Chapter Content
Okay, so let's talk about, um, working, like, *really* efficiently. I mean, *hyper*-efficiently. It's kind of interesting when you think about it, right? Because you've got these, like, pre-industrial societies, people who, you know, their lives are super connected to nature. For them, their minds, their bodies, everything is in sync with, well, just the natural world. I mean, nature pretty much *dictates* when it's time to work, and then the body just, like, *does* the work, and the mind, well, it just kinda follows along. It's all, you know, one smooth, flowing process.
And then, you have... us. You know, knowledge workers, people in bustling cities. It's funny, because we're all connected, right? We're all on the same digital network, but, uh, we really struggle to, like, shift gears. I mean, you take those goatherds in Seulo, they wake up every morning, bam! Full of energy, ready to go, their brains are just… *click*, right into work mode. But, for a lot of *us*, it takes, like, a buzzing alarm, or Alexa yelling at us, maybe one of those wake-up lights, and, like, four espressos, just to *maybe* drag ourselves out of bed. And get this, after their morning work, those goatherds? They just instantly, *poof*, switch into chill mode. Slow living, you know? But for us? We're mentally sprinting *all day long*. And then, we can't even unwind at night. It's crazy!
So, why is it that these people can just, you know, change gears so easily, while we're over here, completely struggling? Well, the answer might be, you know, buried in our, like, evolutionary history. See, we never *used* to have to change gears all on our own. We were *helped* by the natural rhythms around us.
So, imagine this, okay? Imagine the human mind, hard at work, sitting at the top of a pyramid. And this pyramid has three layers. At the very bottom, you've got the rhythm of the natural world. You know, daybreak means life begins, and nightfall means things wind down. The next layer up is the rhythm of your body. How you react to that natural world. So, when the sun rises, your body preps you for action. And when it sets, you slow down. And then, *finally*, at the top of the pyramid, you've got the rhythm of your mind. Now, for most of our history, our body's rhythms would kind of set the stage for our mind's rhythms. Like, slow, rambling thoughts would go along with a slow foraging trip, and then quick, sharp thinking would go along with, you know, hunting down prey. So basically, the rhythm of that bottom layer, it kinda trickles all the way up to the top, and each layer sort of, you know, sends a little ripple to the one above it. So, changing mental gears becomes *way* easier if you can ride those ripples. Think of it like a surfer riding a wave.
And that’s what those goatherds in Seulo are doing! They're aligning their mental activity with their physical activity, and both of those with the time of day. But us? Well, we're swimming against the tide. And, um, well, that’s how you can use this pyramid to improve mental efficiency, no matter what kind of knowledge work you do.