Published on November 2, 2025 8:03 AM GMT

There’s a book open on my desk. Not a real one, just a Kindle, but close enough. I’m once again rereading some comfort food-for-thought, possibly HPMoR. Just behind me, on the bed, there’s a laptop blasting jcore. I’ve been listening to the same song on a loop for eight hours in a row, hallucination by sanaas. It was removed from Spotify, so Youtube it is, naturally with multiple ad blockers to make the site usable.

The desk is where my actual computer lives. Desktop, you could call it, but the actual case is under the table. It usually has three screens, but the one on the right is empty at the moment. The one on the left is showing some slow-paced gameplay Youtube, just so that someone is talking. I'm rarely looking at it, but the presence of a voice means the one inside my head doesn't talk. I mean that in the sane way.

And on the middle screen, I'm playing online chess. The time control is 3+2, which I'm quite proud about. I used to play 1+0 only, to make sure I don't have time to think. I'm playing chess because the feeling in my stomach says I shouldn't continue reading at the moment. I think it's telling me to go for a walk. Actually going outdoors feels a bit too hard this decade.

The problem with 3+2 time is that my opponent sometimes thinks. If the position is uninteresting, I switch tabs to some other entertainment until the chess tab pings me about my turn again. Or fish my phone out of my pocket to check my messages. But that's scary, because if I open a message I might forget to reply when the chess pulls me back in.

Something like the scenario above happens quite often. Most of the time there's slightly less media, but five is definitely reached weekly. I work remotely, so once in a while I replace the book with a code editor, the youtube with a work meeting, or the chess with more chess. Sometimes I need to leave the house, so I put on headphones and maybe take a book with me. Falling asleep after 20 hours of screen time is not easy, and most of the time thinking keeps me awake anyway. I think of this as boredom, and watch more Youtube instead, but on the bed this time. Sometimes when I wake up it's still playing. My sleep schedule drifts randomly.

A couple of times each year I get the feeling that this is addict behavior. The usual response is to limit consumption. I'm not sure why that would help; cutting off everything else just means I'm still reading the book but enjoying it a bit less. I still do it, because at least the music is going to feel a bit better when you've lived a week without it. Doing anything productive, including nothing, still remains absolutely unthinkable.

I've heard that to get rid of an addiction, you need to replace the problematic behavior instead of removing it. To replace an addiction of consuming media, then I think the appropriate response would be to produce media, or improve oneself somehow. Those require quite a bit of energy, and never feel as satisfying as just pouring a screenful of dopamine into your eyes. And self-improvement is fake anyway, you're just looking to impress someone else. Why bother?

Why bother? Because just consuming stuff starts feeling meaningless after a long while. Not quickly enough though. And it's all meaningless anyway.

But that's enough for today. My dopamine receptors are aching for something more than just the same drumstep mix for hours while dumping unedited depression. The fridge is empty, and it's time to fill it with the same crap I've been eating for the past decade. Although I probably should prepare more texts for the days when I'm not feeling like writing. Removing should from one's vocabulary would be quite an improvement.