Time
Published:
The main goal of the academic field of economics is to study how humans satify their unlimited wants and needs given finite resources. Since I’m human, I have to do this as well when it comes to time, especially now as I have far less time than I used to have.
Ever since I started working, I’ve underestimated how much free time I had while I was chronically unemployed. In those days, I could wake up whenever, watch hours of YouTube videos, play even more hours of video games1, read books, watch movies, doomscroll, listen to podcasts, binge watch multiple TV series, try cook, take a walk, and at times, do productive things like program and blog. Now that I work, I have far less time to fuck around.
Work takes 10 hours of my day between commuting, getting ready and the actual work. Sleep takes an 8 hour chunk, I spend an hour eating and half an hour of family time2. This leaves 5 and a half hours to try and do all the things I could easily when I had thrice the time. It would be less if I had to do more domestic labor. Making things worse is that those few hours are incredibly tiring as it lies during the time I wake up and when I get back from work when I’m really tired.
Fitness and career development are important, but when video games are fun, I don’t progress my career.
Games are fun but they need a lot of effort compared to movies.
Movies and video games are cool, but they need a lot of attention compared to YouTube videos.
There are a lot of YouTube videos I want to watch from amazing creators (with many more I haven’t discovered) that I’m always playing catch up3. YouTube is kinda passive so I can doomscroll.
Doomscrolling never starts out that way. It always starts with some slight curiosity on some tech influencer. Hours later, I’m suddenly unable to look away from a vile comment section.
In short, there’s so much stuff to go through. Even If I get productive, I have hundreds of posts in the drafts and just as many links saved to go through. There’s clearly not enough time to go through it all, and I doubt there ever will. Even if I did, what’s the point? Entertainment is valuable sure, but can I truly say I’m being entertained if I’m watching a YouTube sketch comedian at 3x speed, blasting away meticulously planned stylistic pauses? Probably not.
All this has made me realized that time is finite and I need to have a guiding philosophy to figure it out. If I don’t, I might end up in some strange places. As that cat told the girl, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there
.
Shout out to Yakuza series (0—7 as well as Lost Judgement), Persona 5 and Stardew Valley for taking up 400 hours of my time. They were totally worth it. ↩︎
Had we not done this, we’d never talk since we’d probably never talk even if we live together. ↩︎
It can take me hours to catch up with certain creators. And that’s at 3x speed. I get that it harms artistic integrity and all, but I want to consume more content. ↩︎