Often my mind starts to circle around the concept of time. I concluded a while ago, it is truly the only currency each of us is born with. How much you have of it is limited. It will eventually run out. Every moment we are alive we are spending that time. That has taken me down a few different paths.
Briefly in my early thoughts on this I indicated you can't get more of it. This is actually not true. The actions we take can change the amount of time we have. Eating a certain way may extend our life expectancy. Having a surgery that saves your life extends your life beyond where it would have ended there.
We also can implement a force multiplier for our time when it comes to tasks. If you have an idea that needs mental or physical labor but there is no way you can accomplish it in the amount of time you have, we have teamed up and we get people to agree to work for or with us on the idea. That agreement can take any form. It does, however, result in other people granting you their time towards the idea. This enables us to do bigger things than we otherwise would. Without this what we see around us today would not exist. The only things that would exist for humans would be things a single person was capable of doing by themselves. Time is the currency that is common to all of us.
Now I want to write some of the paths of thought this one concept has taken me down. They typically are not positive introspections. They are criticisms of how I spend my time. It will undoubtedly be criticizing how most of society today spends its time. I can't avoid that as I am part of that society. I can only talk about the things I have experienced, and thought about. In criticizing myself, if you feel that I am criticizing you then I must say that was not intentional and as far as I can tell it was not avoidable other than to not speak at all.
If we didn't speak at all because it might offend or criticize anyone we wouldn't get very far either. The truth and reality are very often uncomfortable places.
HOW I SPEND MY TIME:
I look at how I spend my time. I do have some physical things to show for it. I have some things that will persist beyond my life. However, most of those are in the form of ideas I have shared with others. They are ideas that my offspring will carry on. Some of my ideas will survive. Others will go poof and not be here.
Could I have done more? Hell yes! Without a shadow of a doubt.
I spent my time watching TV, Movies, Reading Books, Playing board games, Hiking, Fishing, playing with my pets, and spending time with family and friends.
Most of those are pretty great things. They are the important things. Without them there is not much reason for doing other things. Yet not all of those things are important. They are not important and I spent A LOT of the time in my life doing them.
TV - I have watched many TV series from season 1 to the end. Some of them more than once. That is an insane amount of time.
Movies - same thing here.
Reading Books - I've read many books many times. I own thousands of books. Some of them taught me new things so there is value. Many are purely for entertainment value. They still strengthened my ability with language and my understanding of language. They exposed me to ideas from different ways of presenting them. There are positive aspects to this. I can say some TV and some Movies did this as well. Yet, I would say the amount of time I spent on them definitely exceeded their worth by a large volume.
Video Games - I've played a lot of video games. People can be quick to attack them but anything you can get positive from a book, TV show, or movie can also be experienced in a video game. Yet it can also teach the result of choices. It is however a creation of fiction designed by a programmer with set outcomes. It can also mislead. Yet so can books, movies, TV, music, and art. I see video games as an incredibly valuable medium but also potentially dangerous. All of these mediums can be said the same of.
Music - I've spent a lot of time listening to, watching, and performing music. It was good for my mind. It gave me an outlet that likely saved my life and potentially the life of others. There is value in that. Of all the things I did this may be the most valuable. Why? I could do it while doing something else. That isn't as easy to do with the others. Can it be abused? Sure. They all can. If all I did was sit around listening to music and doing nothing else that wouldn't be a particularly productive use of my time.
There is a common trait for all of these. Unless they were something I created in those mediums for other people to experience then my time spent on them left nothing behind. It altered and perhaps expanded my mind and thus empowered me to think of potentially larger things but if I don't manifest anything with it when I am gone how will any of that translate into something tangible for others?
Ultimately, do I need to feel like I should leave something behind?
Personally, I feel that way about myself. Yet I also believe that is a personal question without an incorrect answer as long as the answer applies to you and you do not think you can force others to have the same answer.
THE DIGITAL DRUG PUSHER:
One of the areas I have spent a lot of time is game development. I've released some mods over the years played by some people with a niche fanbase for them. Very niche. I have several irons in the fire for other games. I've only not cranked them to resolution because I haven't had to. I have another "normal" job that I spend 45 or more hours a week doing. The incentive to really push out finished games to survive is not there.
So I keep iterating. I keep getting pretty far. Starting over.
If I should die before I complete them, they will never be seen.
Occasionally, I think about the fact that I am creating things that people will potentially spend an amount of their time currency in. This digital experience. Unless they get something valuable from my creation, they have essentially thrown that time into the void.
How is that different from people taking a drug, lying down on a dirty mattress, and riding the drug haze to its conclusion?
I like to think it is different. I know one way it is different is it CAN inform. It is also something you can STOP immediately if need be. You don't have to wait for it to wear off. You can still react to your surroundings. ... That's about it for now. I got sucked into other life things and thus whatever train of thought I had more than an hour ago when I was writing that has been lost..