Author: tygas

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July 2010 – It was way before GPT..

When we sold our startup in 1998 I suddenly got a lot of money. I now had to think about something I hadn’t had to think about before: how not to lose it. I knew it was possible to go from rich to poor, just as it was possible to go from poor to rich. But while I’d spent a lot of the past several years studying the paths from poor to rich, I knew practically nothing about the paths from rich to poor. Now, in order to avoid them, I had to learn where they were.

So I started to pay attention to how fortunes are lost. If you’d asked me as a kid how rich people became poor, I’d have said by spending all their money. That’s how it happens in books and movies, because that’s the colorful way to do it. But in fact the way most fortunes are lost is not through excessive expenditure, but through bad investments.

It’s hard to spend a fortune without noticing. Someone with ordinary tastes would find it hard to blow through more than a few tens of thousands of dollars without thinking “wow, I’m spending a lot of money.” Whereas if you start trading derivatives, you can lose a million dollars (as much as you want, really) in the blink of an eye.

In most people’s minds, spending money on luxuries sets off alarms that making investments doesn’t. Luxuries seem self-indulgent. And unless you got the money by inheriting it or winning a lottery, you’ve already been thoroughly trained that self-indulgence leads to trouble. Investing bypasses those alarms. You’re not spending the money; you’re just moving it from one asset to another. Which is why people trying to sell you expensive things say “it’s an investment.”

The solution is to develop new alarms. This can be a tricky business, because while the alarms that prevent you from overspending are so basic that they may even be in our DNA, the ones that prevent you from making bad investments have to be learned, and are sometimes fairly counterintuitive.

A few days ago I realized something surprising: the situation with time is much the same as with money. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work. When you spend time having fun, you know you’re being self-indulgent. Alarms start to go off fairly quickly. If I woke up one morning and sat down on the sofa and watched TV all day, I’d feel like something was terribly wrong. Just thinking about it makes me wince. I’d start to feel uncomfortable after sitting on a sofa watching TV for 2 hours, let alone a whole day.

And yet I’ve definitely had days when I might as well have sat in front of a TV all day — days at the end of which, if I asked myself what I got done that day, the answer would have been: basically, nothing. I feel bad after these days too, but nothing like as bad as I’d feel if I spent the whole day on the sofa watching TV. If I spent a whole day watching TV I’d feel like I was descending into perdition. But the same alarms don’t go off on the days when I get nothing done, because I’m doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work. Dealing with email, for example. You do it sitting at a desk. It’s not fun. So it must be work.

With time, as with money, avoiding pleasure is no longer enough to protect you. It probably was enough to protect hunter-gatherers, and perhaps all pre-industrial societies. So nature and nurture combine to make us avoid self-indulgence. But the world has gotten more complicated: the most dangerous traps now are new behaviors that bypass our alarms about self-indulgence by mimicking more virtuous types. And the worst thing is, they’re not even fun.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Patrick Collison, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.



original source: https://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html?viewfullsite=1

Dukkha – subtle but constant background friction

Tanha – the cause of Dukkha, the reason inside you, not it the outside world

Nibbana (Nirvana) – liberation

The Noble Eightfold Path

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If you don’t have ADHD, some of the things we do probably look illogical.

But if you do have ADHD, you know — oh, it makes perfect sense.

Because ADHD logic isn’t chaos — it’s a different kind of order. One that only our brains understand.

So, let’s talk about the strange, funny, frustrating, and surprisingly relatable things that make sense only inside an ADHD mind.

1. “I can’t start until it’s urgent.”

Normal people: “I’ll start early so I can relax later.”

ADHDers: “Relax now, panic later.” 

We don’t mean to procrastinate — we’re just waiting for the spark. The adrenaline. The dopamine.

That “oh no I’m running out of time” energy that finally wakes up our brain and says,

“Now we’re alive. Let’s do this.”

We don’t start early because early feels boring. The pressure makes us focus — it’s our secret (and exhausting) superpower.

2. “I can hyperfocus for 10 hours… or not at all.”

