2026-04-27

When I'm near the end of my life what are the uses of my time that I will regret the most? Time spent playing video games? Scrolling social media endlessly? Drinking alone? Binging TV? Will I come to some grand revelation about how all those times were not actually a waste but a sum of experiences that came to encompass who I am? Would I be happy if it were true that those experiences encompass who I am or would I rather have picked different ones?

Time spent contributing to my blog on this website, reading interesting things that stimulate me, doing various other hobbies or going to the gym. Spending time in public places socializing with other humans, surely when looking back these experiences would mean something more to me when looking at the minutes spent right? At concerts or at the park or tinkering with electronics has to beat my fifth 30 minutes YouTube ragebait video? On contemplation this seems very obviously true, but in practice why is it so hard to pull away from? I find it hard to believe that it's all dopamine or if I were to re-wire my brain today or gain 30 IQ or something similar I would find no value in these veg out activities. Maybe they would be different or of a higher caliber if I were smarter or somehow made wiser by some revelation, but I don't think they'd go away. So what then they have to be good for something, connecting us to a deeper thing in the same way that pre-internet/media hobbies did.

If I went back to sewing in the evenings, playing an instrument and singing or walking to visit neighbors would I really feel differently? I guess the answer might be yes but only because I'd have the internet to compare it to. If I sewed for 20 years I might very well find myself asking the same thing of sewing I'm asking now about YouTube, what was all that time spent actually worth? I think it's gotta be that the variations are important, doing this for this time, and that for that. Seasons of life that vary by month or year or minute. 10 years of a persons favorite season would wear on them. 10 years of brain rot avoidance might yield the more rotted brain. Or someone at least extremely out of touch with the fellow humans they're trying to prioritize.

2026-04-23

What will happen if I get quiet and listen for a long time? If I stop scrolling, stop reading, literally and figuratively stop moving. It's an extremely scary thought. Sure I won't die, but I feel there is some hulking something lurking in my mental peripheral. At the same time it's relaxing to be undistracted for a while even if there's nothing for me to focus on with this undistracted time. Have I gotten away from myself in some important way that happened so gradually I never noticed? It's tough to even conceive of the way that that might be true, that's how little I remember of what my 'self' was when I was a child or a teen or a young adult. I don't even know if that's a productive or true feeling the idea that there was some 'good version' of me that I've migrated away from and should seek to return to. What's really wrong with the version of me right now and is this quiet period supposed to bring me back? Am I really so divorced from those earlier versions or equipped to judge how far I've drifted from them when I admit I can't really really remember what they were like? The bones are still there I think. That's probably all we're meant to keep.

2026-04-02

Who can call themselves an artist and what is the art they've produced called? Of course a poet, a sculptor, a writer all count themselves among the ranks. A dancer maybe if they're trained in ballet, a crumper though? The lines get a little blurry. So I wonder am I an artist? Some weird person who writes random words online surely couldn't call themselves a writer. It must be worth something though I guess is the thought I keep coming back to. All the thrashing and wriggling that we all do before we're forced by time to give it a rest...it must be worth something. It must be of note too that not everyone feels the need to thrash or wriggle in the same way though patterns do emerge, again there are likely more ballerinas than pop lockers. If I feel a less common need, and I try to fulfill it, does that mean I'm doing something thats akin to art? Murderers would rejoice to hear haha, 'behold a man' and all that.

Is the worth of the artist in the worth that an onlooker gets out of observing resultants of that thrashing? Likely no, as it's been seen on many occasion how the results are only appreciated after that person is already gone. It's seen often enough to make you wonder if dying has anything to do with it. Maybe I can just spend my life doing whatever it is I think I'm doing now, and then in a half centuries time someone will stumble upon something I've written and I'll be widely acclaimed as a not piece of shit at least. Here's hoping.

I don't really hope for it though and I guess those guys probably didn't either. It seems it's about a part of yourself being in public that should not be, and that part being brave enough to tell a secret to your public part. People resonating with the secret is just a coincidence if you're lucky. That is if i'm an artist, I wonder if those other guys called themselves one?