Sober October

Robert Sacamentto
Nov 4 · 3 min read

I’ve watched the recent Netflix documentary “Inside Bill’s Brain”. Its an interesting documentary where Bill Gates explains is though process and attack method to problems. One particular thing stuck with me, Bill does not watch TV.

Over the years, TV has become a large part on how I consume information. Part of my interest in politics has been fuelled by the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, which I watched religiously for more than a decade (I even follow Stephen to the Late Show, although I only seriously interested in the monologue, everything else is very American for my taste).

However recently I’ve been feeling that large portions of my time have been getting filled with me watching Netflix, TV or YouTube. I felt that sometimes to drug out of boredom, I waste time reloading the YouTube front page waiting for something interesting to come up.

Bert Kreischer

Last month I’ve decided to participate in Sober October. I regularly listen Joe Rogan’s Podcast and it seemed an interesting challenge. Sober October started when Joe Rogan wanted Bert Kreischer to stop or reduce his alcohol intake, and he and some friends decided to cut all alcohol, drugs and do more workouts during the month of October.

For me, I felt that I needed to address this part of my life. Maybe there was some underlying condition bellow this waste of time. So I decided for the past month of October to not use YouTube, Netflix or any type of TV. In order to occupy those empty time, I decided to read more, and in order to help me loose weight, do more exercise.

The results of this past month experiment were quite unexpected. First of all the web right now is completely intertwined with YouTube. Avoiding trailers, or cooking shows is easy. The problem is that every single piece of motion content is by default uploaded to youtube. You want to learn some new scientific concept? YouTube. Want to learn to tie a tie? YouTube. During the past month several trailers for movies I’m interested have come out, and there’s generally no other place to watch them except for YouTube. This level of centralization seems that might be the cause of problems in the future. In the past we had a small number of TV Channels that were the gate keepers of what people would be able to see. Then YouTube came along and you can publish anything you want. Everyone both watches and publishes on YouTube, whatever decisions they make regarding content is what everyone must follow. It just became a monopoly.

The void left by fasting on these time consuming things also left me with a lot of time on my hands to fill with. I did end up reading a lot more. I’ve read 3 books (Inteligent Investor,

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and The Picture of Dorian Gray). I’ve put my paper reading back in order, and I’ve wrote more. However there’s always times where you just don’t have the patience to go read a book again. You want something to distract you and I still think fill there’s a place for entertainment. However I feel that for now, I’ll be more concerned with how much time I’m devoting to watching TV or other forms of content.

Forcing me to face the time I’ve wasted also caused me to spend more time taking care of my self. I’ve started doing 12Km walking every day and gym. This caused me to loose about 6kgs in about 12 days (I started a cold on 1st of October which delayed me pushing more workouts). Good results but nothing to call home about.

All in all I think it was a beneficial experiment. After the month ended, I lost the interest on going back to watching YouTube, shows or movies. I feel I should spend more of time improving my self, either physically, and mentally. I wonder if I should make more objectives for November that now is starting.

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