🔥 🧠 how I’m using AI for writing and (gasp) therapy, 🏕️ Thoreau on pursuing your own way, 🛌 Marcus Aurelius on getting out of bed, 💰 Leonardo da Vinci on true wealth
#68: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.
Welcome to the 68th edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.
I was (am) self-conscious of sharing my experience of using AI for things as personal as writing & therapy. But as this technology becomes increasingly inescapable—and eventually becomes the water our children inhabit—it’s vital we develop conscious, healthy philosophies to use it. Otherwise, we risk being consumed.
It’s a lengthy dive, so you’ll get treated to three bites from Thoreau, Marcus Aurelius & Leonardo da Vinci to end this edition.
Thanks for reading.
With love,
Chris
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Here’s this week’s antifragile 4 🔥:
how I’m using AI 🧠 🤖 for writing and (gasp) therapy
Thoreau 🏕️ on pursuing your own way
Marcus Aurelius 🛌 on getting out of bed
Leonardo da Vinci 🧠💰 on true wealth
1.) how I’m using AI 🧠 🤖 for writing and (gasp) therapy
I’m continuing to think about how AI fits into my life.
A few months ago, I stopped using it entirely. But recently it’s crept back in—not because it’s flashy or fun—but because it’s given me something very tangible: clarity.
Clarity in my writing and clarity in my thought-work (aka therapy).
And it’s during this new chapter that I’ve internalized what feels like an Iron Law of AI in my life:
AI only works if I do the heavy mental lifting first.
If I don’t, it makes me mentally weaker.
This stems from the MIT study’s findings I wrote about earlier this year which found a 50% decrease in brain activity from AI-only groups, but the strongest increase in brain activity from the group who used AI as a clarifying device for their own first drafts.
🔪 It’s truly an incredible tool but has a very serious price of misuse. It’s like a sharp Japanese knife—used skillfully, it can make for an incredible cooking prep experience. But used mindlessly, it can cut—deep.
How I’m Using AI for Writing
Here’s my new process for writing:
I write the first draft myself. Always.
Full brain dump, no filter, no editing. Just stream of consciousness. Here the vision is born.Pop my draft into ChatGPT, give my vision and start to ask questions.
Does this match the tone I want? Does it feel cohesive? How does this part land? How can I say this more succinctly? Spelling, grammar errors, etc.
What tends to happen is that after the second or third revision in ChatGPT, I get in gear and write the entire thing. Then ask for a last revision.
This strategy has offered me a couple things:
It’s unlocked a new level of creative freedom. Knowing that a clarifying mechanism awaits, I can absolutely let loose in the first draft. This fruits lots of weird, wonderful creative seeds. (My knife metaphor above started as something about quadruple-sided Japanese knife in this first draft (what does that even mean??)…that unfortunately didn’t make the cut 🔪).
It’s made my writing more cohesive. I’ve never had an editor before. That’s basically what this kind of feedback is. Naturally, the writing has become more cohesive.
I’ve also learned how to effectively use an em dash—something I didn’t even know existed before.
How I’m Using AI for Therapy
Here’s where it gets interesting.
We’re not talking about replacing therapists or pouring your emotional life into a chatbot. That’s degenerate and potentially dangerous. We’ve seen the horror stories.
But—just like with writing—there is a way to use AI as a clarifying tool for thought-work after you’ve done your own work.
I’ve personally found Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)-style coaching very effective. It can be summed up as:
Your thoughts create your actions, and your actions create your life. To control your life, you must control your thoughts.
Because of this, I pay close attention to the thoughts that drive my actions. I regularly brain-dump what’s bouncing around my head, especially when it feels messy, ugly, or repetitive.
And of late, a particularly unhelpful thought that has been steering my ship has been, “I don’t have enough time”.
Regularly stemming from this thought are actions like these:
Frantically sprinting from one task or appointment to the next
Rarely showing up on time
Rarely allowing for quality deep work
Ending the days exhausted, mind completely cluttered
Instigating fights with my wife, who does believe she has enough time
Then I wake up again to the same mental chaos and do it again. It’s not the most fun way to spend your day (I know I’m not alone).
Fed up one evening, I decided to sit down and do some writing (on my lovely reMarkable).
