Here's a popular track on his prolific SoundCloud account: https://soundcloud.com/treblesandblues/clear-skies-ahead
When You Are Depressed, Make Something
121–130 of 370 posts
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#122When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life that is causing you to be depressed and devote as much time and energy as you can muster towards exploring solutions to that problem, even if they entail dramatic life-changing decisions, because that's the kind of problem we're dealing with here. Examples of such problems: you hate your graduate program. You have no friends in your city and no ide…
This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." Depression may be affected by real life problems but it is more life-enveloping than that. I've been the most depressed at times in my life when things were going objectively great. The people who asked…
> "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well."
Sadness is the feeling you get when something bad happens and you are upset about it.
Depression is the feeling you get from brain inflammation, which might feel qualitatively similar to sadness, but which is usually caused by one or more of: chronic stress, lack of exercise, nutritional deficiency, poor sleep habits, lack of sensory stimulation, infection, or twenty other things.
Once you can differentiate between them, depression isn't actually that hard to fix, at least at the early stages. It's like right now if I were to gain five pounds I'd get acid reflux, but I know that, so if that starts happening I just stop eating as much for a couple days and the problem fixes itself. Same deal with mental states.
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#123When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life that is causing you to be depressed and devote as much time and energy as you can muster towards exploring solutions to that problem, even if they entail dramatic life-changing decisions, because that's the kind of problem we're dealing with here. Examples of such problems: you hate your graduate program. You have no friends in your city and no ide…
This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." Depression may be affected by real life problems but it is more life-enveloping than that. I've been the most depressed at times in my life when things were going objectively great. The people who asked…
>This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well."
There's no mention of that in the DSM or the ICD.
People with miserable lives can still be depressed; people can have miserable lives without recognising that their lives are miserable. There is no such thing as an "objectively great" life; attempting to define the quality of your life in reference to fixed external criteria is arguably pathological in itself. Part of living a good life is developing an individual and personal sense of what is valuable and meaningful.
The current gold standard of treatment for depression, cognitive behavioural therapy, is in large part a coaching programme to encourage patients to do things to improve their lives. The cognitive aspect of CBT is secondary to the behavioural aspect - cognitive and metacognitive skills are taught in order to facilitate behavioural change.
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pick a subject without much difficult craftsmanship or creativity. One where you can just execute. Grow carrots. You won't worry about there being larger or nicer looking carrots grown by others. I restore old bikes. It's easy mechanically, cheap, and projects are short enough to never be overwhelming (unlike e.g a car project). It's a nice analog change from computers.
Actually, I do garden and have a hobby car (which probably frustrates me more than it makes me happy). But you've obviously never seen a gardening competition. People absolutely worry about growing bigger and nicer looking carrots.
Comparison is the thief of joy. :)
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like this idea of a gift-effort balance. Everyone requires a different mix to shine. But effort seems more important, as I see hard-working "average" people excel more often than lazy geniuses.
Yes. But, I think the key realization is that whenever the incentives are strong enough, a lot of hard-working geniuses will be fighting for the prize. Hard-working geniuses are really hard to compete against, and if you don't realize that natural variation is a real thing , you can get discouraged pretty quickly.
Agreed. At this age, I'm content to let the hard-working geniuses move the world forward and inspire me, while I do the best I can in my limited corner of it.
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#126Actually, when you are depressed you should seek some help. First. Then we can talk.
But in order to seek help, I have to talk
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#127When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life that is causing you to be depressed and devote as much time and energy as you can muster towards exploring solutions to that problem, even if they entail dramatic life-changing decisions, because that's the kind of problem we're dealing with here. Examples of such problems: you hate your graduate program. You have no friends in your city and no ide…
This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." Depression may be affected by real life problems but it is more life-enveloping than that. I've been the most depressed at times in my life when things were going objectively great. The people who asked…
I try to be very respectful about the topic of depression precisely because of the many things you write. That said, there has to be some more gradation between the extremes of "sad" and "depressed". I say this because there were many times in life I was "sad" for a very long period of time and it took a lot more effort to exit that nose dive than going to bed and waking up with a fresh perspective on life.
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#128When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life that is causing you to be depressed and devote as much time and energy as you can muster towards exploring solutions to that problem, even if they entail dramatic life-changing decisions, because that's the kind of problem we're dealing with here. Examples of such problems: you hate your graduate program. You have no friends in your city and no ide…
What do you guys think is the point of all our activities if people eventually die? Most mainstream Judaeo-Christian postulates the immortality of the soul. But it seems to come up against mainstream history and science. Hasn't anyone here felt these existential questions? Even if you accomplish so much, in the end you can't even answer basic questions about the meaning of it all. You can consile yourself with the id…
There is also the business of just living, accepting reality and the struggle to make things better... for me when I had kids did that sink in. So you can put "hope" in that context. Some find existential relief in altruism in the sense that helping others makes us feel better. Then there is the discovery process itself that can be rewarding. I think we evolved to be curious and seek intellectual stimulation so those are the activities we seek out. Knowledge itself transcends the generations.
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like this idea of a gift-effort balance. Everyone requires a different mix to shine. But effort seems more important, as I see hard-working "average" people excel more often than lazy geniuses.
Yes. But, I think the key realization is that whenever the incentives are strong enough, a lot of hard-working geniuses will be fighting for the prize. Hard-working geniuses are really hard to compete against, and if you don't realize that natural variation is a real thing , you can get discouraged pretty quickly.
Screw those hard-working geniuses, always turning life into a freakin' competition ffs.
Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." Depression may be affected by real life problems but it is more life-enveloping than that. I've been the most depressed at times in my life when things were going objectively great. The people who asked…
>This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well." There's no mention of that in the DSM or the ICD. People with miserable lives can still be depressed; people can have miserable lives without recognising that their lives are miserable. There is no suc…
> attempting to define the quality of your life in reference to fixed external criteria is arguably pathological in itself
Isn't this merely inaccurate rather than pathological, since external criteria are almost never fixed? (cf. inflation)