july 7 2025

re: Food for Thought

Oh my goodness do I have so many thoughts right now. This will be entry 1 of 4 thoughts. And it's alllll out of order so don't expect for any of it to make sense! This past week I didn't go on YouTube OR Instagram once! It's crazy i know right?! And I still managed to average 4 hours a day on my damn phone. But anyways, this is a pretty crazy lil thing because I freaking loooove my YouTube, and I don't love ig like that but it's fun to scroll sometimes I guess. So, let's go through the mind of a chronic tuber.

Q: Why did I decide to go on a cleanse? Honestly just by observing how other people (my girlfriend) live their lives. It's so mind boggling how much more productive, if I'm allowed to use that word, one can be when their first thought when faced with free time isn't to find a video or scroll shorts to pass the time. I witnessed my girlfriend plan out, create, get stuck, unstuck, create some more, and finish entire book projects all the in the amount of time it takes me to even begin thinking about thinking about making something! And the biggest thing I noticed was that there was intention behind the actions she was taking. So I thought to myself, how can i get me some of that initiative?? So I'm thinking and I'm thinking and I'm thinking, and I'm talking to my brother one day and he casually says that he's a very momentum driven person. If he lets himself slack off in the start of the day, it has a knock on effect for the whooole day. And this is something I've thought about myself many times before too. So I first said to myself that's real, and then I started putting puzzles pieces together. I find that content is the most convenient thing in my life. It literally takes 0 effort at this point. If I can make accessing content a non-zero amount of effort, then I believe that one extra step will give me the space to stop. Thinking about what you're doing. Stop it. And do something else (hopefully). So now I have the conviction to actively think about not succumbing to my habits. The way I enforce this is just by using the iPhone time limit functionality (terrible horrible literally does not work) and (this is the key part) a whole lotta of self-worth riding on this experiment. Hopefully with all that I can get some initiative! Q: How did it go? So first off. The core challenge of just sticking to what I said and not scrolling or anything I did complete. I didn't do any of that, and honestly, the desire is way less. I still feel when I'm eating food at home or at work I really want some guy telling me about how the supply chain of irrigation supplies is totally monopolized by this one family in south-central asia, but I don't consider those cases an excessive use of Youtube/Instagram. After work I am typically able to do the things I intended quicker now. But that brings me to my second note: I found new things to do, and you could argue they're wastes of time. Because I was on call and cooped up at home the whole week, I started playing videogames way more again. I was playing CS2 with my boy Mahan, and Old School RuneScape (!) on my own. One my call this just a trade off of two evils, but I genuinely believe playing games is a much more effective use of time because of two things. (1) I'm talking to friends when I'm playing CS2 and (2) playing runescape has a very core internal locus of control. I do things in that game because I want to. I am killing gobs, doing quests, doubling money not because it's convenient for me, but because it's what I decided to do with my time. Having that agency is incredible!!! That being said, there are parts of my prophecy that I did not fulfill. I started off with the intention of crafting more, writing more, reading more, cooking more, and planning more. I have been reading WAY more and planned out the rest of my january, but the hobbies that produce something tangible did not go anywhere. To be honest, I'm writing because I told myself I'd write SOMETHING this week, and now it's Sunday and I still hadn't written anything. I didn't really end up crafting at all, my pea puffer and other fishies are still where they were prior. The ideal concept of myself is someone who actively seeks out time to craft and write, rather than time gaming. I personally think that gaming is not a bad hobby, and if I like it then what's the harm right? But for whatever reason, whether it be the social connotation of playing games, the existential dread of making some mark on this lil world, or what have you; I still have a very strong higher level desire to do these media-producing activities in more of a self definition manner rather than a hedonistic enjoyment manner. I'm still not sure if it's "good" for me to have those opinions, but that's where we are right now. Overall, I think it went pretty well! Q: So, what's next? Well, I'm going to try and extend this clenase for a month now! I think it's been going pretty well, and I have a busy week coming up. Any free time I have is/should be spent doing something I genuinely enjoy. Also, I do think my mind has been thinking more about my producing hobbies, however actually creating something is still something I struggle with. I bought a year's worth of OSRS membership so I'll be playing the eff out of that game, and we'll see how I end up feeling about videogames a year from now. Also, I think the benefit of cleanses like this is not directly immediate. I took the time this past week to make plans for July 4 weekend! And next weekend! And the one after that! AND the one after that! So I think the myth has been PROVEN: No youtube --> more intention. Talk to ya later! - Nick Previous Home Next