you are what you eat
A personal view on seeking a happy and healthy life.
German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach coined the phrase “We are what we eat”, and he said it in the context of the stress and turmoil of the German revolution in 1848. What he referred to was the mind and body relationship. People had to eat properly to deal with the stress and anxiety of their “revolutionary” lives. You would sum up his view as “garbage in - garbage out” in today’s world.
This is even more true for what we feed our brains and how this ultimately affects our mind and mental health.
Our mind is our most powerful tool. It never sleeps and actively generates new thoughts and ideas, even when we do nothing. It is impossible to switch off. Only advanced yogis can reach a deep meditative stage and have no thoughts, but that requires years of practice.
Just as our physical body depends on how we treat it and what we feed it, our mental state depends on the quality of information we provide to our brain.
If we supply our brain with real-life information and challenges, it will process this input and come up with, sometimes unexpected, solutions. They come in every shape and form, creative, mathematical, philosophical, technical or emotional solutions, amongst many others.
However, It is unfortunate that many humans prefer to feed their minds with chewing gum information like random Youtube BS, TikTok clips, LinkedIn memes, and other digital garbage. Consequently, intellectual and mental interactions are reduced to clicking a like button or commenting on single-line paragraphs with little room for interpretation or intellectual advancement.
Here’s the exciting thing. On a deep level, our brain can't tell all the crap from reality, so the abundance of digital garbage keeps our subconscious mind busy producing solutions to problems that do not exist. Even worse, they cost us valuable brainpower, add zero value to our mental health, and screw with our cognitive processes. The only winners in this are the providers of platforms that feature this kind of BS.
To progress, be creative and productive, and ultimately mentally healthy, we need to clear our minds from the garbage of irrelevant content that “click-rate recommendation algorithms” serve us daily.
Garbage in garbage out.
Have a great week, and please don’t click the like button.