This year, I’m going to fast by taking everything slow.

Here’s what I mean.

Every time I walk somewhere—to the office, to grab coffee, anywhere—I reach for my AirPods. A tech podcast. A movie interview. Something to fill the silence. It’s automatic at this point. Point A to point B is just dead time unless there’s audio playing.

This Ramadan, I’m leaving the AirPods in my pocket. I’ll walk in silence and let boredom do its thing.

This isn’t some Archimedes-in-the-bathtub situation. I’m not expecting a Eureka moment on my morning commute. But here’s the thing: if I never let my mind wander, my thoughts never get the chance to mingle. To connect dots I didn’t know were related. To stumble onto something I wouldn’t have found if I’d been half-listening to someone’s take on the latest funding round.

The best ideas I’ve had didn’t come from consuming more content. They came from the gaps between content. I’d like more of those gaps.

And I’m adding one more thing to the list of things to abstain from between sunrise and sunset: GenAI.

No Claude, no ChatGPT, no Copilot during fasting hours. Just me and whatever I actually know. Given that I built an entire app with AI over Christmas break, this should be… humbling.

The escape hatch is that this fast only lasts till sunset. Iftar hits, and I’m back to prompting like nothing happened.

Ramadan Kareem y’all!