The moment we started using calendars, we moved part of our collective consciousness onto paper.

For the pros, this counts as cheating. It’s moving responsibility for remembering things yourself onto paper.

It’s the same as what Buddhists do – wanting to let go of thoughts and feelings (“they are not mine”). No, you want to become responsible for your own thoughts.

A healthy brain is not identifying with thoughts, never.

Even if I’m wrong, it’s still a matter of principle. It’s my thought. I am responsible for my thoughts, my feelings, my problems. Not yours, mine.

That’s not ego. That’s called responsibility.

Writing down what I have to do this week is like making my problem, remembering what I have to do, nature’s problem. Now, a tree that was cut down and made into paper has become a symbol of my weakness, of not wanting to remember what I need to do this week.

If you extrapolate this to computers and AI, it has become even worse. We have no problem spending all the energy in the world on finding answers while simultaneously being unable to keep our own brains healthy. Thinking like this makes you wonder how far ahead of their time Neanderthals actually were, since they understood that finding the most efficient and optimal solution is not always the correct solution.

If we threw away all computers and paper and forced ourselves to do things ourselves, we would live in a world that is far less efficient but feels infinitely better because everybody is healthier. And healthy bodies and brains are stronger and can take better care of the world.

It’s the same analogy as to why hunter-gatherers were, in some ways, ahead of the curve. They understood that balance in nature is more important than optimization. Optimization and efficiency are simply lazy solutions that look good (“Look at all these big buildings we have built!”) but are not fundamentally healthy.

It’s like elevators. We have electrical machines taking away our responsibility to walk. Imagine showing that to a Neanderthal. They would be like, “No, thank you.”

If you want to understand this universe, think in terms of responsibility, circularity, and balance.

Learning to Shift Gears

The brain is like a car.

Someone with autism drives a heavy truck in one gear. It takes longer to change lanes. But you are carrying a heavy load: you process reality at a high level of detail.

Someone with ADD drives a go-kart. You switch quickly between different thoughts and feelings, but you find it difficult to stay in the same lane for long. You are better at taking sharp turns.

Someone with ADHD has a body like a Ferrari. Lots of energy, lots of creativity, but the hardest to control. And at every speed bump and every difficult corner, the car flies off the road.

Someone who is manic drives faster than you would expect for a few months, but the off-season is a disaster. All you do is rest. A bit like a car that is only suited to an IndyCar circuit.

Someone who is psychotic drives on a track that feels like Rainbow Road, while being chased by helicopters. The main danger is losing your dignity and self-confidence.

Someone with an eating disorder is a wrong-way driver. You are partly driving against the traffic. You see your feelings approaching from a distance and try to push them off the road. At the same time, all kinds of traffic is coming your way, but you cannot see it properly because those cars are driving in the opposite direction.

Someone with depression tries to avoid all the traffic. The unpleasant cars that pass by. But in doing so, you also miss the fun cars.

Someone who meditates constantly puts their car in neutral.

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Is any of this true? Not literally. But it is truer than you might think.

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There are many mental health conditions in my family.

On my father's side, everyone has autism. My father too. The kind of family where people only speak when there is a practical reason to do so, but can draw a piece of equipment in 3D from memory, down to the smallest detail.

On my mother's side, everyone has ADHD. Everyone is either (1) an entrepreneur or (2) a criminal. My mother switches gears so quickly that she constantly forgets little things.

My grandmother was probably manic-depressive. And there are countless other examples.

It would not surprise me if I had inherited all of this. My official diagnoses are:

• Autism

• ADHD

• Psychosis (I have been hospitalised twice)

• Depression

• Generalised anxiety disorder

A few years ago, I thought I was being chased by helicopters. And that the whole world could see my thoughts.

One day, I decided that enough was enough.

The first thing I did was take up religious practices. They work very well, after all.

The benefit of a day of rest, a moment of silence, or several mandatory breaks throughout the day is that you are forced to stop the car for a while. And then you can see where the engine is struggling.

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For example, I noticed that I often did not express how I felt. As a result, the car kept sputtering.

I also restricted my own creativity. In doing so, I turned myself into my own ticking time bomb.

This also happens quite often to people who struggle with their own sexuality. If you restrict it in the wrong way, the car starts sputtering.

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I thought it would be smarter to shift my focus away from shifting gears and towards completely different things.

I clearly struggle with changing lanes. So what do I do? I practise something that requires me to change lanes constantly.

I take up kickboxing.

In kickboxing, you learn not to overthink things, but simply to move. You have to change lanes very quickly because things are happening all the time.

Naturally, it was a complete disaster at first. But it got better.

I used to be a (heavy) psychiatric patient.

I was locked in a mental institution twice. A few years ago, I was in psychosis, where I thought the whole world could see my thoughts. They picked me up from home in a van. I was unable to take care of myself.

I don’t really remember when it happened, but I think I was around 32/33 years old.

Now, I am 38. I am in extremely good physical shape, I have a serious job, and I own 2 apartments worth 800k.

I went off the radar for a few years to unravel what had happened to me. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

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Some background

On my father's side, everyone has autism. My father too. The kind where people only speak when it's functional, but can mentally reconstruct technical equipment in 3D from memory.

On my mother's side, everyone has ADHD. Everyone is either 1) an entrepreneur or 2) a criminal. My mother switches so quickly that she constantly forgets little things.

My grandmother was severely depressed.

I wouldn't be surprised if I inherited all of this.

The official diagnoses:

• Autism

• ADHD

• Psychosis

• Depression

• Generalized anxiety disorder

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The real problem: not speaking out emotionally

Step 1

You grow up in an environment where nobody wants to hear you talk. You teach yourself to shush yourself every time you want to speak out.

Step 2

You want to speak out around 30 times a day, which, for a kid, is a very modest estimation.

Step 3

Every time you want to speak out, you take a breath and extract energy from your body. And then, at the last second, you swallow your words. So you extract energy first, and then you stuff it back into your body. So you get a surplus of energy in your body. Every time, you become more of a ticking time bomb.

Step 4

After a year, that's 10,950 times of not speaking out.

Step 5

In 20 years, that's around 219,000 times of not speaking out.

Now, you have so much tension in your body that you are confused. You can't separate yourself from your thoughts. You go to the doctor. “You have psychosis,” the doctor says. The doctor hasn't seen you swallowing your words for 30 years. You forgot that you do that.

I did not realize I had not spoken out for so long. I no longer felt the pain in my own jaw. I had suppressed my own emotional voice for so long that I didn't feel the tension in my jaw. Bizarre.