We Are What We Consume

At the core of every human life is the need to understand what inspires us, what triggers us, what motivates us, and what drains us. These insights are essential because they help us uncover our bigger purpose in life. The only way to understand these core aspects is to look for them in your world. But our world is full of unwanted stimuli. hence we cloud our ability to recognise these aspects. If we don’t manage the stimulus we absorb, we confuse ourself from our true desires and goals.  If we engage with the stimulus that distract us, we lose sight of what truly inspires us and what gives us purpose.
This is why it becomes crucial to identify and reduce the unnecessary noise in our lives.

As a person reading this, you may realize that life can feel a lot simpler and more purposeful if you understand what truly inspires you and focus on giving that to the world. But here’s the challenge: in a world overflowing with distractions, it becomes nearly impossible to tune into that inspiration. We spend so much time engaging with content, conversations, and activities that offer little value—so much stimulus that it clouds our ability to figure out what inspires, motivates, triggers, or drains us. Without clarity we end up stuck in routines that don’t fulfill us.

What I discovered through my experience is that reducing external stimuli by about 85% was the key to finding clarity. When I cut down the unnecessary noise—limiting the content I consumed and narrowing my social interactions—I began to see patterns within myself. The awareness gave me the ability to perform the very best in my life. 

Psychological Solitude Fasting

Imagine your life is like a tall glass of mixed juice—80% water and 20% pure fruit essence. When you drink the entire glass, most of what you consume is diluted water with only a hint of flavor from the fruit. Now, what if you could remove all the water and focus only on the pure 20% fruit essence? The flavor would be more intense, richer, and closer to the true essence of the fruit. Similarly, in Psychological Solitude Fasting, the goal is to remove the unnecessary "water" in your life—the excess content, conversations, and distractions—leaving behind only the pure, meaningful 20%. This concentrated essence becomes your world. From here, you can clearly identify what inspires you, what triggers you, what motivates you, and what drains you.

What Happens when the noise fades

Once you’ve removed all the distractions, something powerful happens—you get a surge of thoughts, and I mean a lot! you may find yourself thinking deeply, generating ideas, writing, or working on projects that have been on your mind for a long time. You allow space for your own ideas, reflections, and insights to rise to the surface. This creative energy flows because you are no longer overwhelmed by external input. With fewer distractions, your mind can focus inward, tapping into your unique thoughts and creativity.

Experiencing Solitude 

As the distractions around you fade, you naturally begin spending more time with yourself, you learn to sit with yourself more often. This introspective space helps you identify your emotional triggers and what truly motivates you, giving your evolving sense of purpose. Much like Chris Williamson’s "loneliness journey," you evolve to the point where you no longer fit into your old social circles. However, you haven’t yet developed the skills or connections to fully transition into new ones. 

It’s not an overnight transformation. But month after month, year after year, these small reductions accumulate. By the time two or three years have passed, you may have cut 60-70% of the external stimuli that once occupied your attention. It’s only in hindsight that you recognize what this process was—a form of solitude fasting.

We spend so much of our lives bombarded by external input—social media, conversations, content of all kinds. And while we may not always notice it, this constant influx of stimulus shapes how we think and feel. Without even recognizing it, we allow the external noise to guide us. This funnel reshapes focus, and you start to see just how much irrelevant content you’ve been tolerating. When the clutter fades, what’s left is you—your real thoughts, your real desires, and the things that actually matter.