It’s all or nothing.

If it’s interesting? We’re unstoppable.

If it’s boring? Good luck getting us to even start.

We can forget to eat, sleep, or blink when something grabs our attention — yet struggle to answer a simple email.

People see the hyperfocus and say, “You can concentrate fine!”

But what they don’t see is the crash afterward — when our brain turns to mush 🍄 and we can’t do anything for two days.

3. “I can’t do it unless I want to do it.”

And no, that’s not laziness. It’s how ADHD motivation works.

Our brains don’t run on routine — they run on emotion and novelty.

If something excites us, we’re all in. If not, our brain files it under “does not exist.”

It’s like living life with a broken “motivation switch” that only flips on when there’s passion, panic, or purpose.

So when we say, “I want to, but I can’t,” — we mean it.

4. “I make to-do lists just to ignore them.”

We love lists. We worship planners.

We spend hours color-coding tasks, finding the perfect productivity app, and setting reminders we’ll never check.

And then… we abandon the whole system within a week.

Because planning gives us a dopamine rush — it feels productive.

But following the plan? That’s where our brain goes, “Nope. Boring.”

Still, every ADHD person knows the hope of starting fresh with a brand new notebook that screams:

“This time, I’m gonna get my life together.”

(Spoiler: we won’t. But we’ll try again anyway )

5. “I interrupt you because I don’t want to forget what I’m saying.”

We’re not rude — we’re just terrified the thought will vanish.

Because ADHD thoughts disappear like Snapchat messages.

Someone says something interesting, and suddenly our brain screams, “Say it now before it’s gone!”

So we blurt it out, interrupt, overshare, and then overthink for hours about how “annoying” we must’ve sounded.

It’s not the lack of manners — it’s fear of losing the thought forever.

6. “I forget the thing I was just looking at — but remember something from 2008.”

Walk into a room? Forget why.

Lose the phone while holding it? Every day.

But ask us about an obscure cartoon from childhood? We’ll recite the theme song, the dialogue, and the airing schedule.

ADHD memory is chaotic — it runs on emotionally charged moments, not order.

If it hit us deeply, we’ll never forget. If it were just routine, it would evaporate.

So yes, we forgot your text, but we still remember that embarrassing thing we said in 2013. 

7. “I’m exhausted all the time — but can’t sleep.”

The ADHD brain never shuts up.

You’re physically tired, but mentally sprinting.

Your body wants rest, but your mind is having a 3 AM TED Talk about random childhood memories and life regrets.

And even when you do fall asleep, you wake up tired because your brain never truly powers down.

It’s not that we don’t want rest — it’s that our minds refuse to stop rehearsing tomorrow before it even starts.

The Truth Behind the “ADHD Logic”

What looks like chaos is actually adaptation.

We build systems to survive in a world that doesn’t fit how our brains function.

We don’t procrastinate because we don’t care — we do it because our dopamine system is broken.

We don’t “forget everything” — we remember selectively, emotionally, intensely.

Every ADHD behavior has logic behind it — just not the kind the world understands.

We live between extremes: too much or too little energy, hyperfocus or brain fog, overconfidence or self-doubt.

And through it all, we keep finding creative, funny, resilient ways to cope.

So if you’re an ADHDer reading this…

You’re not #lazy. You’re not #broken. You’re just wired differently — beautifully, chaotically, powerfully differently.

Your brain doesn’t fit the mold, but it’s capable of magic when it’s understood instead of judged.

The world may never fully understand ADHD logic…

But you know what?

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There is a unique kind of exhaustion that people with ADHD know very well. It’s the kind that does not come from working too hard or resting too little, but from being caught in a strange, draining middle ground where nothing moves forward. It feels like pressing the gas and the brake at the same time, burning fuel without going anywhere. The moment I read the idea that the brain requires either stimulation or restoration to stay healthy, something clicked—because that description perfectly mirrors what life with ADHD often feels like.

