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June 11, 2021
LSX Fellow Annie Murphy Paul authored a piece in The New York Times about tapping into the intelligence outside of our brains to assume some of the mental labor.
Years ago, when I was in college, I visited the dorm room of a fellow student I was dating. On the wall above his desk he had posted a handwritten sign. “Just do it,” it read, in blocky letters. Nike’s slogan was intended to capture an attitude toward athletic endeavors, but this undergrad was applying it to mental exertions. I pictured him sitting at his desk, working hour after hour on his German verb conjugations or econ problem sets. At some point he would become restless, lose focus — then look up at his sign, set his jaw and turn back to his studies, determined to crush them like a 100-meter dash.
My classmate back then was doing exactly what our culture commands when we are faced with challenging cognitive tasks: Buckle down, apply more effort, work the brain ever harder.
Read the full article here.