It makes me think what are the activities that I do really enjoy and makes me forget about time, space and self.
Base on the things that I come up, it could be divided into two categories one that makes you feel productive the other one doesn’t move any needle at all.
I think it would be safe that the two categories could be classified into creating and the other one is consuming.
Things that I really enjoy in Creating categories are:
- Coding and Programming
- Thinking and Solving Problems in Programming
- Tinkering with technologies
- Writing
- Playing Guitar
- Exploring new things.
Not sure if those things really work but for me, it just kinda play that I enjoy most of the time. It makes me really forget about time, space and self. And sometimes I tend to forget to it just to finish something that I’m working on.
On the consuming side:
- Watching Movies
- Watching Vloggers in Youtube
- Reading Anime and Manga
- Playing Computer Games (I’ve already remove Steam in my Mac 2 years ago)
- Mindless browsing in social media
The second category makes me forget time, space and self and it feels good to do those things but it doesn’t really move much my life. The worst part is I get addicted to those things.
I start to think that those entertainments are intentionally designed to make us crave more. We all know, we only have limited will power to be able to fight with those urges.
It reminds me when I start watching in Netflix. I’ve got curious about YOU series. I said to myself that I will just watch 1 episode just to pass time. Little did I know after watching 1 episode, I get hooked with the stories and I start to crave more.
Funny thing Netflix has 5 seconds count down on the left side to play the next episode. Youtube do it as well when they do autoplay.
Netflix doesn’t want you to think anymore and just immediately play the next episode. During that time, I lose my will to stop and just watching. Oops. If I remember correctly I finish the whole episode in 2 days my bad.
Moving on, I guess it has something to do with the chemicals in our brain called dopamine. Dopamine is a molecule that our body produces naturally, and it’s the substance that’s behind our dreams and biggest secrets. Dopamine means lust, love, infidelity, motivation, attention, femininity, learning, and addiction.
As my note to myself, it would be good to do more of creating and from time to time I could indulge on consumption side just to let my self lose and free up some mental space. For I know, it could not really be completely eliminated.
