Welcome to My Brain

A quote I’ve been contemplating lately is “Trust and attention — these are the scarce items in a post-scarcity world.”

It’s true, isn’t it? Attention is the new currency. The most successful people these days are the ones who command the most eyeballs. We’ve quantified this with social media — followers and views are countable. Marketers love it because it makes choosing spokesman A over spokesman B easier if you just look at their social media.

Attention is also lagging. Our phones and apps make us live in a bite-sized (or byte-sized) world, consuming information three seconds at a time. We scroll through life oblivious to reality. As the fight for eyeballs and attention heats up, we’re drawn evermore in. Try sitting down and reading more than a few pages of a book without fidgeting. I still read constantly but it takes me a few extra days to finish a book now. I hate it.

The other half is trust. With chemicals in food, government digital surveillance, apps spying on you, internet cookies, and endless phishing scams to your phone and email, who can you trust? The cost of a post-scarcity world is your trust. The systems that bring food to your door or recommend clothes based on your style are the same ones collecting your personal information and sending it around the world.

I’ve had the idea for a while of doing a documentary on myself called Unplugged where I remove all means of internet access and screens from my life for 30 days. I’d be curious what happens to my brain and attention span…

August 6, 2025