May 2, 2024
i suppose that this may be a fleeting emotion caused by a transit through my early twenties via the day-to-day ticking of the clock toward its inevitable destination but i feel at want for time; sleep and the start of a new day threatening the untapped potential of each which came before it – each second i lie in bed, spend idle, or scroll twitter equal to a car burning gas which may otherwise propel it to a farther destination. each second a lost opportunity. my frustration with my (circumstances) partially stems from the proportion of time i spend idle between tasks during which my time is wasted; even if i do bring a book to fill these gaps, this time could be used for more optimal purposes, socialization, exercise, and travel. reading becoming the minimum viable activity in these wastes (writing far superior but that which i wish to write about does not come by so easily).
i recently read an article discussing the purpose of phones, purpose in the sense that the purpose of a machine being that which it does – proposing that phones act partially as a way to fill the little gaps which we would otherwise think in; this space oftentimes being occupied by other unpleasant thoughts which we would not like to confront. again, this may not be universally true (phones’ genuinely revolutionary capability for communication are not paid the respect and awe they are due!), but this is true for me – during the episodes of panic attacks which periodically debilitate me, i take up the habit of bringing my phone into the shower to distract myself from the otherwise-unstoppable rumination, and i would rate its efficacy in this regard as roughly a third of lexapro’s (as another comparison, running to the point that i cannot think coherently is about as effective as the phone for the period in which i run – i believe that some call this hiit exercise). increasingly, the phone becomes a way to burn time which i am nonetheless tied to due to the constant demand that i always be accessible; services like imessage demanding the form in which i do this as well. if smoking a cigarette takes eleven minutes off one’s life, using a phone idly burns that as well. at least i can meet people while smoking.
another way in which time is wasted is via driving. i do not pretend to think that my hatred of commuting is unpopular (at least, in online spaces. many americans’ revealed preferences are that they at least acquiesce to it). however, the commonly-cited reasons for hating it – carbon dioxide, traffic, and safety – are second-order to me; rather, this is a time in which i could be doing things and am instead stuck behind the wheel of a car with next to zero benefits. some may interject here that audiobooks and podcasts may fill this niche; however, audiobooks are not a legitimate form of reading and i will die on this hill. podcasts, while an improvement, are marginal at best. it genuinely feels insane at times the cumulative number of hours of life wasted on katy freeway or i-35. in biking or walking, one at least gains physical fitness; with public transit, other activities are possible – i used to finish my ninth-grade geometry homework in its entirety on the dallas area rapid transit rail system.
the final way in which i am currently burning time is my settling into a place which i would not like to be; a locally optimal position from which i can nonetheless see more favorable states. quite frankly, i’ve ranted enough to friends and family over the past couple of months about this that it almost feels trite to repeat the details here and they are not important anyway. rather, what is important is the general shape of the problem such that i may remember what it feels like in the future – the phenomenon of being stuck in a situation which is good enough but for a want of other qualities which are sorely misses, such that each second in the suboptimal situation feels like a practical waste; living in a city which you could never see yourself putting roots down in. if one is not contributing to the well-being and flourishing of their future self, what is the point?
in writing this, i realize that i sound eerily close to the past self of a dear friend of mine, living on what she compared to as a treadmill, stuck in one place continually putting effort into a task without actually going anywhere. it’s all the energy of running bereft of benefit. the metaphor breaks here – if i remember correctly (it is likely that i do not; my memories of this year are incredibly slim) the treadmill was a substitute for life and leaving the treadmill tantamount to its cessation. in my case, and possibly the readers’, the treadmill is fake; rather i only remain on the treadmill because i believe that i have to. in reality, it would be prudent for me to get off the treadmill and simply go outside; the only constraint of my behavior that which i imagine.
in these wastes of time, it needs asked what i can do to change these for i am the only person who can. in the short term meeting people, though many of these relationships may fall away over the years, is important; in the mid-term, i ought to take more responsibility in every aspect of my life (not only does that reduce the amount of time burnt but also increases the surface area i show to the world such that i may experience more); in the long-term, attack these local but not absolute optimums as they happen, falling into a more thermodynamically stable equilibrium to use my time as well as possible. it’s all i can do.