Comment by bob1029

> I’ve spent pretty much every night in recent memory burning through video games, and I finally, inevitably, hit the wall with that approach.

I burned out on gaming a few years ago. I used to be able to power through weeks of the most inane incremental "game" slop as if it was a voyage to the new world. Now I struggle to force myself to play the most acclaimed AAA titles for 15-20 minutes. I still browse the steam store from time to time, but I finally stopped buying things.

The amount of time I spend on side projects has almost perfectly filled the gap. There have even been a few nights recently where I stayed up very late to watch an experiment unfold. We're talking about staring at a single chart that updates once a second for hours that is getting my heart rate up like a League of Legends game.

I think from a dopamine perspective, you can make a good trade here. The other side can feel even better. It's the transition period that hurts. You've got to get that first tiny bit of traction on the project so it feels like you might eventually have an impact in the world around you. The more it sucks during the first 48 hours, the more likely it will stick indefinitely. When you come back in the morning to a successful experiment run or a good stopping point, it can very quickly snowball into something that rivals the pharmacology of gaming.