#scrollposting

I spend so much time on the Internet already, but this quote always makes me stop and consider how much I should really be spending here.

Getting notes is a small reward for how much effort and time it costs, as minimal as the expenditure is. That energy, assuming that you have it, can be better spent on so many other things.

Of course, I say this as if it's sage wisdom from my own experience, but I haven't put it into practice myself and I'll still be right back online in a few hours, or even sooner. I just like this quote, at the end of the day.

And then that dovetails with (or is just me misidentifying) the impulse to keep looking for more gold in the river. So even after a really good post, I keep scrolling.

Par for the course.

Anyway, gonna re-up the break tonight, after doing some Poasting and also messaging. This time, I’m gonna give up webnovels and stuff as well…likely will be a one- or two-day dive into work and then five days of Who Knows What but hey, it’s better than it was.

My partners in scrolling, scroll well or touch grass/drywall/some physical non-phone. See you for a few hours, and then in a few days. I mean a week.

The last week my non-vice was piano playing, and my vices were fanfiction+Webtoons+music (browsing)+other stuff. This week, here’s hoping my non-vices will include drawing and writing. Time will tell…

My twin and I have had discussions for years about how running is the great sanity inducer (for us, who ran in middle and high school). He’s completely right.

I spend a loooot of time dosing up on memes to keep the unpleasantness away, and I think I need to run instead.

Getting some friends of my own instead of waiting to be socialized with also helps, but that’s a little harder to make an effort for.

——

Me? I’m one of your favorite mutuals to see on the dash? This guy?

I had something self-deprecating to say but then my draft got deleted, so I’ll take the compliment instead. Thank you for the positive ask. I’ll continue to live up to your expectations.

And the thing is, a moral like that is antithetical to a web serial’s, or other ongoing story’s, survival. It would have to tell me to abandon it entirely. The best story tries to get me to stop consuming it.

So whenever I come across this kind of moral, I act against it — I want to reward authors for telling me to log off, so I keep reading their works even after I’ve been given a valuable epiphany. (Not that continuing to read a free web serial without monetarily supporting the author, or even commenting, is a “reward” for the direction the story takes. However, this is the broken logic I use.) I also want to spend my limited time reading/watching something that tells me helpful morals, despite this being vastly inferior to just spending my time well. You know, do what the story is telling me to do.

Anyway, escapism is fine in moderation, but I should really log off and spend fewer than 40 hours a week just scrolling. And if you spend anywhere near or above that amount of time scrolling, and it’s not for a job, then you should probably log off too.

Just know that addiction usually is a self-treatment for other issues, so you may not actually get better off. Uh, good luck with your problems after logging off. Maybe log back on, but more carefully. Or don’t. Like, don’t log back on; not don’t be careful.