Do you need a smart drug or a smart strategy?

Doubling my money has just never felt necessary.

Maybe I am missing out on something. Maybe I will see things differently in my fifties when my brain starts to degenerate into mush.

But for now, my toolkit is awfully robust. Adding a teaspoon of a coconut triglyceride to my cold brew doesn’t offer much upside for me.

And for the record, I don’t have a strong opinion on cognitive enhancers in general. I am not concerned about fair and ethical implications of using substances in competitive environments like academics and the workplace.

We’re all adults here. Go do whatever you want.

I guess what compels me not to partake is, don’t the effects only last as long as the drug remains in your body? Like a few hours a day? And doesn’t that, by definition, suggest a potential dependency risk?

I don’t like the idea of having to reach for something every time. Sounds exhausting to me, ironically enough. There are plenty of sustainable cognitive enhancements that can be achieved through healthier lifestyle choices. Tactics that contribute to my long term mental development without the risks.

How high do you need to perform, realistically? Is the additional twenty percent actually worth optimizing for?

It’s not like you’re training for the olympics here. Very few things in life require us to push ourselves to the extreme.

I understand many people are very competitive and will do whatever it takes to maintain their edge. That’s wonderful. I am so happy they have found strategies to biohack their way to peak performance. I enjoy hearing their stories and insights.

Meanwhile, in a world where every smart drug is available, I like to think of sobriety as the ultimate biohack. It sounds super lame and square, but there’s something uniquely satisfying and empowering about being free from artificial enhancements.

Think of it this way. Using drugs is a large scale experiment that millions of people are conducting on themselves with no control group. Normally when you test a drug on a lab rat, you have one rat that isn’t taking it.

But with drugs, both legal and illicit, everyone is taking them without seeing if their life might be better, different or the same, normal or abnormal, if they simply didn’t partake.

When I was young, I decided that I would just be the control. To see what happens if I experienced life without the influence of enhancements.

And what I’ve discovered is, this approach gives me a clear baseline of my cognitive state, free from chemical distortions. Which gives me a unique perspective on the true necessity of and impact of external substances.

I wouldn’t call me a big legacy person, but it would be exciting to get to my death bed and think, wow, look at what’s possible when you leverage your existing abilities and assets.

Look at what you can do, and how you can feel, without having to reach for something.

Do you need a smart drug or just a smart strategy?