Cadmium-Cola

A spotted fawn standing in tall grass and ivy.

I was up too late. I started work on a painting around 8 PM and imagined a couple of drinks might loosen me up. The drinks in question happened to be vodka and Coke. The Coke made with real cane sugar—and lots of caffeine. I wrapped up painting by 11 PM but found myself awake until after 2 AM.

I spent the time playing online chess and reading.1 I’m reading How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, and listening to Annihilation,2 written by Jeff VanderMeer and narrated by Carolyn McCormick. Oh, and I watched The Backrooms. It was excellent.

I only just started How to Read a Book and can’t speak to it yet. However, I’m 3/4 of the way through Annihilation. Here and there it is laughably terrible, but for the most part I love it. I plan to actually read the book for myself soon. That’s not a knock on McCormick. She does a great job with the narration. I appreciate that she reads the book rather than trying to act out each character. I find it distracting when narrators ham it up like that.

I didn’t suddenly become a highly productive member of society the moment I stopped participating in social media. I get a little more done now, that’s true, but it turns out the doomscrolling wasn’t setting me back all that much. It’s simply a low-effort activity.

I’ve replaced it with other low-effort activities like reading books, listening to podcasts, watching painters on YouTube,3 and playing online chess. None of that is any more productive than doomscrolling, but I find it more enjoyable. And less stressful. Except for maybe the chess. Chess is always a little stressful.

Footnotes

  1. I don’t know what compelled me to start playing chess again, but I’m back at it. https://www.chess.com/member/doterik ↩

  2. Like the movie. I haven’t seen it yet. ↩

  3. Louisiana Channel on YouTube is a favorite resource for interviews with working artists. https://www.youtube.com/@thelouisianachannel ↩