Thinking in Public
The problem with testosterone, peptides and dick pills is how you go back to normal.
I remember when I first got glasses thinking, wow, I didn't know I was blind. Now I can't see without them.
I haven't started taking peptides because I want to keep my natural baseline. I know that once I start, that's my new way of being.
So if you start, don't start to max. Start knowing this is the new way you're going to live your life. Yes, use them, and it's unlikely you will stop.
That's also my current fear with AI. Am I dumbing myself down right now? Will I lose my cognitive way of writing and expressing? My creative powers, will they be gone?
In June 2025, researchers at the MIT Media Lab published a study, Your Brain on ChatGPT. They had 54 people write essays over three sessions: one group used ChatGPT, one used a search engine and one used no tools. In a fourth session, the ChatGPT group wrote without it. Brain scans showed weaker connectivity in that group, which the researchers read as under-engagement.
It is a small study and a preprint, so I treat it as a signal. It matches the glasses: the tool does the work, and the skill underneath it gets less use.
Before you start anything that becomes part of every day, write down what normal is today. For AI, that means how you write and think without it. Check it again in a month. Writing a page by hand, once a week, keeps the muscle in use.