The strain in your brain
29 Jul, 2026
The strain in your brain
Do you feel it?
Do you remember the feeling? You’re reading something: something new and<br>complex. And you’re really trying—pushing through that strain in your brain.<br>Do you feel that anymore?
It’s a strange thing. As a programmer, it was that feeling that signalled to<br>me that I was learning something new. When the strain dissipated, I came out<br>the other side afresh with new knowledge.
Writing code pre-AI gave me that feeling. Reading the docs, or oftentimes the<br>source code of another project led to that tension. Finally figuring out how to<br>wire everything right and make it work was cathartic. It was never really<br>about writing the code anyway—reading and forming that mental model was<br>the hard part.
I recall studying the Double<br>Rachet algorithm<br>because I really wanted to understand the Signal Protocol. I must’ve spent<br>two days on that page. Reading, re-reading. Every time pushing past that strain<br>in the brain, only to be met with it again. I grokked it eventually, and I can<br>still mostly recollect it.
Reading LLM-written code or a summarized document doesn’t feel the same<br>anymore. It’s still reading, but without the strain in the brain. It’s done the<br>churning for me. It’s pre-chewed, I just need to swallow it.
So why do this? Why subject ourselves to cognitive decline? Is it even<br>cognitive decline? Some studies claim so, and some don’t—the jury is still<br>out. Perhaps with every new technological advancement, we must trade a portion<br>of our human ability.
With AI, we trade our (meta)cognition for speed. Doing things the hard way<br>takes time. In this business, time is measured by how fast everyone around you<br>is going. And I think it’s fine—we’re clearly progressing.
Personally, I’ve been slowly bringing that feeling back by taking notes on<br>paper and writing without AI. Writing by hand is good for your<br>brain.1<br>I’m also going to try writing code by hand for side-projects. I do fear for<br>those who haven’t written code (or prose) by hand before.
This is the new normal; much like how we’ve fenced off time from our weeks to<br>hit the gym, we just have to hit the brain gym every so often.
Perhaps not yet with a fountain pen, but I do miss using one way back in<br>fifth grade!<br>↩︎