at the crux of it may be an inability to experience empathy for strangers.

so, i'll watch a documentary because i'm learning something, which makes me feel like i'm not wasting my time. but, if you sit me down and try and force me to watch a "movie", my most likely reaction is going to be something along the lines of "why am i supposed to give a fuck about these imbeciles?". there's almost no tactic to get me to care - and, if you can be robotically logical like i am for a moment, it's not hard to see the basic correctness of this position. is it not even kind of pathetic to engage yourself in the lives of strangers on film? what reason do you provide for this behaviour?

really grasping my rejection of the medium means realizing that i'm truly some kind of cyborg, but i'm more likely to argue in favour of being a cyborg than recoil at the accusation.

another way to look at is that i don't like following the lead of others. that's what you're doing when you put on a film: you're letting somebody else take control of your mind for a little while. not only does that not sound like a good time, to me, but it sounds utterly repugnant to me. i seek to be in control of my thoughts at all times. so, you'd rather see me doing something intellectual like typing or something physical like recording, or perhaps dancing, as it keeps me in control of myself. to lose control is to in some way subvert your individuality, and there's no scenario where i'd want to do that.