An intellectual renaissance is coming. Here’s how you can win.

Live like a profound thinker in 3 steps.

An intellectual renaissance is about to begin.

And there is one way in which you can win.

Fear-mongering is the world’s greatest marketing tactic. Because there’s actually two groups of people that you should be aware of.

They’re the ones pushing people into the black and white thinking that you keep seeing online.

• You have the pure analog side - They reject using AI, use paper to help them think, and refuse technology (and thus the idea of progress, wherever they can).

• Then you have the pure digital side - They outsource all their thinking, decisions, and execution to AI, over-optimise everything for the sake of maximum output and productivity, and build out these complicated second brains. Because, you know, your first brain is never going to be enough.

Here in lies the problem.

Money makes the world go around.

News outlets profit from talking about AI doomsday because it gets attention. Which, is the sole purpose of mass media. And the AI companies profit from that hype, because the purpose of advertising is literally just making people aware of what you sell…

Yes, OpenAI and Anthropic do have business models, and they want their product in as many people’s hands as possible.

So the pressure from each side is constant.

And it’s funny.

The analog purists who reject AI will still doomscroll for 5 hours every single day. And the digital purists who reject the idea of thinking with pen and paper, will go back to their Notion workspaces, that are exponentially more complex than the (little) work they produce on a day to day basis.

Neither side will win in what’s coming.

The solution lies in integration.

And in this Profound Ideas Letter, we will think about what a profoundly intellectual life looks like when you combine the best of both sides.

And how to live that life in 3 steps.

Idea I - analog or digital?

Analog gives you subtraction and focus.

Digital gives you compressed feedback loops and speed of execution.

Here is what both of these mean for you.

I personally see focus as the removal of options. The fewer things you have competing for your attention, the deeper you can go on any one thing. You do that, by not doing 574 things at once, and by just doing one thing.

Analog tools protect your focus.

If you’re like me, and your limit is about 2-2.5 hours of pure focused work per day (I tracked it for a month in my own notebook) then going on walks without any music, and avoiding screens and emails (open loops) is going to help you more than you’d think.

With AI, you can iterate rapidly.

By iteration, I mean learning. You can adapt, adjust, and pivot toward a goal in a better and better direction, but from doing more and more reps.

For example, if you’re trying to swing a baseball bat and you keep missing the ball completely, you don’t just give up or start moving the bat around like a lightsaber to entertain yourself.

You try again, but with one tiny change, that will hopefully take you closer to your goal. Which is to hit the ball.

With AI, you can make a conjecture, get feedback, revise and stress test it, and iterate at a speed that wasn’t possible before. Mechanical tasks, known information, and iteration speed are what the digital side handles excellently. But the decisions themselves, along with any form of creative work that requires taste and judgement, that stays human.

Why should you care about any of this?

Well.

Why wouldn’t you?

I’ve been building a meal prep system these past 2 weeks. After testing out a breakfast-lunch-dinner combo and taking feedback notes down in my notebook, that I then took a photo of, and gave over to an AI chat to organise all that data, I finally have an eating system that I love. I had AI make a checklist I can print out, and I know it will change (I’m testing one new thing this week, which is adding a fruit smoothie into my breakfast/lunch options).

My point being that yes, I am a loser. This is what I enjoy doing with my time.

But it means I can stop thinking about food and having to eat, which is actually a pain in the ass in terms of prepping, and the time plus amount of decisions it takes. And I can focus on what I actually love and want to do every single morning.

One more example to send this home.

I love using AI, but prefer talking to it. Not typing. I can’t shut up talking about this, I know. But I love talking through my ideas while on a walk and then putting my phone away and just pondering for a while with my own brain.

Because you need to start treating analog AND digital as two different tools with two different purposes.

Even with AI having a business model and all that, it’s designed to agree with you on everything you say.

So when it’s being sycophantic, tell it to shut the fuck up, and hope that an Anthropic Terminator won’t be killing us first, if the apocalypse does come.

…

I digress.

Here’s the big question folks!

Idea II - what does the profoundly intellectual life look like?

