Saturday, July 12th, Noboribetsu, Japan

At the crack of dawn in the savannahs of Tanzania, the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers begin their day. One by one, they step out of their hand-built wooden huts into the crisp morning air, their breath forming clouds in the early light. The fire still smolders from the night before, its embers glowing softly as men gather around it, whispering strategy and sharpening arrows. Children stretch in the dust, women begin sorting berries and roots. There's no rush—only rhythm. No calendars, no deadlines—only the single, pressing goal: find food. The air smells like dry earth and woodsmoke. You can hear the distant chatter of birds, the crunch of feet on dirt, the soft thwick of a bowstring being tested. In their eyes, there is no trace of anxiety. No thoughts about taxes or TikToks. Their minds are occupied by the land, by the animals they track, by the shared work ahead. They are present—fully, deeply present. Contrast this with life back home. In the West, our days begin not with fire and purpose but with the buzzing of our phones. We scroll through other people's lives before we've even had a sip of water. We answer work emails while brushing our teeth. Notifications, news, texts, calendars, group chats—we're pulled in a dozen directions before the sun even rises. People talk endlessly about "work-life balance," but what does that even mean anymore? Are we meant to split ourselves in two? To juggle health, hustle, happiness, fitness, finances, fun—all before lunch? We brag about being busy and trade productivity hacks like survival tools. The modern brain, hit with constant inputs, rarely rests. And while I won't dive too far into brain science, it's no secret our minds weren't designed for this level of stimulation and fragmentation. High in the Himalayas, I met a yak herder in rural Nepal. His entire world was his ranch, perched among snow-capped peaks and rolling green hills. He had never left his village, let alone his country. Yet he radiated something rare and grounding: peace. He spent his days tending to his animals, making yogurt and butter from their milk, stacking firewood, sitting quietly in the grass watching clouds drift. No ambition to "scale" anything. No need for external validation. Just a man, some animals, and the rhythm of the mountains. Witnessing these lives—whether in the savannah or the Himalayas—humbles me. It makes me question the whole machine we're caught in: chasing money, fame, big dreams, shiny milestones. I do want to make a big impact in this world. I believe in progress, in working hard toward something meaningful. But I've started to wonder whether we've confused working hard with spinning in circles. We don't need another app that promises to 10x our output. We need fewer tabs open—in our browsers and in our minds. Perhaps the real problem is that we've traded depth for speed, and focus for frenzy. Humans didn't evolve to switch tasks every five minutes. We were designed to move slowly, deliberately. To track a gazelle. To gather. To build. To tend. What if the discontent so many of us feel isn't because we're failing—but because we're trying to do too much, too fast, in too many directions? What if stillness is not laziness, but mastery? I think back to the yak herder again—his steady gaze, the way he stirred his tea. Or the hunter warming his hands at the fire before slipping off into the bush. Their lives aren't easy. But they are clear. Maybe we don't need more pleasure, more novelty, more distraction. Maybe we just need fewer decisions. A smaller radius. A craft to return to. A rhythm we can follow. Maybe the path forward isn't in doing more, but in doing less—better.