I’m sitting in the Kansas City terminal, waiting for my next flight. The barbecue restaurant there serves shockingly large portions, which, combined with waking up early today, has me feeling sleepy.
I should work, I think. My eyes are half closed, though, and I can’t imagine thinking through tough problems like the one waiting for me on Sett. I think about writing a blog post, but my past few days have been weak, so I want to be awake and do a good one. I think about doing some basic todo list stuff, but I’m already losing concentration after the first google search.
Okay, but if I’m not going to work, what am I going to do? The answer turns out to be downloading an episode of Restaurant Stakeout. I’m not proud to write that sentence.
I think I’ve seen about two episodes of that show. The first I saw at my aunt and uncle’s house. Not knowing anything about the restaurant business, I found it really fascinating. Then I was on some red-eye flight and I saw an episode on the in-filght entertainment system.
May as well download an episode for the flight. The whole time I watch it I’m engaged at the lowest possible level, the one where my brain gets a break from thinking, but nothing else. It’s not exactly a lasting regret of my life that I’m watching this show, but it’s not a high point either.
What I’ve learned about myself is that it’s easier to use my time well if I’m oblivious to bad ways to use it. Sometimes I think about downloading a movie, but I have no idea what movies are out or what they’re about. That intentional ignorance eliminates a whole category of distraction from my life.
About a month ago I clicked a link on Hacker News that said 2048. Mysterious, but sounded like something geeky that I might be interested in. It was a game that didn’t immediately make sense. Hmm, I wonder how this works.
It took me three days to beat the game and get it out of my system. Not three days of playing constantly or anything, but it ate up reading time and it’s what I did while I was eating.
That’s why I have a rule that I’m not allowed to try new games. 2048 looked boring, so I thought it would be safe to figure out how to play it.
People try to convince me to drink or do drugs sometimes. A couple weeks ago the waiter at Marmalade Cafe in LAX tried really hard to convince me to try to smoke pot. It helps with all sorts of things, he says. Maybe true. You’ll love it.
I know I’ll love it. That’s why I don’t try it. I know that I’m exactly the type of person who would get really into it and go way out of my way to get awesome weed. I mean, have you seen my tea stash?
Sometimes it’s just better not to know. I wish I didn’t know how mindlessly entertaining it is to watch that restaurant show. There’s this one online flash game that’s so fun that I won’t even tell you the name of it. Man, I wish I didn’t know how much I loved that game. I’m really thankful I don’t know how fun it is to be drunk or high.
People will say things like, “Blah blah… work too hard… blah blah.. have to enjoy life,” and I get it. I actually agree to some degree. What I wish, though, was that I gave myself the opportunity to be productive on this flight right off the bat. Instead I sabotaged myself by downloading this show. And for what? To turn my brain off for half an hour? I’ve got a pretty decent blog post written now, so obviously I wasn’t so incapacitated as to be useless.
I’m so scared to train my brain poorly. I know how habits work, and how invisible bad ones can make themselves sometimes. If my brain throws up some resistance and claims to be tired and then gets a treat of watching some fluffy TV show, which neural connections are getting wrapped in myelin? Is that a mental pathway I really want to strengthen?
I’ve got the willpower to avoid only so many distractions, so I try to be oblivious to as many as possible. There are a lot of really entertaining and fun things in this world, and it’s best to not know that most of them exist. Instead, I’m always trying to find out about good documentaries, books, and podcasts. That way when I need to shut my brain off a little bit, the time is at least well used.
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Photo is from a prop plane I flew in. The weird propeller is an artifact of how camera sensors take in light.
Heading to the island TONIGHT! Still don’t have a boat, but I think we’ll figure it out tomorrow morning.
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