The Death of Daydreaming

The whole point of this discussion is that daydreaming is not a worthless activity, therefore time spent daydreaming is not "squandered."

In reality, one does not simply sit down on a whim and go into Book Reading mode. Maybe others are built for it, but I have to set aside time in advance, drive to a cafe, and really hunker down. And I don't always have the bandwidth or gas to do that.

If you frame daydreaming as a mentally expensive activity with variable return (5% eureka moments, 95% tedium), and I'm starved for time already, you'll be much more tempted to reach for the mental junk-food. Low-mental expense, immediate, guaranteed reward.

I'm learning I can't have my cake and eat it to. I can't fill my schedule yet also try to pursue these activities that ask me for sustained, long term attention. Something has to give.

For me, it isn’t rewarding. When I look back at my time doomscrolling, it doesn’t feel restorative, rewarding, fulfilling. Resending I have been kind of forcing myself to do more things, instead of telling myself that I “need” that mindless downtime.

And I have found that it actually gives me more energy to force myself to read a book instead of mindlessly scrolling around, to commit to one episode of quality programing instead of rewatching something easy while also playing around on the phone.

Much like committing to physical exercise gives you more energy, stamina, etc. over time than just “resting around”, training to lengthen my attention span gives me more bandwidth for things that take an attention span. Practicing reading 30 mins a day on the bus makes me better at reading on the bus and other places that aren’t hunkered down in a very specific setting. It’s not easy at first and some days are better than others, much like working out or eating healthy, my long term satisfaction is much higher than junk food, digital or otherwise.