I made some immediate connections between this thought and my aversion to planning (which has been a point of contention with Jenna for our entire existence). See below.
What I then did was take a photo and post it into ChatGPT with the following note: “I don’t have enough time” is an unhelpful thought that’s been influencing a lot of my actions of late. It results in me feeling like I don’t have enough time. Regularly rushed, late, not doing the things I want to do. Here is some writing I just did on it. I’d like to dig.
I got served back some insights connecting the aversion to planning to a fear of seeing my own limitations (because when you plan, you have to accept the limits of what you can do). This is something I’ve heard before, so it resonated. It also posed three questions digging more into planning.
More writing ensued. See below.
After each written page, I would pop it into ChatGPT and search for new interesting insights or ideas. Then continue scribbling.
This continued for several hours, and by the end I began to see a new thought pattern emerge. In which planning wasn’t something I viewed as holding back my creativity, but rather as catalyzing it. Something essential to living the life I wanted to live.
And this week? This writing session? All planned in advance! Gasp!
Am I sticking to everything perfectly? Of course not. I’m way over time on this writing session. But I love what I’ve created during it. And if I had left it to the last minute (something “I don’t have enough time” does 100% of the time), it wouldn’t have been anywhere close to this quality of ideas or writing.
And—to return to the original unhelpful thought—I feel like I have way more time. Because my days this week haven’t been blown about by the winds of chaos, I feel more in control, more confident that I’m moving down the path I want to be on.
So, was this therapy? Yes, I think you could say it was.
But, as with any good coaching/therapy session, the patient does most of the work. The coach/therapist’s main role is to simply help you see what you’re not seeing.
And I think ChatGPT did this well enough for me to change around what had been a very persistent, unhelpful thought pattern. But it’s important that this is done within a framework.
My Rules for Using AI for Clarified Thinking
Here are my hard-and-fast rules for using AI for any kind of thought clarification:
Use your BRAIN FIRST and do your own initial work. Write (pen-to-paper). Voice-to-text. Reflect. Bring substance.
This is not a person. It is a computer. It does not replace human conversation or connection. It is a tool that can be used for creating clarity.
This is not talk therapy. Talk therapy is done with humans. This is a one-way conversation. (Do not use the conversational voice feature)
It must lead to real-world action. It must be a catalyst for real-world change or it should not be used.
It does not replace real coaches or therapists. It’s a nice complement, at best.
Don’t take everything it says as truth. Trust yourself enough to discard what doesn’t fit.
This is not an everyday activity. It’s (maybe) a once-a-week activity. If you sense a reliance being built, space needs to be given.
Moving Forward
We’re living through a moment where, for better or worse, AI is here to stay. And if you’re a human interested in a fulfilled existence, you have two choices when it comes to this technology:
Don’t use it
Use it mindfully
There is no third option. Use it mindlessly and it will deteriorate your life. Of that, I’m certain.
In deciding to use it, these two use-cases—writing and thought-work—have shown something important:
AI isn’t a substitute for thinking. It’s an amplifier. It reflects back the quality and intention of whatever you bring.
If you bring curiosity, effort, and honesty, it can help you see what’s been hiding in plain sight. If you do the work, it can help provide clarity.
And for me, this clarity has already changed some things that badly needed changing.
Will I keep this habit? Only time will tell.
But so far in this chapter—used intentionally, after the heavy lifting—AI has been net positive. Not because it thinks for me, but because it helps me think more clearly.
A sharp tool. A useful tool. But still a knife.
2.) Thoreau 🏕️ on pursuing your own way
I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
3.) Marcus Aurelius 🛌 on getting out of bed
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’
So you were born to feel ‘nice’? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can?
And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?
You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
I’ve begun to notice this theme of engagement in life strung throughout the philosophies of many great thinkers; Marcus, Nietzsche, Beauvoir and more.
4.) Leonardo da Vinci 🧠💰 on true wealth
Men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of the desire for wisdom, which is the sustenance and truly dependable wealth of the mind.
Leonardo da Vinci
Two last things for you this week:
If you choose to use AI, look on it with new eyes. As an amplifier, not a substitute, for your thinking.
Be fire and wish for the wind 🔥
With love,
Chris
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Bravo!