filling (accepting) empty time
I finally got around to deleting most social media apps off my phone (instagram, tiktok and x as the main culprits) although some endure (reddit, I fear). In the meanwhile I've found that I've got a lot of time on my hands - but not necessarily "useful" time.
Most of the time in the past, I wasn't a full doomscrolling person - there was no real hour block before bed where I was doom scrolling. Instead, the scrolling was almost like a fallback mechanism - if there was downtime in whatever I was doing, might as well be looking at something, whether that be waiting for an agent to finish responding, sitting on the toilet, or even waiting for water to boil.
I've managed to plug some of the longer periods like waiting for public transit with books, but I find I simply am no longer able to sit in "idle" time. With social media gone from easy access I start refreshing bearblog's discover page; I'm not sure that's much better.1
There's a constant itch to be doing something. I'm not sure what this exactly correlates to, but it's a bit of a sad realization.
My only hope so far is that by continuing to choke out superfluous consumption, doing one thing at a time, and committing to slower, longer forms of consumption that I'll eventually slowly regain my ability to be bored. It's a painful road, but I can't imagine this is healthy either.
in terms of being at 'rest' anyways↩