Thinking myself out of fun.
One curse of the writer’s trade is being able to see the underlying story structure when examining a movie, book, or TV show. This deconstruction becomes so habitual that it continues even when one doesn’t want to and prefers to enjoy a piece of media purely as entertainment.
Doing this doesn’t take a genius. Creating compelling stories takes a lot of practice, and practice breeds familiarity. Stories share a fundamental shape, so once you learn the basics, the rest quickly falls into place.
The problem is that so many entertainments fail me because I can’t stop looking at their inner workings. The two most common issues are either the execution doesn’t fit the requirements I see, or the deployment of storytelling’s base tools is flawed. Sometimes (this is the worst) there’s nothing wrong, and I still have difficulty letting go of the storytelling to enjoy the story.
I imagine this is a similar issue faced by musicians. They love music. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have mastered an instrument. At the same time, that mastery has gifted them the ability to discern things no one else would listen to. Not just the notes but everything that falls between the notes. Music is never the same after you’ve spent time listening to someone dissect it. In essence, teaching you to hear.
Unfortunately, there’s no way around this particular problem. Like I said before, this is a writer’s curse. Destined never to be able to put your brain in neutral.