ADHD is not a constant rush of energy. It is not endless distraction. Many times, it is a quiet, invisible stagnation where the brain is neither engaged nor recovering, neither active nor resting. And that state slowly drains the systems responsible for motivation, emotional regulation, and focus. It is not dramatic on the surface, but beneath that stillness, the brain is struggling to find direction.

The Silent Strain of Stagnation

For many people, “doing nothing” is restful. It resets their mind and body. But for someone with ADHD, doing nothing can feel like sinking into a mental void. The mind is awake but not present, alert but not productive. It is a strange state where ideas exist but cannot be touched, and tasks exist but cannot be started.

This is the kind of stagnation that the image describes—the state where the brain is not receiving meaningful stimulation, yet also not receiving true rest. It is the most difficult place for an ADHD mind to exist, because neither path forward is accessible. You want to act, but the spark will not come. You want to rest, but the mind will not let go.

And slowly, without anyone noticing, the systems that support motivation, emotional balance, and cognitive control begin to weaken.

The Battle Between Wanting and Doing

People often believe ADHD is about not wanting to do something. But the deeper reality is that many people with ADHD desperately want to accomplish things—yet remain unable to initiate action. This gap between desire and ability creates a constant tension inside the brain. And when that tension sits unresolved for too long, it becomes a different kind of fatigue.

It’s not simply a lack of productivity. It is the emotional weight of knowing what needs to be done, understanding why it matters, yet feeling completely unable to access the cognitive energy required to begin.

This mismatch slowly pushes the brain toward what the image calls “downregulated systems”—the gradual dimming of mental circuits that thrive on activation.

Why ADHD Brains Struggle With True Rest

Rest is not just the absence of activity. Rest requires the nervous system to feel safe enough to release tension, slow down, and recover. But ADHD brains rarely shift into that state easily. The mind continues scanning, questioning, replaying, planning, and anticipating.

So even in quiet moments, the brain is not truly resting. It is simply inactive—yet still engaged in background noise that prevents healing. Over time, this lack of genuine restoration begins to wear down emotional resilience. Small frustrations feel bigger. Simple tasks feel heavier. The world feels louder, harsher, and more overwhelming.

It becomes clear that stagnation is not peace. It is strain.

The Long-Term Cost of Staying Stuck

The image says that when the brain stays in this stagnant middle space, it gradually shifts from growth to conservation. That description captures the ADHD experience perfectly. When you cannot engage meaningfully and cannot rest meaningfully, the brain does what it must to preserve energy—it pulls back.

Motivation fades because the system that produces motivation has been under-stimulated. Attention weakens because the circuits that maintain focus have not been exercised. Emotional regulation becomes harder because the brain is exhausted from trying to function without clarity.

This is why people with ADHD sometimes wake up already tired, even after long hours of sleep. The brain did not restore itself. It simply existed in standby mode.

And that mode, when prolonged, leads to a quiet form of burnout.

How ADHD Turns Life Into a Loop

The most challenging part of this experience is how easily it becomes a cycle. When the brain feels downregulated, everything feels harder. When everything feels harder, tasks get avoided. When tasks get avoided, the brain receives even less stimulation. And when stimulation decreases, motivation fades further.

It becomes a loop that feels impossible to break from the inside.

This is why ADHD is not about willpower. It is not about trying harder. It is about the brain becoming stuck in a state where neither action nor rest is accessible, slowly draining the systems that make daily life manageable.

Reclaiming Movement and Restoration

Breaking this cycle does not require massive effort. In fact, small steps are far more effective. The ADHD brain thrives on brief sparks—tiny moments of movement, curiosity, novelty, or structure. Simple acts like changing environments, shifting posture, touching a sensory object, or starting with a two-minute task can begin reactivating neural circuits that have been dormant.

Likewise, true restoration does not require long periods of silence. It requires intentional acts that calm the nervous system enough for the brain to reset: controlled breathing, gentle physical pressure, quiet repetitive movement, or anything that signals safety.

What matters is not the size of the effort but the shift—getting the brain out of that draining middle space and into a state where it can either engage or recover.

Both are growth. Both are healing.

#adhd#adhdawareness#adhdlife