“I’ve never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think that the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again.”
John Updike, via MoveMe Quotes
TicTok terrifies me. The first time I downloaded and opened the app, I lost an hour of my life in what felt like the blink of an eye—with all due respect to the creators. The pleasures of indulging in the app were so great that it felt like I lost consciousness and all sense of time. I haven’t opened the app since.
The same goes for video games. I tend to harbor an “all-in” type of personality. And when something captures my attention, it’s given my full and undivided attention. At one point in time, many years ago, I was “all-in” on video games. I once faked being sick so that I could skip school and play a new role-playing game (RPG) that I just got. I played for 16 hours straight, had Inception-type nightmares (that felt like they lasted years), woke up drenched in sweat, and quit—cold-turkey—immediately after. I haven’t played since.
Netflix even makes me nervous. The TV series that are available in today’s world, on-demand, are just too damn good. They’re literally designed to make you want to binge and they do a frighteningly good job at it. Each episode is exquisitely crafted to lead you right to the next and they only give you a few seconds to opt out of auto-play—RIGHT AFTER THEY LEAVE YOU AT A CLIFF. It’s preposterous. It’s brilliant. It’s why I keep my distance and only stream once (okay, sometimes twice) a week.
What scares me isn’t the act itself. It’s okay to TicTok, game out, and stream occasionally. What scares me is how easily time is lost to those outlets and how, if not careful, I could see myself losing a ton more time in a not-so-occasional way.
An hour in the blink of an eye? Is that really how I want to spend my hours? 16 hours straight without a break? I literally didn’t do anything else that day—not a single thing that contributed to myself or others. Binging an entire series? What about putting to words the series of my life?
My fear is that if I give these platforms an inch, they’ll take a mile—and it’s just not how I want to spend the miles of my life.