The Path of Greater Resistance
Part 4 of 4 in "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"
“I don’t know, I just can’t watch One Piece. There’s too many episodes.” 🔫
In 2001, two French robots made a transhumanist anthem that would become one of the most iconic electronic tracks of all time. “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” portrays the unstoppable progress of technology and humanity’s obsession with productivity.
This 4-article series invites you to look at the “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” nature of modern life, and feel empowered to choose how much you want to engage with it.
Previously, I talked about growth (part 1), attention (part 2) and speed (part 3). In this last part, we discuss depth.
I lost myself in foam and paint
In late October 2024, I got the bright idea to hand-craft a gift for my friend’s birthday. She is also a Game Master like me and runs her own Dungeons and Dragons games. Having recently printed some battlemats for myself, I thought it might be cool to make a set of tiles for her along with 3d-printed miniatures.
In that whole process, I pulled out my old paints and dissection kit from high school, and found floral foam as a base material. After about 3 weeks of effort, this was the result.
This project was a return to the wonderful world of hobby crafting. I’ve done arts and crafts intermittently all my life, and I’m glad that I can still fall into it and enjoy myself. Whenever I craft, I feel a real, tangible zeal to work with my hands.
After completing this project, I continued crafting. I started making stuff for my own games — floor tiles, walls, miniature tables and bookshelves, and more. It’s been a special experience.
It pulled my focus, demanded it. Throwing a dumbbell around in wide arcs in easy. Painting the barely visible belt buckle of a miniature is hard. It’s hard to hold the knife and the paintbrush just right. It locked me right in.
I went for hours in a day, until a headache occurred and exasperation grew. I had to pack it all up and put it away because I couldn’t bear to see them anymore. A few minutes later, once I’d dunked my head in a cold bucket and let the water sting my eyes, my tension dissipated. And when that happened, I felt fulfilled. And I went back and did it again the next day.
And when I finished, I looked at what I crafted and really, truly, deeply felt — “Wow, I’m actually really proud of this.” Imagine that.
Investment is incredibly rewarding
The most revelatory thing I’ve read about ADHD is that everything is interesting. I’ve never felt allowed to admit that, however much I raise my middle fingers up and do whatever the hell I want anyway. Everything is interesting! And I don’t want that to change!
Because that is only a problem if you flit from thing to thing so much that you never give anything the time it deserves. And I cannot be that guy. I need to sink my teeth into things. I need to obsess and hyperfixate and learn everything I can to satisfy this insatiable curiosity.
As a result, I’ve managed to do a lot of long-term projects in the last few years:
fitness — losing 20kg of weight, running 100km in 25 days, doing 100 pushups a day for 30 days, etc.
writing — making 15,000-word e-books and 43,000-word manuals for clients, and this blog since 2011
tabletop gaming — running 2 separate D&D campaigns, one for 10 months and one for 29 months, and dozens of small games
watching — inhaling all of Critical Role (over 1200 hours of storytelling), reading all of One Piece and other manga
It drives me up a wall when people say that they can’t get into something because it will take too long. Like, they act so precious with their time.
I understand the fear of failure that comes with long projects such as transforming your body, running marathons, and writing novels. Those kind of projects require a ton of persistence and grit and are daunting. But a great deal of people can’t even commit to easy things such as doing a jigsaw puzzle, reading a single book, or watching a long series.
I don’t understand why. If you struggle to commit to things, help me understand. Is nothing interesting to you?
And I don’t want to hear any shit about privilege and having to balance family and work and how hard life is. I am not an alien. I am also a human being with responsibilities and commitments.
Because I don’t know if you understand, but time will pass regardless. And you’re going to spend a lot of it scrolling Tiktoks, Reels, Shorts, and whatever other branding some fuckass platform uses for user-sourced 60-second microdrugs.
This 4-part series has been all about slowing down and choosing how to engage with modern life. It has helped me clarify how I want to approach self-relationship going forward, and that approach is intentional.
If that’s not for you, more power to you. Tell me to fuck off and go do whatever you want.
