I just read this great article https://medium.com/neuroscience-internet/how-the-internet-dopamine-and-your-brain-are-working-together-to-screw-your-potential-1ac176538961. The author starts of with a question about, how much time you spend consuming what other people have created vs how much time you spend creating something. I already knew I spend too much time consuming but realised that what I’m contributing back or creating is almost zero.

I’d like to change this. I want to contribute as much as I consume if not more. Also consuming and learning are two different things. I consume under the impression that I’m learning something new. I feel like I have a never ending hunger for knowledge and the internet can satisfy this hunger. The more I consume the smarter I think I become. I’m starting to realise this isn’t quite how it works.

For example, I’m currently studying for a Japanese test — Japanese Language Proficiency Test, level 4. As part of the test I need to learn around 200 Kanji characters. Sure I can read characters and memorise their meanings and different pronunciations but I quickly found I can’t retain most of what I learnt in a day or two. I started having a huge breakthrough after i actually started writing the Kanji characters down within the context of a whole sentence. When I felt pretty good about being able to memorise 10 Kanji characters in an hour or so and then forgetting them the next day, after applying what I’ve learnt I feel like I can’t possibly forget. I feel like the patterns makes sense in a way that won’t allow me to forget.

This might seem pretty obvious — since school days we’ve always learnt and then applied the knowledge that we’ve learnt to have it stick in our heads. But when I apply this thinking to my time I spend consuming under the impression that I’m learning I realised how little time I actually spend applying the knowledge I consume and hence I’m learning very little and wasting a whole lot of time in the end.

So as I piece together my thoughts as to break this habit, I just wanted to take the first step and create instead of consume by writing...