Have We Stopped Thinking?

I used to be addicted to reels. Watching the same content for 4–5 hours every day was numbing my brain. Obsessing over content and different types of creators in the name of research kept me going. It gave me a guilt-free pass to watch everything and anything.

I wasted tons of my time instead of writing and focusing on other things; the only silver lining from that phase was noticing a pattern that startled me. Even though I was consuming countless pieces of content, I was hearing the same thing.

Repeated words with a new filter, a new headline, and an edit.

Looking deeper into it made me realise that it’s not just content, it’s how we live.

We’re flooded with the same kind of music, films, fashion, and even food.

Most things are poorly remixed, like most Bollywood music these days. Add some AI, some rapid montage edits, and bang, you have a new piece of content. Add a trending actress, a story from ChatGPT, and you’ve a new Netflix movie.

There’s hardly any novelty. Thinking is no longer a common commodity.

We’ve stopped using our brains.

We’ve stopped using our brains and started living on borrowed thinking. Borrowed from what we see, hear, and observe around us.

One Indian celebrity wears Sabyasachi for their wedding, and the entire country is wearing it. One person decides to go to *enter any hill station*, we, millions of travelers, are there. 80% of Indians who can afford an international honeymoon go to the Maldives or Bali.

Because nobody wants to think anymore, we copy. We don’t have new ideas. Maybe because we don’t want them. We only have repeated ideas that we hear around us. We see and replicate.

Thinking is expensive, but copying is free.

We’re at a point where not thinking is at an all-time high. The movies are the same, and we wear the same clothes. We go to the same travel destinations, drink the same drink, so much so that it’s going out of stock (remember Matcha fever?)

Talk about the same stuff, watch the same stuff. There’s nothing new left.

When we decided to move to Jamaica, people looked at us like we’d robbed a bank. They expected us to move to the US or the UK, like everyone else. The explanation that followed that decision wasn’t easy. Sometimes, testing my patience, which made me realise how easy it is to follow the crowd. To have your own thoughts and decisions may raise a lot of eyebrows and questions.

But isn’t the whole point of life?

Think for yourself. Use your mind and heart to make a decision instead of following the path paved by strangers with different thoughts from yours.

First principle thinking requires courage and a sense of self-control. It takes effort not to get swayed away by what your neighbours are doing. It’s going in the opposite direction of everyone else. And when we get a chance to think, we give the steering wheel to AI, we let it think for us.

I don’t think sometimes and ask ChatGPT some really weird questions.

Why think when you have a thinking assistant?

My brain had become so lazy after all the doomscrolling and talking to AI that I felt like I was getting dumber with every conversation I had with ChatGPT. Just type prompts. Sometimes, not even that you have voice notes and bang…you get what you need. Why give trouble to your brain?

We no longer need to remember phone numbers, do calculations in our heads, or think about what to wear. Everything is at our fingertips.

Who wants to do the work anyway after a dead-end job and the stress of surviving in the fast-paced world?

Most people are too busy surviving, producing, and serving systems designed by those with enough time, wealth, and distance to sit back and think.

If a perfect cake from a French bakery is sitting in your fridge, why would you spend hours baking one from scratch? Our brains work the same way.

When answers are instantly available through the internet, influencers, and AI, the motivation to think for ourselves begins to fade.

Thinking has become a luxury. Only those who can protect their attention from a thousand competing distractions can afford it. The rest of us end up inheriting the same thoughts. So who is thinking for us? AI or the internet?

The answer is both.

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

– Haruki Murakami