The Manual #24 - Create more than you consume

I saw this Hacker News post on “why do you waste so much time on the internet?”

I’m not going to lie, it was depressing and sad. I feel for the writer.

Doom scrolling and doom browsing has become an unfortunate outcome of social media and the web in general. All of it is relatively new too so I don’t think we’ll see the real consequences for years, maybe decades.

One of the top comments on the thread referenced how it’s straight up loneliness. We don’t have the connections with family and friends like we used to.

I remember as a kid being a lot more social. Meeting friends outside from school. Seeing cousins and other family nearly every weekend. Then in my teens it all seemingly stopped. Everyone became suddenly “busy”.

Humans have been growing up in tribes/communities for thousands of years. Now we’re moving away and living in our own homes. Leaving that social element behind.

I realised this when I moved into my own place. I consciously make an effort to see friends and family more often. My weekends are solely dedicated to socialising, rarely working.

This hustle culture and being part of the rat race has also made it worse. I was deep in it in my late teens and early 20s. I realised 5 years ago it just isn’t worth it.

I feel as though most people think if they’re not doing something “productive” with their time, it’s considered wasted time. Not every living moment needs to be productive or used to achieve your “goals”.

What’s the point of any of it when we’re all a small blip in the timeline.

Don’t get too caught up and enjoy the time you have already.

Another thing that’s helped me which may sound counterintuitive to everything I’ve written above, is creating more than I consume.

Consuming social media, movies, tv shows, YouTube videos, articles, books…etc can mislead you into thinking your life isn’t as interesting as others. But limiting it and spending the rest of your time making stuff or working on your own hobbies will make you forget about it all very quickly. It will bring a certain satisfaction in life that’s worth it.

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Link Lowdown

A collection of links to stuff I think are worth sharing.

Switchboard — A pretty neat service that basically turns other apps into Google Docs, where multiple people can work in the same app.

Big News — Very nicely designed news app.

Skiff — Private email service. Highly considering moving to something like this for my personal and more sensitive inboxes.

Framer — A website maker that’s actually well designed is more orientated towards designers who don’t want to code. I like it more than Webflow but I wish it had export capability so I could self-host the site.

Why Steinway Pianos Are So Expensive — Incredible short-doc going into why these pianos are so expensive and what it takes to make them.

Google Pixel Watch — Google have announced a proper Android watch and I think it’s really nice looking.