SYMBOLS MATTER –
July 30, 2026 – Most accounts of a mind going dull revolve around the same explanation: disuse. If you stop reading, stop learning, coast — and the machinery rusts. Which is why the standard prescription is effort. Do the crossword, learn the language, keep the thing busy. But the more common route to a duller mind doesn’t run through neglect. It runs through competence. Every year of experience adds to your private stock of “moves” that already work — the argument that you know persuades, the fix that almost always clears the bug, the standard way to handle a difficult client. That stock is genuinely valuable. It’s also the thing that quietly makes thinking unnecessary.
