I feel related to this. I wish I had a way out to tell you but I can only provide comfort in the thought that someone else feels the same.
I think a big part is the constant dissatisfaction, that time is wasted, and I should be doing something more productive. I start a movie, I see where this is going, this is not even that great -> I should be doing something else... I play a game, I understand the mechanics, I see the grind ahead -> I should be doing something else...
It's a negative loop like doomscrolling a news site. Very few things are truly offline and I don't think about the time I'm wasting.
But computers, they give me the best, and they give me the worst of myself.
I find it helps a little to remember that learning and observation are skills and humans, like other animals, 'play' for a reason. Even if you didn't 'produce' anything, you practiced your skills of observation and deduction, which are survival skills.
I'm also someone who has to have a real 'reason' to do things. The best short-circuit I've found is finding the value in my own desires.
I'm 35, I'm an addict as well. I suffer from a grinding omnipresent feeling of wasting time.... I have a wife cery anti drugs. My cou try has legalized weed... Very rarely use it... Once a year maybe. But I have incredible rich experiences being stoned, being in the moment. Maybe to truly check out we need some form of drugs... Dopamime shots retain us, THC gives us temp relief?
I think a big part is the constant dissatisfaction, that time is wasted, and I should be doing something more productive. I start a movie, I see where this is going, this is not even that great -> I should be doing something else... I play a game, I understand the mechanics, I see the grind ahead -> I should be doing something else...
It's a negative loop like doomscrolling a news site. Very few things are truly offline and I don't think about the time I'm wasting.
But computers, they give me the best, and they give me the worst of myself.