Ask HN: How do you fill void in your spare time?

4 points·saidguru··5 comments

Do you watch social media, play online games, perform meditation in silence, travel outdoors, participate in volunteer services, perform in public, take up another job etc. to fill void in your time?

or...

Do you let void take its natural occurrence and fill your mind with isolation, loneliness etc.?

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You phrased the question as an exclusion between two non-exclusive options.

Before kids, I filled it with socialising, reading, sports, movies and personal projects (computer, home, car, bike...): it all mostly happened "naturally", never resulting in loneliness or isolation.

After kids... what void?

Unstructured distraction seeking, mostly online - mostly text. Or reading books. I read too much!

I also enjoy daydreaming - though it wasn't so much fun that one time it turned maladaptive, lasted for months and almost lost me my home. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health/maladaptive-da...

Do self-destructive things like walk where you shouldn't be walking, associating with people you shouldn't be associating with, stoking paranoid delusions, throwing away your career, harming others, participating in the guilt/shame spiral, etc.

Side hustles. Always be building SaaS products in my spare time. Surfing Hackernews for interesting content to read and chew on. There's no excuse for boredom or 'voidness' when you have The Internet.

That is a recipe for chasing the dragon. At some point, life will break you. In the meantime, act like your choices are not risky at all.

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