This episode explores the deep, persistent tension between the life you lead and the person you were meant to become, examining how fundamental impulses—like the desire to solve problems and fix what's broken—can manifest across drastically different careers. We delve into the life of the "5 AM Creative," who must wrestle with passion projects—like coding or designing card games—in the precious hours before the day job begins, often at the cost of rest and routine. This unsustainable hustle leads us to ask: What does *sustainable* creativity truly look like? We argue that the breakthrough insights emerge not from more work, but from creating space for ideas to breathe. Ultimately, we discuss the act of defending subjective experience against the attention economy, asserting that genuine boredom is a feature, not a bug, and is essential for self-knowledge and creative incubation. By learning to notice the small, true details—like the specific sound of a locking door or the way light hits a window—you begin to reclaim your consciousness from constant stimulation and remember what you actually like.

Timestamps and links:

00:05:45 - Reference to Influence: The Circle, a game under development between father and child, here with an accompanying iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/no/app/the-circle-companion/id6752904522

Disclaimer:

Episodes are based on human-written scripts from essays, design docs, and research. Scripts are AI-refined, creator-approved, then voiced using Google NotebookLM. This is human-directed, AI-assisted storytelling—not AI-generated content. Every idea originates from the creator's work and vision.

Relevant articles, info and resources:

On our blog at digtek.app we have written about

- «Why Awareness Comes Before Optimization, https://digtek.app/blog-2025-10-24-why-awareness-comes-first.html» and

- «Letting the Field Go Fallow, https://digtek.app/blog-2025-10-29-letting-the-field-go-fallow.html».

The source material for this episode is also based on articles/blog posts not yet published:

- In Defense of Subjective Experience

- Right to Boredom

- Susteinable Creativity

- What We’ve Always Seen

These posts, or variants of them, will be published at digtek.app when deemed appropiately finished. Meanwhile, you’ll find other blog posts discussing similar topics under «Blog». Our book, «Life as User Experience» is loosely referenced throughout the episode.

Catch you in the next episode!