2020 has been insane. A global pandemic has taken its direct toll on millions and sent shockwaves among nearly everyone in the total population of the planet. Vibrant, loud upheaving roars of unrest send shockwaves across both east and west nations as countries, states and provinces struggle to remain united while being forced to be so distant.

If anything, it is possible that we are both equal parts united and divided - both politically and physically.

And with that being said, I believe that there has been one constant that's been on the forefront of everyone's mind as they turn off the subsequent live streams and broadcasts of the mass hysteria and illness plaguing the world.

Entertainment.

Yes, if anything has thrived during this trying time, it’s entertainment in all its mediums. Whether you're utilizing this spare time not socializing to listen to audio books, watch movies and TV series, play video games or even take on physical forms of entertainment like puzzles and sewing, it's likely that you've tried your best to fill that void that's currently there.

You look in your closet or your shelves, and you see all those unopened pieces of media laying about. You can't even remember when you bought any of these - if you bought any of these - and you can't even count the number of times you've looked over at that shelf with disdain and insurmountable guilt at your lack of willpower or time to start and finish any of them.

And with that, you might have also considered the bright side of things in hopes of sparking just even an ounce of optimism during this trying time. You say to yourself, "Yes! Now is the perfect time to go through my backlog and burn through all of these video games/movies/shows/books/etc."

And that's when it all snowballs as you tear open the packaging and go through each and every one, hoping to finish them all by the time you finally grow able to leave the confines of your home and enjoy the freedom of the outside world.

I'm afraid to be the bearer of bad news, but I must remind you of the harsh reality that awaits you - there is no end.

You will never finish your backlog, no matter how hard you try. No number of hours in a day that's free to consume entertainment will ever be enough to finish the myriad of entertainment that await your eager sensors. If there is one constant in this world it is this.

“The Backlog Does Not End As Long As We Want To Live”

Once you learn to live with this constant, you will find yourself much better off.

Moving past my pseudo-philosophical soapbox for a moment - there is simply no way you will ever not have a backlog in a modern capitalist society.

A Look at the Numbers

A world where work is required for you to live and you need the money from work to purchase some of the things that make live worth living.

And with that, you will never enough time to watch, read, listen or play everything that you'd like. To give you just a small sample of how much consumable media is available in the world - in 2011, it was estimated that over 500,000 feature (> 40 minutes) length movies were believed to exist in the world.

If we extrapolate that to create an estimate of total hours that is, we'd get over 20 million hours of feature length films. But that's just film, what about online content?

Over 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, which means at least 720,000 hours are uploaded every day and every year over 262 million hours are uploaded to just YouTube. That's just one video platform (although arguably the largest).

If we were to take every platform on the internet and try to put an estimate on time to consume from it, we'd likely end up with tens of billions of hours of media out there to consume. Even if you only actually wanted to watch just 1% of the content available out there, you'd likely be looking at over 100 million hours of content.

To put all of these numbers in perspective - the average person lives to 71. If you take the average of time a person sleeps (8 hours) and subtract that from a full day, that leaves 16 hours to consume. Even if you had nothing else to do, including working and eating, that gives you around 400,000 - 450,000 hours to consume media in your life.

Don’t forget to take into account that you likely weren't consciously choosing what media to watch for the first 10 years of your life. That puts you closer to 350,000 - 375,000 hours total. That is less than half a percent of the total amount of consumable media you'd be interested in consuming.

Yikes

These numbers may seem scary, but they're actually quite freeing. It is a hard fact that there will never be enough time to enjoy everything you'd like.

Coming to terms with that also means that you can come to terms with your backlog always having at least a few titles at any given time. As long as you're enjoying the things that you're consuming, you should never feel worried about how much more you have left to enjoy.

Look at these items of enjoyment as sources of energy. Books, podcasts, YouTube videos, whatever - list them all up. Each backlog you have represents a stream of dopamine - of pure, unadulterated bliss - into your body. When that backlog ends, so does that source of joy. Why would you intentionally try and cut that off?

Even if you don’t have a backlog currently, stay open-minded about having one. It's only when we force ourselves to sever these streams of joy that we should be concerned - especially when the world is in the state its currently in (or at least presently of writing, 2020).

This may just be the ramblings of a person who has very little of an idea of what they're talking about most of the time, but I feel like there's some form of truth to this (and I'm sure someone much smarter and qualified than me has written a more eloquent, heavily researched thesis on the subject). I think it's just important to reiterate this point - to whoever may be finding this blog in the world.

Embrace your backlog.