Why Having Free Time is the Worst

These days, I have lots of free time. I have finished my graduate studies and am now waiting to graduate. I have no assignments, no deadlines, no problems I simply cannot solve. Life is chill.

I f---ing hate it!

It's not that this hasn't happened before. Every time I complete one academic phase and am about to start the next one, I find myself in the in-between space full of free time and lots of mental space to spare. The only difference is that this time, I'm abroad and relatively more alone. My family isn't here to keep me company and neither are my old friends, and I don't have the opportunity to engage in their small joys and petty dramas. Also, there is very little prep that I need to do for my future, unlike previous breaks where I had to prepare for college in a new city or grad school in a new country. I've basically been living the 'temporary' life for two year now, and it's easy to uproot that kind of life. In a nutshell, there is a whole lot of unoccupied space in my brain and schedule right now.

It's not that I do absolutely nothing all day. I read books. I find recipes to try out. I attend dance classes. I write on my blog. I make plans for travel. I hang out with new friends. Somehow, the seconds turn to minutes which then turn to hours, and the day ends. When people are busy, they dream about this kind of downtime. Let me tell you that this is no dream. It is teetering on the edge of being a nightmare. It's difficult to explain why that is, but it's perhaps because human beings don't really need 24 hours a day.

I used to think that school and jobs were way too time-consuming. But honestly, I don't think they are. Suppose I sleep for eight hours every day, work for another eight, do chores for two more and use half an hour for meals (although one can argue that I can eat my meals while working). I would still have five and a half free hours per day. Let's say I use two of them to socialize or keep in touch with my family. I would still have three hours to do whatever the hell I wanted. That's how my life has been for the past two years. Three hours doesn't sound like much, and I admit a lot of people use those hours to commute, something I have never had to do. But when it comes to pursuing hobbies and interests and going after my dreams, I was making much better use of my three hours than I am with my twenty-four. Time was both more structured and more precious. Procrastination was rare. Life wasn't stagnant. It flowed, sometimes at my will and sometimes obligatorily. Now that I have so much free time, I feel a lack of both motivation and inspiration. I can write stories, but can't settle on a premise. I can draw pictures, but my brain doesn't conjure images. I cook, but how fun is that when I'm only cooking for one person? I try to read up on architecture but with no immediate place to implement my knowledge my knowledge slips through the cracks and recedes to my subconscious. I have activities, but my activities feel inconsequential. Every day is kind of the same. Sometimes I feel like I have become the person in the physics problems I solved in high school. The person is swimming upstream at x velocity, acceleration, blah blah blah. The stream is flowing at y velocity, acceleration, blah blah blah. How far does the person get? The answer is not far at all.

Some of my free time has been used up in mulling over the concept of free time (as if that wasn't obvious). I have been thinking about how it would feel like if I lost or quit my job. I have been pondering the pros and cons of meditation retreats. Would clearing my mind really be that awesome? Or is it better to just have some junk and some treasure in my mind, keeping it full always? Would I really enjoy writing and drawing and dancing all the time? How much can I realistically write? Man, do I have respect for Stephen King! Is this what happened to George R.R. Martin? He had every opportunity to write, but the words didn't come out and we got a shitty season 8?

Not surprisingly, my thoughts were echoed by a writer. Here is John Green's TED Talk, where he talks about what happened when he quit his job to write.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Green here. Although schools and jobs may not be our dreams or be interesting all the time, they do immerse us in an atmosphere of learning and collaboration. And guess what? Learning and collaboration are awesome, and so is being busy. Because 'structure, is often the inescapable norm, we grow to resent it. But structure can be like home, taken for granted but you need it to come back to. Besides, eureka moments are, well, moments. You don't need necessarily need twenty-four hours for them. Perhaps great minds sinking to depression and debauchery has less to do with the downsides of genius and more to do with how great minds find themselves submerged in a sea of their own genius, with no deadlines or assignments or obligations, trapped in the belief of others' inferiority when in reality there might still be a lot for them to learn outside of their field of expertise. They say an artist's best work comes before fame. I am starting to think that an artist's best work comes when they still had day jobs.

The lack of structure also has social ramifications, I'm sure. Whoever says that not having a job and getting freebies from the government is a privileged position has obviously never been unemployed. There are serious psychological consequences of being jobless. There is much truth in the empty mind and idle hands stuff, and us denying that is privileged overeducated nonsense. Why can't one be happy on their own? Why can't one discipline themselves by themselves? Why does one need external agencies to be told what to do? Why can't we all be free standing pillars? Think about all the crimes committed because one had nothing better to do, all the drug addicts created out of boredom and hopelessness, all the families broken by the frustrations of the patriarch's unemployment. It's horrible to live without consequential work, and it just as wrong to expect every person to buck up and build their own structure and be enterprising as it is to expect everyone to be an Olympic gold medalist. Not everybody is the same, and it is everyone's benefit is everyone is busy and productive.

I still have many weeks left of aimless freedom, and hopefully, they will pass before I descend into madness. Honestly, I feel a whole lot better after an hour of writing this. I think this period was a period of learning for me, and in the future, I want more than anything to always be busy and productive.