents took "vacations," but differently. Their travels weren't escapes—they were pilgrimages of curiosity. I remember trips to Brașov, where medieval towers rose against mountain backdrops, and to Poiana Brașov, where pine-scented air filled our lungs as we hiked through carpets of wild blueberries. These weren't planned breaks from a dreary existence but natural extensions of their wonder-filled lives. They didn't travel because they needed to "get away"—they traveled because they wanted to embrace more of what life offered.

The greatest crime of our era is the loss of intentionality. We've lost the true meaning of happiness. We've forgotten how it feels to work for ourselves, to see the direct results of our labor, and to live and plan for the family. We've lost the concept of community—those neighborhoods where people stopped by just for conversation. We've lost the slow, natural rhythm of living. No wonder we feel depressed, lonely, disconnected, and purposeless—because we are.

The Way Forward: Intentional Living

But you can change this narrative. Not through productivity hacks or time management apps, but through Intentional Subtraction. Close social media apps not because you're chasing productivity but because you're reclaiming your attention for things that matter. Stop buying short-term escapes and invest in skills that could free you—whether launching a business or learning to work the land. The goal isn't to do more; it's to do less with more significant meaning. To have more leverage, more freedom, and more moments that make you forget to check your phone.

Just be intentional.