Change
26.05.25
Going Scarce
I decided that I will no longer stay up to write blog posts. Instead, I will write them during the day or not write them at all. Now, I'm back to writing posts. What have I done while I was gone?
To begin, I am becoming more like the person I want to be. I am taking a break from online chatting until the end of the year. When I return, I will be a changed person, a man consumed by his hobbies returning with the fruits of his labor. I will reemerge with moral, intellectual, and aesthetic superiority. But how?
The key is having nothing to do but work. I fall back onto boredom-induced impulses that I have fed for so long, in particular, scrolling and chatting. Therefore, I must uproot my old ways in order to become more deliberate and focused.
I have blocked a few sites with uBlock Origin, and I'm using the Unhook extension for YouTube to remove recommendations and distractions. The goal is to use the internet more intentionally instead of for its own sake. Am I missing anything? No, I will miss nothing of value to me. Did I ever care about the latest memes and the current e-celeb drama? There is a beautiful simplicity to staying less up to date. Allow me to explain.
When you take longer breaks, the events you miss begin to accumulate, thus the value you gain upon return increases. In other words, by missing more, you gain more from each update. Would you prefer incessant little updates from a game developer, or would you prefer a flood of new content every once in a while? The choice seems evident to me.
In addition, you can return carrying more events of value to share with others. Nobody asks you for your recollection of going to and from the grocery store. But returning from a grand international adventure? You will have plenty of stories to tell everyone. The goal is to create value through scarcity.
This presents an interesting question. Why am I even writing all this self-reflection? It makes me common and understood. I should be acting instead of explicating. The truth is that I am a flawed man, and I am not yet where I want to be. I am beginning to see momentum, but it's not the same as the second nature that I seek. I am already common, so why should I protect my image?
Here I am in all my inglorious self-reflection! What do I have to hide? That I'm striving? Yes indeed, I am striving here at the bottom like a worm with dreams of being a butterfly. This is a conspicuous fact about me, but it is who I am. I am the worm that will one day learn to fly.
Boredom
Now what? This is what I asked myself when I uploaded my animatic, when I logged out for good, and generally whenever I finished what I set out to do. Boredom is a cue that forces you to choose what to do, or you will simply default to a routine. I have destroyed my routines, and I am building new ones. If this wasn't the case, I wouldn't be writing this right now.
I was already getting work done before noon, but now I am getting work done in the afternoon. I hope that these efforts will come easily to me when I'm bored. I still have to fight the urges to lie in the shade and twiddle my thumbs. However, boredom has other effects.
Interestingly, I have become less irritable because I have a wealth of free time to partition, so I do not see obligations as negatively anymore. If I keep this up, I might find myself seeking employment (could you imagine?). I suppose that I'm more accepting of the world now that I have become more content with my condition; although, there is still more for me to strive toward.
Another effect is that I am going to bed earlier because I feel like I have nothing more to do until I can repeat the day tomorrow. This is good because I can wake up with more energy and get more done. I'm not exactly waking up at 5:00 AM to a perfected morning routine, and that's fine with me. I do like the idea of getting a lot done before people even eat breakfast, but that's just not me.
This is reassuring to me. I must be getting closer, and so my adventure must continue on this path. Will I ever return, or will I fall away forever?