Sick, Yo

When I was in the 11th grade, at the height of my (JV) soccer career, I got hit in the head with a soccer ball. And got a very mild concussion. Classic.

I don’t know what the recommendation is at the time of reading, but back then, the solution to a concussion was “taking it easy.” This, of course, included not blasting you brain with blue light. So, for three days, I hung out in my house and didn’t use any computers of any forms. It was exhausting.

Lacking anything else to do, I started listening to this poetry podcast that my dad recommended. I’ll hopefully remember to come back and add the name later. In any case, I totally got obsessed with poetry as a result. Shitty, semi-original poems are one of the main gifts I give these days.

More recently (like last week), I got the norovirus (or something with the same symptoms). And I was quarantined in my room (and bathroom) for three days. And without anything to do, really, I started reading about quantum computing.

I’m as big of a noob as one could be, but it’s very interesting. It sounds fun to get obsessed.

In both cases, the sickness acted as a break from everything. And in both cases, I got to explore a new subject that ended up being very interesting to me. I think this seems to say that I need to prioritize “empty time” more than I have been previously. Just time to explore, without any goals at all other than keeping the time empty.