YouTube is my vice. I spend hours and hours and hours there watching videos every single day. I’ve recently however starting to resent the fact that apparently I seem to prefer watching other people do stuff rather than do that myself. Watching interesting videos feels like a leisure but doing interesting stuff has somehow in my mind turned into work.
Just few days ago I watched a Casey Neistat studio tour and I caught myself thinking how nice it would be to have a neatly organized space like that for making stuff. Well I have a space like that! I’m just never there because instead I’m in the house watching YouTube. I hate that. When I was younger I took apart solar lanterns to build a solar battery charger, I made a camera gimball stabilizer out of threaded rod, angle irons and plumbing pipe, I build a functioning submarine out of legos. Now I can’t even remember when I last time build something just for fun.
While watching youtube is “fun” aswell however it’s not memorable. I still remember my lego submarine from 20 years ago but I don’t remember a single video I watched yesterday. I’m worried that if I keep doing this I’m basically just throwing my life away. There’s always going to be another video to watch. I will never finish that project.
I guess I’m just venting. I’m sure there are people that can relate however. How do you guys deal with this?
I noticed you said you never go to your making space. Is there a space you could set up in your house, ideally next to where you watch YouTube? I know for me especially when I want to relax, my brain picks the path of least resistance. So I keep my sketch pad and current knitting next to my favorite seat.
I also have a dedicated art area in my basement but go there far less often - and usually when I do go there it’s because I started sketching while watching TV and got inspired enough for that momentum to move me downstairs.
Not really since my making space is a fully equiped workshop but I do take my laptop there sometimes and put on some stream on the background while doing other stuff. In all honesty I probably should just go there to watch youtube even when I have no intention to work on something because it’s almost impossible to just sit there and not atleast start putting stuff back on its place.
I think that’s the hard part. For me it’s the same. Just like with getting a work out. I have a little gym setup that I can use, but it’s the getting ready to use it that always stops me. Just switching my outfit and putting myself in the space is all I need to go in autopilot and start. Sometimes putting yourself into the position where you can easily begin doing the thing, is all you need to do it.