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When You Are Depressed, Make Something

byrslf.co

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Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#21

Post by drinkjuice »

huherto wrote: post #7

Great insight. I never thought of it this way. Perhaps this is the best justification for art education. It is not about producing beautiful objects. Perhaps it is about our mental health. More like meditation. It is the process that gives us value, regardless of whether other people are willing to pay for the art that we make.

As someone who started out messing around with trackers in like '98 with FastTracker 2, and who hasn't made anything I would call a "real song" to this day, but spend hundreds and thousands of hours on it, I can absolutely confirm. I wrote lyrics that were decidedly not about making beatiful objects.. more like a process to clean myself, which produced dirty rags. The really mean and ugly ones I deleted after I had outgrown them, the rest I still love dearly even as they make me cringe from tip to toe haha. Art is a bit like dancing, it's awesome when people share it, but it would be tragic if they never did it just for themselves.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#22

Post by ridecontroller »

_vya7 wrote: post #12

> The whole world deserves to experience what it feels like to be in your present moment. I'm glad the author found something that helped him through depression. Unfortunately this is not a silver bullet. It won't work for everyone, or even every time depression hits. There are many different activities you can try to help battle depression, and they are definitely helpful, and creating things is one of them. But the…

I totally relate to the above, the purpose, the drive, it's there until you finish the project or your stuck doing the last 20% which ends up being half the work. You stop and you think why am I doing this, am I just building tools to build them. Start to feel like your grasping for nothing. Then you burn out, go do something crazy for 1-2 weeks come back and like yeah lets start a new project! haha

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#23

Post by md224 »

_vya7 wrote: post #12

> The whole world deserves to experience what it feels like to be in your present moment. I'm glad the author found something that helped him through depression. Unfortunately this is not a silver bullet. It won't work for everyone, or even every time depression hits. There are many different activities you can try to help battle depression, and they are definitely helpful, and creating things is one of them. But the…

> realizing that you have to just do whatever you have to do, simply because it's the right thing to do, regardless of your emotions, or how intense they are, or lack of them.

Right, but how do you figure out what the "right thing to do" is? Especially if you ignore emotional response as a guide?

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#24

Post by 6stringmerc »

Very good front half. The second half ruffled my feathers with conflating lifting other people's work via sampling and tossing flourishes in and suddenly feeling like an authority on creativity. I say this as both a 100% from scratch producer and frequent unsanctioned remixer of other people's work. Glad it's therapeutic for him, genuinely so.

He's wrong though, not every human is "innately creative" in the sense that there's an artist, singer, dancer, drummer, painter, sculptor, or didgeridoo maestro hiding somewhere inside each of us if we only look. That's not fair. Some people will go looking and find disappointment, much in the way I think for some reason I'll never enjoy Calculus II or have much of an aptitude for it. I just think false hope can lead to, eh, other depressive tailspins.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#25

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

paulpauper wrote: post #14

The problem with trying to create something is once you begin to work hard at it, you realize that you're not very good and others have done it far better than you. I have notice this a lot with math.I will work on a problem and then a Google search later reveals that the problem is not only completely solved but in a way that is far better than I could have ever conceived. Another problem is when you run out of idea…

> I have notice this a lot with math.I will work on a problem and then a Google search later reveals that the problem is not only completely solved

It seems to me that you're letting yourself be paralyzed by something that really has no bearing here. You will note that the article does not say "solve a hard math problem first and best". It says "do something with your hands and your feet". The two are not comparable.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#26

Post by Dachande663 »

Friends have worked for me[1]. I've tried travelling, running, working, drinking, innumerable distractions. But having friends who can spot when I'm falling and reach out, because I'll never ask for their help, has been invaluable.

[1] http://hybridlogic.co.uk/2015/11/the-well/

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#28

Post by showerst »

paulpauper wrote: post #14

The problem with trying to create something is once you begin to work hard at it, you realize that you're not very good and others have done it far better than you. I have notice this a lot with math.I will work on a problem and then a Google search later reveals that the problem is not only completely solved but in a way that is far better than I could have ever conceived. Another problem is when you run out of idea…

“We have to reinvent the wheel every once every once in a while, not because we need a lot of wheels; but because we need a lot of inventors.” - Bruce Joyce

Keeping your head up while (inelegantly) solving tons of problems yourself is an crucial step to solving them well.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#29

Post by zimpenfish »

paulpauper wrote: post #14

The problem with trying to create something is once you begin to work hard at it, you realize that you're not very good and others have done it far better than you. I have notice this a lot with math.I will work on a problem and then a Google search later reveals that the problem is not only completely solved but in a way that is far better than I could have ever conceived. Another problem is when you run out of idea…

I generate tileable patterns on my phone using Defqt, Decim8, and iColorama. Doesn't require hardly any mental energy and it's pretty certain that you're going to generate something unique. Plus it's a quick cycle (~10-60s) which means you're not getting stuck on any single one.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#30

Post by treehau5 »

paulpauper wrote: post #14

The problem with trying to create something is once you begin to work hard at it, you realize that you're not very good and others have done it far better than you. I have notice this a lot with math.I will work on a problem and then a Google search later reveals that the problem is not only completely solved but in a way that is far better than I could have ever conceived. Another problem is when you run out of idea…

The problem comes with how you define success.

Do you define it as how your answer or creation measures up to everyone else, or do you define it as you made significant progress in a field you had very little prior experience with. In my math escapades, it's linear algebra, for you it may be differential calculus, etc.

Basically if you always measure success in comparisons to others, you are always going to be disappointed. There are very few times where this isn't true -- such as you entered in a competition for worlds best overall mathematician, which almost doesn't exist, because you have to pick one thing and specialize in it.

Just realize if you take the time and effort to practice, you will achieve success. We all have the same brain, and barring any learning disability, every human has the same potential for amazing learning, the only difference between those seemingly geniuses with perfect answers that solve problems in a way you could never conceive, is they practiced more, and thought about it more.

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