Yes but - it's up to each individual to decide on their own definition of 'squandering'. Ultimately everything we do is in service of our own search for meaning in life, and learning for its own sake can absolutely fulfil that role.
The time passes anyway.
All the more reason to spend it on things that matter to you. The opportunity cost of six months spent deep in abstract CS papers is six months not spent teaching your daughter to play guitar, visiting that place you always dreamt of seeing, finally finishing that book on your nightstand, etc.
I guarantee thats more time than most people will spend teaching their kids any musical instrument.
Just spend a week mapping out what you do ans how long it takes you every week and I'm pretty sure you can find double digit hours spent somewhere, maybe even right here on HN
For me, four hours a week is sufficient to stay up-to-date on an active research area but making forward progress requires at least twice that.
> You are awake for at least 16 hours of the day, you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? So 4/112 hours or around 3.5% of your week...
Using awake hours as the denominator is misleading because most people have other non-discretionary time commitments besides sleep. For me I'd estimate ~60h/wk sleep, ~50h/wk work/commute, ~30h/wk non-discretionary upkeep of children/relationships/home/body. Assuming 8+h/wk to make progress out of the remaining ~28h/wk of discretionary time means I can handle about three non-discretionary priorities. (Pre-kids I could handle about five.)
Therefore, when someone with a job says "I don't have time" to pick up a hobby, skill, language, outside research area, instrument, volunteer position, etc I don't interpret their statement as meaning it is physically impossible for them to rearrange their schedule to accommodate it. I (and I suspect most people) interpret the statement as them admitting that it's not one of their ~3-5 non-discretionary priorities.
There are legitimately busy people and then there are people who wish they could achieve X if only they had time but don't put any effort into making time for that.
HINT: if research is directly related to your job, allocate time to it during working hours, those aren't 40-45 hours of time a company gets to take from you and also get benefits from your out of work time. I'm reasonably sure your boss would happily let you allocate an hour every now and then to improving yourself as an employee and if they don't, well... The internet has their usual answer to that even though I don't always agree.
Sometimes this is the result of black-hat products hacking their dopamine cycle, in which case screentime or a friend can help. However, I've found that in some cases staying on top of the zeitgeist like this is actually in someone's 3-5 priorities. In that case saying they have "no time" for X is another way of saying that using TikTok is a higher priority than X for them. (Baffling to me, but a valid choice.) I similarly know people who spend a non-trivial amount of time on other "useless" activities like watching TV shows, playing video games, reading novels, learning esoteric languages, growing plants with no utility, commenting on online forums, etc. Who am I to judge if they find it valuable?
So as technically imprecise as "I don't have time" is, I understand why people use the expression. When someone suggests that I should volunteer for a cause, participate in an activity, go to an event, learn a skill, watch a TV show, read a particular book, learn a language, etc and I tell them that it isn't a high enough priority to displace any of my existing priorities, they sometimes get defensive and/or attempt to litigate my current priorities.
> I'm reasonably sure your boss would happily let you allocate an hour every now and then to improving yourself as an employee
Absolutely, this is a major perk that knowledge workers should take advantage of. I'm spending quite a bit more than "an hour every now and then" to learn about LLMs and accessibility because they are in the intersection of my interests and my job responsibilities. However quantum computing (or game design, solar vehicles, gardening, etc) are not in that intersection and would count against one of my discretionary priorities.
I will always try to convince people against mindless media like ticktok, well unless it's in their life goals to be an influencer but that may also be an issue...
Other cauaes though, sure I don't mind if you don't have time to volunteer etc.
At 70 nobody will be proudly say "oh yes I've spent years reading up on this topic!".
Just like I don't know how to build a solar panel or how to do organic chemistry.
When it comes to that category of your own interests, I don't really think one can afford not to spend time on them, lest you hollow yourself out. Whether any one thing is worth the time over another, like grinding papers vs travel, they're not always mutually exclusive; although trying to do both in parallel might be silly, I personally like to shift my attention periodically. I'll go and spend a few months learning, and then go adventure. I don't that much, but I'm happy to meet up with friends and do that too, and it means taking time away from video games or learning, and that's important too.
Not an easy goal, good luck!
I'd use the example of hiking literally all day without the promise of a good viewpoint; I'd invite the person out, with only a plausible estimate of the time required, and they'd want to just find something that takes less time so they can schedule something afterward. Along the way, they'll be rushing to meet that time, because this is just exercise or whatever to them, and in some way they aren't at peace the idea that we're both just here in the forest maybe chatting maybe not, there's no tangible justification for the mission.
Another type of person would replace tangible outcomes with the feeling that they always need to be learning, regardless of what it is, because it's intrinsically virtuous, and they also sometimes fail to be at peace with doing something for no reason, or nothing at all.
I've wavered between these over the years, and now I'll learn something because it's a clear weak spot, or I can imagine how it might be interesting, and if I don't have anything else that's more compelling (including doing nothing) I might give it a go. What's different now than a few years ago is how much I respect serious time involvement. Anything I decide is worth trying to learn is something I need to feel capable of dedicating serious energy to, at least in the first year; if I can't or don't want to, then maybe I won't, and I shouldn't fool myself into thinking I should or will, because I have other things going on. If I'm going hiking, that's my day, that's it, that's the whole activity, if anyone wants to join me then that's great, they need to accept the same mentality or they can stay home. If we happen to get back before the bars close, then that's great too. I might find Swahili interesting too, and if it seemed worth trying, I'd dive in on the basis that I'd just get a sense for how a different language works, and that there might be something surprising along the way, which to me is inherently valuable.
However, that's also exactly why I didn't say anything like "You should learn X", because it's just a curiosity, and there's many curiosities. For example, last year I failed an interview at Apple because they got the impression my hardware-level knowledge of computers wasn't there, and it wasn't, and that convinced me to finally try and work my way through NAND2Tetris, which I'm now about 3/4's of the way through, and feel was incredibly rewarding even though the net benefit is likely nebulous. I was out of work then for about a year and a half, and it helped me pass the time well too, in a much more spirit lifting way than grinding through yet another rest api project or frontend framework.
Eventually a project may come along that I'll feel is compelling enough to dedicate some serious time to AI/Crypto, and I'll consider it then, but if I were to just try and learn it for no reason at all—including innate curiosity—I don't think it'd stick.
Not to be morbid, but…in 6 months you’ll also have 6 months less of your life left to do those things.
In the past few years, I have felt—-whether due to my aging, the chaos of current events, the mindless march of technology, who knows—-that our time here on earth is a gift that we squander at our peril.
I think some would find that bleak and grim, but I consider it an existentialist battle cry. Make a list of those things that someday you’d like to say you’ve done, or know, or have built, or have given to others…and do one of them.