I don't understand how people actually do things in their free time.I want to but it's very rare I feel motivation for it and at best if I do it never lasts long enough to actually get started on something.Instead I'm either browsing this godforsaken website, playing a game I haven't enjoyed in a decade because it's the path of least resistance, or writing pointlessly about my problems. They're the only things I seem capable of doing most of the time.I went for a short hike this morning and I heard this kid asking his dad if they could do some soldering and I was like man I wish I could find the will to do something like that. But I don't have anything really. I don't have any hobbies. I enjoy movies but these days I'm too anxious to sit down and watch a movie. I've watched 3 in the past year total.Say I wanted to do something like soldering, I wouldn't know where to start I have no idea what I'd want to accomplish and I'd have no drive to get started anyway.
>>34495861Since you like movies, start by putting a movie on in the background while you browse. Its okay to try to do a hobby and take breaks to do some easy task. Even doing 5 total minutes of a hobby of task broken up into parts is better than not doing it. You don't have to have a marathon hobby session every time, it's ok to microdose.
>>34495861Why do you do this to me
>>34495861Soldering is tedious. Idk your finances but you can start welding for less than a hundred bucks. Find junk on the side of the road and make a robot.
Sounds like you're burned out and depressed. There's no point in trying to force a hobby because it's supposed to be something you do with your surplus energy and desire to do something, which you have none of. The disconnect here is that you feel the weight of the lack of surplus energy to engage in play but that doesn't magically give you the extra energy to actually do these things, which is why you chose the most low effort ways to spend your free time on. Even watching a movie is too much because that requires you to give a damn about the characters or the plot line, which requires a surplus of playful energy, which you simply don't seem to have. This is a warning sign, it means your life is somehow draining you empty and there's nothing left over to engage in fun activities. Trying to pile hobbies on top of that will not fix that, it will just burn you out harder. The only thing you can do is to try to figure out how you can make your life a little less exhausting so you end up with a bit of left over energy to use for play. Before you dismiss this by saying you don't even work that much or so, keep in mind that things like worrying, being frustrated, being dissapointed, being sad, feeling lonely, feeling like a failure etc, are INSANELY draining states of being because they require you to constantly regulate your emotions and mask them just to function on a daily basis. That might be why you feel the need to write about your problems, it's like your mind tries to solve this bottomless pit that sucks up all your resources and you're desperately trying to find a solution. How you get out of this is as individual and personal as how you got into this, there's no one size fits all solution but I'm sure you can figure it out piece by piece. I hope one day you have the excess energy again to engage in joyful play.
>>34495861>>34495925Well shit, this is me. I had already suspected that I should leave academia but now it's something I have to consider seriously. Thanks for making the thread, OP, and the other anon for the response.
>>34495947I feel like this is a phenomenon that applies to many people, especially nowadays when there's this insane pressure on the individual to perform and be perfect on top of feeling doomy about the future. It simply requires so much constant emotional regulation that there' nothing left over anymore at the end of the day. I hope you can find a way to ease the load and find the lightness again to engage in the fun parts of existence too.
>>34495949Thanks man. I actually feel a lot of hope about my personal future but my work makes me jerk off, smoke, and shove candy down my throat in order to cope with producing text. Then, when I'm done, I don't have it in me to do anything I like, even fitness stuff that normally gives me energy.
>>34495956Yeah, that sounds about right. Why you feel so drained is highly individual, the hopelessness was just a random suggestion to explain the concept a little, it's not a necessary aspect of this dynamic but it's one thats very often present. But yes, the fact all you can still do after "duty" is engage in almost compulsive low effort high reward pleasure seeking is a very clear symptom. Do you have the option to get out of this if you let yourself or are you stuck in this deeply?
>>34495925This makes sense>How you get out of this is as individual and personal as how you got into this, there's no one size fits all solution but I'm sure you can figure it out piece by piece. Can you elaborate here?
>>34495965The insight that I probably have to choose between my job with the problems or to leave my jobs for a chance to leave my problems is only a few weeks old (just after Easter). I'm doing a PhD for another year and I'm willing to consider doing a postdoc if I get the funding, but I don't feel any prestige with regards to staying in/leaving academia. If I did a postdoc I would write only articles instead of a monograph - switching topics and working in shorter projects would suit me better, I think. Also no supervisors to check on my progress, I hate showing unfinished texts to people.I don't have to stay in academia and that has begun to take a lot of the pressure off. I'm gonna give it another year and if I don't get the postdoc money to do exactly what I want I'll try to get a job writing reports for the government or the Church, or possibly some firms that could be interested in my field.Single and without children, so I can take a little while of unemployment without an immediate crisis.
