Consume less, create more

There was a time I thought about how to change my life. A lot of things changed in my life but I needed to adapt somehow. I also wasn’t very happy with how I used my time and needed a purpose in my life. I started writing blog posts daily (on Medium back then - see my archive of many old Medium articles here).

Today I finally read an article, which I wanted to read for a long time. It’s called “Consume less, create more”. TJCX talks about how he realized that even reading a book is no better than scrolling through Reddit or Twitter. It’s still just passive consumption. He started creating and writing an essay when he realized that and after a month of writing during his commutes he finished it.

One thing, he also mentions, is that even if it’s just garbage your producing, it is your garbage.

My essay was garbage. But it was my garbage.

In the recent time, especially since I got more serious about my blog by using it instead of Twitter or social media to put thoughts out there (I tried to make it IndieWeb compatible), I write more often again. I share links to interesting articles or websites I’ve found, I share my opinions on specific topics or write about experiences I’ve made.

But what matters is: I’m creating.

Sure, to find links to share, to find things to get opinions about, I need to consume too. I also sometimes don’t have any energy to create. But I try to be more mindful about my consumptions. I don’t just scroll through Twitter or read endless news articles when I could create something instead, it feels wrong to me, too much like wasted time. Because (in TJCX’s words):

We treat information as necessarily good, and comfort ourselves with the feeling that whatever article or newsletter we waste our time with is actually good for us. We equate reading with self improvement, even though we forget most of what we’ve read, and what we remember isn’t useful.

To get less distraction (those commercial platforms try to show you more “relavant” content all the time, so that you continue consuming - and generating ad dollars), I use a feed reader (Miniflux) with selected feeds (news as well as blogs) instead and am active in the fediverse using Pleroma (an alternative to Mastodon) instead of Twitter. There’s an end of posts to read. When I’m done, I’m done and I can start creating.

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