Do you remember thinking without input? 🧠📵

205 phone checks/day is average. I’m scared of my number.

Hello and Happy Monday!

I’m writing the first draft of this on Wednesday, June 9th, sitting on the terrace of a tiny cabin on the coast of Costa da Caparica, working from the dunes basically. By the time this lands in your inbox, I’ll be back at my desk in Berlin (For anyone curious, I share some recommendations from my trip to Portugal in end of this newsletter).

I spent last week in Portugal on what could be called workation: working in the mornings and evenings, then spending the sun hours reading, and eating so much fish I might have turned into one. And after a few days I realized how much peace of mind these few days gave me: I didn’t work out or run for five days straight (first time in years), I slept up to 12 hours in one go (which, if you’ve been following along, is roughly three to four times my usual amount), I didn’t use headphones for five days, and I cut my screen time in half (I’m still not brave enough to share the actual number 😅).

I was reading a lot though, and one of the books I read felt like it was explaining a lot what was happening in my brain that week.

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Getting Bored?

It’s called The Meaning of Life by Arthur C. Brooks - the title sounds a bit like an esoteric mindset-improvement thing (which I normally avoid, because most books have never made me more productive or “fixed” anything, I read for enjoyment and to get smarter).

At its core, it’s about why so many of us feel like something is missing. Brooks argues that a lot of meaning comes down to attention: where we direct it, and what constant noise and technology are doing to our ability to reflect, feel, and think deeply.

One part I thought a lot about was his point on boredom and distraction. Humans hate boredom so much that, in a study, people preferred to give themselves electric shocks rather than sit quietly with their thoughts for a few minutes (like wtf 😂). Boredom became a business opportunity, he says - and we built “anti-boredom machines”: smartphones, apps, and endless content on all kinds of platforms.

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205 times a day

We check our phones all the time, the average American looks at their phone 205 times a day, more than once every five minutes (I feel like I probably do it more often). His point is that this doesn’t just steal time. Every time we reach for our phone, we’re basically practicing how to avoid stillness - and stillness is where meaning tends to appear. He even hints at the bigger consequence: constant distraction doesn’t just change what we do, it can literally rewire the brain and mute the right hemisphere - the part that’s better at the deeper, more meaningful and more creative kind of thinking.

That also explains why we probably have the best and most fun thoughts in the shower, or looking out of the window in an airplane or train, waiting at the red light, or walking on the beach.

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Do you even have own thoughts?

But what I’d add to his point is: when we consume this much content, it gets harder to produce original thoughts.

We’re constantly taking in other people’s opinions like e.g. scrolling comments under reels, listening to podcasts, reading reviews. And because every quiet moment gets filled, actually sitting with our own thoughts has become rare. So we end up repeating ideas that already exist out there, and just rephrase them. Not necessarily because we’re lazy, but because we don’t give ourselves much space to think from scratch.

Paying attention to this, I don’t find it easy either, I don’t always know what I think, and there isn’t always a smart thought coming through 😂. A question I’ve been trying to ask myself more often is: am I agreeing because someone is right, or because they sound convincing? Or because I’ve heard the same argument so many times that it starts to feel like “my” opinion? Figuring that out is not easy - but maybe that’s exactly where real thinking starts.

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Half thougths

I’m also trying to get comfortable with “half thoughts”, thoughts that are not thought through. And it’s also how my best newsletters happened: they weren’t written in one go. They sat in drafts, I added a line here and there, and at some point it clicked.

I still don’t really have a clean conclusion for this - but last week showed me how much energy my body gets back when I stop filling every second with noise. And it good to have a bit more space for thoughts and ideas that aren’t borrowed from the internet.

That being said: I hope you have a great week ahead, enjoy the sun if it shows up, and don’t let them get you!

— Constanze

Recommendations for Portugal:

Caparica

• Beach house in Caparica where we stayed (nothing better than waking up to the sound of the waves every day): Cabana Bonita

• Beach club right next to it: Nuua Beach

• My favorite Brazilian açaí spot right on the beach (and it’s opening in Berlin soon, apparently 👀): Oakberry Caparica Pop Up

• Good coffee shop: Asante Boutique Coffee Roasters

Sesimbra Region

• Beautiful “hidden” beach - you have to climb ~30 minutes to get there (spoiler: it’s still not empty, but worth it): Praia Ribeiro do Cavalo

• Choose the fish you want to have grilled: Bar do Peixe

• Restaurant with the best view: Hangar

Other

• Recipe for the bouillabaisse we cooked (aka: that has been cooked for me):
  https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12637-mark-bittmans-bouillabaisse