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When You Are Depressed, Make Something

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Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#41

Post by AlexeyBrin »

steven777400 wrote: post #33
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…

This hits me almost every time I think of something. Recently someone suggested to me a game of "snake" (like the old QB game) that used the tilt sensor in the phone to direct the snake. Should be pretty simple. A few searches later and I'm looking at super-realisticly rendered WebGL demos of mobile 3D pinball examples and thinking "there's no way I could ever implement something like this". Anything I can think of a…

Think at this as an exercise in programming. You don't write a game of Snake to make THE game of Snake. You write it to learn something and hone your skills (same way as someone taking a Math course solves simple and typical exercises).

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#42

Post by BatFastard »

iguanayou wrote: post #20
rangibaby wrote: post #3

The first half of the article has a lot of wisdom. The second half reminds me of well meaning people who make things worse by trying to help. "Just (go jogging, do something creative drink vegetable shakes)" I would if I could damn it! lol

I wonder if the REAL cure was not the creation of music, but instead being around like-minded people.

That can also be a cure, but if the people you are with are not raising your spirits, it can have the opposite effect.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#43

Post by sdegutis »

md224 wrote: post #23
_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?

Well that's the point of philosophy, isn't it? To figure out what we're supposed to do. For some people, just living life going through the motions is enough, and they never stop and ask this question. Other people keep bouncing from philosophy to philosophy, or religion to religion, looking for something that fits. Some of those people find something that works, and stick with it. And of course others just kill themselves because they never can figure out an answer that satisfies them, so life seems infinitely meaningless and they see no reason to keep going.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#44

Post by codezero »

When you are depressed, please try seeing a professional if you have the time/money/insurance coverage.

We've made a condition that is largely out of your control a taboo and I don't know why. It's ok to want to be functional, and people can help without pretending like your depression/any other condition isn't real.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#45

Post by coldtea »

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…

Plus the web rubs in our faces the output of all of 8 billion people on the planet, of which tons are bound to be far better at what we want to do, while simultaneously depreciating the value of both local talent (since now you compete internationally for attention), and global talent (since the channels are saturated and people have 2000000 outlets to care much for any particular one).

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#46

Post by hockeybias »

Making things feels good to me all the time! I am a musician, I was a fine arts major, am now a software developer. Whether it is a a print, a song, a web page, something for my children, it doesn't seem to matter - the creative process always feels good to me. Please see

http://HockeyBias.com

It has been keeping me feeling good for almost a decade! ;)

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#47

Post by zimpenfish »

6stringmerc wrote: post #24

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 tha…

> 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 the bar is at "maestro" then no, of course not. But I think most people can be creative to some extent even if it's -at best- journeyman level. The trick is to remove the societal / cultural stance that says things must be maestro level or they're not worthy of our attention.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#48

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

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 think the implication is that you should try to create something away from the internet, note how the poster goes to a class and creates a beat and is getting positive reinforcement from people at the class

If he had created a beat on his own, posted it on soundcloud/youtube and posted, say, on reddit, he would've likely gotten trolled or put down or compared to any number of amazing beatmakers and it would have added to his depression instead of helping him get over it.

I don't think we are equipped to deal with the fact that there is somebody younger than us better at anything we can think of than we could ever be, and those somebodies are also instantly accessible from anywhere at any time for comparison purposes.

In the old days, say, you could tell yourself "ok, the teacher/master craftsman/... that is teaching me is so much better than me because they have a lifetime of experience, when I will be their age I will have learned and will be just as good", but now you can find endless amounts of people younger than you already amazing at what you are trying to do, and you think to yourself what's the point when they are already there and you have just started.

Nowadays with most of the world connected you can find hundreds of "one in a million" people you can compare yourself to: and if you are depressed it is really really hard to want to get started at anything, because getting started at something means months or years of being objectively pretty bad at it, months where you can tell yourself "what's the point, youtubeuser999 is a kid and they're already better at this than I ever will be"

It is also hard because one of the ways to get better, is to compare yourself to people better than you and try to figure out what they are doing that you aren't, and incorporate that in your practice. If you are in a beginner art class with a teacher walking around and you are all around the same level, you can get a lot of benefit from looking at others and listening in.

But if, thanks to the internet, you have Michelangelo on your left, Leonardo on the right, Vermeer in front of you and Tintoretto behind, and you are just trying to learn to draw a face that doesn't look like Frankenstein, it is going to be extremely discouraging.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#49

Post by Jugurtha »

steven777400 wrote: post #33
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…

This hits me almost every time I think of something. Recently someone suggested to me a game of "snake" (like the old QB game) that used the tilt sensor in the phone to direct the snake. Should be pretty simple. A few searches later and I'm looking at super-realisticly rendered WebGL demos of mobile 3D pinball examples and thinking "there's no way I could ever implement something like this". Anything I can think of a…

I've had this thing where I'll think about all the things I'll never do.. At 17, I'd go "I'll never be as good as Gauss". At 19, "Jesus, Lagrange taught at college at age 19". At 20, "Galois died at 20..Damn.."

The only thing that I have going for me is that I have dissociated my emotional/psychological state and my intellectual pursuit to become smarter than I was the day before. I can work on stuff when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when tears are wetting the paper, when it's cold, when it's hot, when I'm anxious, when I'm relaxed. The first thing I did after college is trying to come up with a studying schedule to undo the harm of not making the most out of it.

This is great, right? The downside is that, judging myself even more harshly than when I judge myself compared to others: If I can work in all conditions and everyday, how come I still suck at everything and can't do anything well. I haven't found an answer to that, yet.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#50

Post by oldopsguy »

treehau5 wrote: post #30
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 disapp…

I think comparing is inevitable.. going through a lot of this now personally and sometimes i wonder how much a factor is the size of the pond you swim in.
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