You're assuming that dissatisfaction and regret mean the activity was bad. What if you overindulge in learning and regret knowing all kinds of details about Lis

You're assuming that dissatisfaction and regret mean the activity was bad. What if you overindulge in learning and regret knowing all kinds of details about Lisp? Some outside observers don't consider your time wasted, quite the contrary. But by your measurement, regretting knowing Lisp would mean that knowing Lisp is bad. My point is that you can always pick opposing activities that people will feel are time wasted or well-spent. But why? Because you have some implicit notion of ultimate value that helps you weigh time spent on one or the other. In the absence of such a theory of good and evil you might as well criticize pg for becoming addicted to hiking or addicted to insightful thinking. Cool for him, but he's wasting his life if he doesn't have all the achievements in Team Fortress 2. There is no way to create this kind of theory out of the subject's reflection on their own activities. After all, the subject might be wrong!