The signal and the noise
How do we tune in to the signal frequency that goes deep, and connects with something within us?
It is a noisy world. We get it. A zillion notifications, emails, ads, people promoting their thing, who want you to pay attention. In 2005 (or 2006) I wrote a blog entry called “Hacking the Attention Hierarchy”. It is offline now, but the gist of that piece from around 20 years ago was that I was pointing to the way these things work - even back then - and how we as individuals might be able to “hack it”. Bypass the noise.
When I write bypass, I don’t mean that there is a magic button that you can press and then the noise dies down. Rather, the bypass is by you looking at how you use your own attention, and how you let your attention use you, so to speak.
I will make no lists, no “10 ways to find peace”, because I don’t want this kind of article to gain the wrong kind of readers; the ones that want a quick recipe for life. I have zero quick recipes to give. But I have some considerations, and some thoughts, and some silent advice. The advice are based on what I find working for me, and what I assume works for some others (I know that I am not non-human, many of the wirings of my brain are shared with other people).
First, a few considerations. It is important for me that we as a group of people do not forget to read long texts (when I write long, I mean 300+ page books), and that we do not get so addicted to the quick sugar bytes of dopamine and other chemicals; the things that always keep us rushing for the next, the next, the next; like a cookie monster on overdrive. And when I wrote “group of people”, I don’t really mean the typical reader of my things here, or what I guess is the typical user of substack. I talk about humans like my son (who is struggling hard to motivate himself even for a 150 page book unless it is a manga), and his classmates, and his generation. He is 14 now. I am deeply worried about their attention span. Especially now that generative AI has taken such a front seat in our culture. Don’t get me wrong, I use AI daily, but I don’t use it to "think for me”; instead, I use AI to think with me. There is a crucial difference. The point is that not only do we now have the attack on the mind by the social media platforms, which basically has been at it for decades now. The “like” button, the instant gratification cycle. But we also have the attack on the mind by the AI mega-corporations. Believe me, unless OpenAI does something really terrible towards their user base the next 10 years, they will be huge. Just like Google at some point was a “scale-up”, so to speak - OpenAI will most likely be able to avoid a total brain drain to Meta and others (referring to the latest cases), and they will launch their hardware next year most likely, designed by Mr. Ive from former Apple glory. And we will not only be having algorithmic control of the google results we have, what Facebook updates we even View, etc - but we will have algorithmic access to our daily lives, perhaps even an always-on microphone that captures all and gives the user a “5 minute summary of everything that happened today”. At that point, in 10 years, just quick 10 years, we will be in a place that - in the worst case scenario - will let us long back to the Level of brain rot that is happening in 2025 among some people. Many people. Not all, of course, this is never black/white, and even if I don’t point to statistics, I have read enough of them to see the big picture.
My thoughts on what we need to keep in mind is mostly related to the fact that I think we need to democratize the understanding of the dangers here. Currently, it is the tech elite in Silicon Valley who first started out with a rejection of their children being fed online online interfaces. Learning through iPads only, etc. And it has spread, yes, but it is also here in Norway the intellectual elite who is so worried about this. And who are the ones helping their children to not get TOO addicted to the gaming, to the notifications, to the other vices of the technology that is useful, fun etc, but that can also harm us so much. There needs to be a broader understanding that we need this balance. Children need to both be able to have their marathon sessions in a VR headset, and read a book from beginning to end within a week. I don’t have any quick fixes. I don’t have any policy advice to politicians. But I do fear that we as a special are doing ourselves a huge disservice if we do not deal with this in a proper manner. And again, I think Generative AI, for all it’s good things, can also - if not used correctly - lead to massive lowering of creativity, intelligence, ability to structure data, to gather thoughts etc. And also, the huge data centers that are being built to not only train and store these LLM’s but to also store all our quarrels with spouse, teenage anxiety attacks, and whatnot - those data centers might suddenly be attacked (cybersecurity-wise) by forces you don’t want to have access to your things.
My silent advice, from my end here in Oslo, Norway? Well, I try to always point towards the present. The present connection. The note or article that you are reading Now (not now now, here, but in general), how are you using your attention to React to it? Build upon it? Are you perhaps racing to the next wonderful text to read? Racing, racing, Racing. Belive me, I have done my tons of racing. And my mind is very fast, so I can race fast if I want to. But then I try to think - what was really gained in that 3 hour session? Or that evening turning into night? Yes, I am on vacation now, and this is something I care about. But I wonder how good we will be in the future to stop. Breathe three times. Deeply. And Then move on. Because in those three breaths something happens in our biological system. It does. We may not notice it, but it is there. A grounding. At least for me. So those three deep breaths, I do that often, after reading something online. Whatever it is. It takes just 15 seconds or so. Other advice? I don’t know, I think that is the main one. Try to anchor yourself to the present connection, the present frequency, by breathing deeply three times. And then you can still move on, racing racing racing, but then you have that slight effect of grounding. And maybe then after just a few minutes more you realize consciously “oh! It’s time to go outside” or “It’s time to call my loved ones”.
This text was hand-written from 09:54 to 10:25 on July 5th 2025. Here is my 30 minute process-video. That video is un-cut, has no voiceover, and has music from this Youtube video, no copyright infringement intended. My substack account is not for-profit, and I have no plans to introduce a subscription tier for paying readers. If I do, this process video will be taken down.))
Very insightful especially how this impact on our children and their collective futures
I feel called out. The racing, racing, racing. I am trying to train myself out of. I admire the attention and care you put in. It's not that I don’t care. I think it's more that I care too much. It's still all a performance how can I respond in a way that doesn’t say too much, too little, where I don’t come accross as weird, or dumb. I read everything responding is hard, you've mastered the art of saying something meaningful in the right way. You are valuable.
Also "great post" (work in progress over here)