But if that is you, and you want to be interested in things, I have good news for you. Yes, there is a very real numbing comfort in swiping through microcontent. But I want to reassure you that there is also a very real invigorating comfort in diving deeper and trying big things.
So, what’s the issue?
Is it procrastination? Is it laziness? Is it perfectionism?1
No, those are coping mechanisms for 2 real problems: a fear of failure and a fear of boredom.
We’re afraid of commitment because boredom and failure are evil in the modern day, and we’d rather window shop our way into oblivion than risk the discomfort and uncertainty of trying something bigger than ourself.
Both those fears come from an unhealthy focus on finishing. I don’t know why, but people are way too focused on finishing. Do I need to quote a cliché? It’s about the journey, not the destination.
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” ― Norman Vincent Peale.
I used to be obtuse and dismissive about that quote. “I won’t be among the stars, I’ll be dead in the vacuum of space!” But the older I get, the more I engage with its spirit.
It’s not just about the finish. If I fail to run a 10k, I would still have managed 8k in practice. If I’m unable to publish Karsica and the Sky Islands2, I would still have written a novel. If I watch Game of Thrones, I will still have been transported to another world for the duration of my time with it, even if the last season sucked.
Partial successes are real successes. Milestones are successes.
Give milestones the respect they deserve, and you will never be afraid of failure or boredom. You create your own meaning, and you change along the way. That is the most potent value of investing in depth.
When you have the courage to be genuinely excited by something that takes more than one burst of effort3, you’re rebuilding the focus and patience that we’re losing in the brain rot parts of our life. Consistency is not something you have, it is something you build. And you build it with the bricks of enthusiasm and interest.
The opposite of fear is not confidence, it’s enthusiasm. Allow yourself to be excited by the attempt, and you’ll never be afraid of the result.
Earlier, I listed all the big things I’ve succeeded at, but I’ve also failed at a lot of long-term projects, such as:
all the times I wasn’t able to lose weight and got out of shape,
applying to a design school in 2017 but backing out,
trying to get a play produced, and more.
It was genuinely a struggle to remember my failures for the list above. Not because I’m so good and successful and handsome, but because failures don’t mean anything as time passes. If you have a fear of failure, I want you to take comfort in the fact that no one, not even you, will remember them after a while.
A fear of failure shouldn’t stop you from trying to do big things. It’s a great tragedy if it does, because just the act of trying is meaningful and rewarding.
Depth doesn’t need to be “productive”
I want to make an important distinction and decouple depth from productivity. You don’t have to run a marathon or write a novel. This Tumblr screenshot crossed my feed on Instagram and it is really cool.
That is depth! The point of this article is not to push you to be more productive, but to help you fight brain rot. The point is to show you the wonders of investing multiple days in something. Choose something that you actually want to do. Be interested in anything that has progress that carries over to the next day.
Explore pizza parlors in the city and find your favourites.
Start a collection of something.
Notice birds and animals when you go out and take photos of them.
Fill up your Pokedex.
Try to set the Guinness record for most one-hand-slaps in a minute.
In 2025, I’m trying to write more pieces for the blog across the year. This requires me to sit and try every day. I appreciate you joining me on this journey, and recommending Thorough and Unkempt to your friends.
The “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” series is now complete. Next up is Fiction February. I’m afraid, but I’m also enthusiastic.
Let’s address perfectionism. I used to be a “perfectionist” myself. It’s bullshit. It’s a lie. Here’s how it works — you don’t actually want to do the thing, so you set an impossible standard and then give yourself an out when you can’t meet that standard, while still feeling good about yourself. It’s a beautiful self-scam.
I will not give up on this, ever. Fiction February includes working on this novel.
i.e. takes more than one day. I’ve actually outlined an e-book on this concept recently. More on this soon.
The Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger series
Jan 05, 2025. Why the Continuous Improvement Mindset needs to Die
Jan 12, 2025. There’s a Poison Spreading Among Us
Jan 19, 2025. Will AI Survive User Apathy?
Jan 26, 2025. The Path of Greater Resistance