I believe that the hallmark lifestyle that will emerge in the coming renaissance will be centred around one thing:

Knowing what you value, and actually building your days around that.

It’s trite!

We know this. We know that this is how you live a life that justifies its own suffering (most people would rather suffer less than suffer more, so let’s do more of the things that make life less shittier than it has to be).

I want you to write down what you love and what you hate. Or, to think about it.

And I want to be clear.

You are not thinking about what you SHOULD value. No no. I want you to think about what you actually FEEL. This will be a list that becomes your filter for what stays analog, what goes digital, and what gets cut from your life full stop.

You need contrast.

You need bouts of intense focused work (2-3 hours) followed by open, unstimulated time (walks, thinking, no screens for hours on end). You don’t have to do nothing for hours on end. You can still do things… just not the things that are so damn stimulating, that will make you hate your own brain because you never give it room to breathe, say what it has to say, and then quiet the fuck down.

I deleted social media from my phone because I hated how it made me feel.

And I have experimented with having just Substack, no Substack, Substack and YouTube, just YouTube, having YouTube blocked with an app blocker for certain parts of the day.

But I realised something.

Even when I had the apps on my phone blocked, it wasn’t close to the level of clarity I was having by not having the apps on my phone whatsoever.

Gone.

Never to return.

Because I had felt so much better, and I made an educated decision based on my own data that I thought about on my own, and I’m still adjusting. And now, all in all, I live a pretty intellectual life. I’m not a genius by any means, far from it! But I write for 2(ish) hours every single morning first thing (I’ve been much more consistent with it now despite my lack of content due to a big project finishing up).

And, I go to the park. I talk with AI. I talk to myself. I barely listen to music now too; only when I’m lifting weights or driving my girlfriend’s Suzuki Swift.

Based on everything I have been experimenting with, this is what I recommend you do:

how to live a profoundly intellectual life in 3 steps

My definition of winning in the coming renaissance looks like this.

step 1 - write down everything you love and hate

Group them and look for patterns.

Narrow it down to 5-10 values, because there’s only so much attention to go around, and prioritisation means choosing what actually gets your focus.

Those 5 values are your filter for what stays analog, what goes digital, and what gets removed.

Hence, why social media is off my iPhone (which is now the equivalent of a Nokia).

step 2 - draw a line between what AI can do and what YOU can do

Let AI help with mechanical tasks, executing on decisions that you yourself have made, and with finding known information across the internet.

Let the synthesis, articulation of ideas, and perspective stay human.

Please for the love of god use the voice dictation feature.

I’ve only discovered it, and I can’t stop telling people about it. So I’m going to tell you too for the second time today.

Talking back and forth with AI is faster than typing, and it sharpens your articulation at the same time. Don’t be afraid to embrace uncertainty here. Because you probably won’t know what to say aloud, and you have to be willing to embrace the chaos of finding your words and explaining your ideas clearly.

And failing a lot. You have to be ok with failing.

Failing to articulate an idea is how you get better at articulating your ideas.

And remember. AI is sycophantic and designed to agree with you. Always be thinking about this in the back of your mind while using it.

step 3 - start a project

Put aside one hour a day.

If not an hour, do 30 minutes.

If not 30 minutes, do 15.

If not 15, do 5.

We’re at a stage now with the technology that we all have, that the excuses end with you.

I always found a way to find some reason as to why I wasn’t lifting more, or doing jiu-jitsu more, or reading at night, or whatever.

Just stop.

If you did nothing last week, and you do just one thing this week, that’s a 100% improvement. Then, track your time on task (the time it actually takes for you to complete any given task) as to let the data tell you what your limits are.

Everyone online says you should do 4 hours of deep work per day… well my limit is about 2.5 hours.

Find your ceiling, back off from it slightly, and sustain that output across months and years.

It’s impossible to burn out if you don’t pass your limits. Because if you push past them, you need time to recover.

I hope that in the next few years you don’t pick just one side. A profound thinker is able to hold two conflicting perspectives at the same time while seeing the truth in both sides.

Take the best of AI and the best of wandering around in a park like a mad person without AirPods or the likes.

You’re an absolute legend.

- Craig :)

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