If you spend a whole afternoon just eating popcorn and watching football, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if that's all you do, you get swept along with the tide, without any idea of where you're going.
I'll tell you why I like writing: it's just jumping into a pool. I get myself into a kind of trance. I engage the world, but it's also wonderful to just escape. I try to find the purities out of the confusion. It's pretty old-fashioned, but it's fun.