But
> staring at the open train bathroom across me
I have since found that this sort of time wasting is pretty powerful way to let creativity recharge. It’s like disengaging from screen let’s my mind work at it own rhythm.
Some article on HN talked about how books gave ways to that. It made you experience your own time. Other medium put just a tad too much disturbance (battery life, multi usage, parallelism) to let it grow deep.
I sit on folding seats in the conjunction between carts because I commute with my folding bike, and it’s just easier to sit out here, but I do think you’re absolutely spot on. I think “wasting” time is extremely valuable.
Yeah, it's boring. I personally like taking this in as a bit of a challenge. See how boring it can get before I get my smartphone out.
Sometimes I do other things, like finger drumming on my leg. Trying to keep a rhythm. Or just wonder about materials the train is made up of.
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
At the very least you get to disconnect your brain. At best you come up with something awesome.
People use this to justify just about everything, like being addicted to World of Warcraft for 5 years and forgoing their ambitions to watch Netflix. It's a joke at this point.
It needs to come with a second part "but do your best to set yourself up for life fulfillment" or be refactored into "don't beat yourself up for wasting a little bit of time". Wasting time and instant gratification will absolutely keep you from achieving what you want in life.
Exactly.
Now compare the difference between what you said and the trite "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time" that I responded to. That's my point.
So my point is: should I consider binge watching Netflix (random example) as wasted time because you consider it a waste or should I keep doing it because I enjoy it? Especially if objectively speaking it doesn’t prevent me from being a useful member of society, perhaps more so than many people who don’t engage in such “wasteful” behavior.
You can probably find a counter example for most rules you can think of. A cherry picked example doesn’t negate the premises.
Years ago some guy was rambling about shadows in a cave. Not quite WoW but still pretty wasteful depending on who you asked.