As a kid I could spend hours or days (or, during summer, even weeks) doing whatever it is I was interested at the moment - be it playing games, writing code or drawing things. I could go easy and take as much time as creativity requires. If I fail, no problem. There was always tomorrow afternoon. There was always next Saturday.

As an adult, I can no longer do that. There's tons of obligation, and every scrap of free time I have must be allocated well. I feel this pressure to be immediately successful, immediately rewarded, because there's very little time left in between errands and having to get some sleep.

This pressure is what I think makes people just not bother. Not think creative thoughts, because there won't be time to do anything with them anyway. There's this bit of "statistics" floating around the Internet, that "Americans [or other first-worlders] spend on average 4 hours a day in front of TV". If only they could channel that time into something creative... Except they can't. Because when you come home tired, your willpower drained at work, after you're done with your chores, for many drinking beer and watching a movie (or reading a book; somehow, no one ever says reading books is a waste of time) is the only reasonable way to wind down. Because you don't have to commit. You don't have to allocate time, worry that you won't have enough of it. You just sit down and enjoy the show, and then repeat the loop 'till you retire.