141–150 of 262 posts
I find articles like this one where 100% of the onus for coping with mental health problems is put on the individual quite annoying. There's nothing in the article about getting help from other people, or how to cope with problems that you can't fix easily. It's kind of a toxic attitude because it makes others believe people with mental health issues just aren't trying hard enough and completely ignores individual ci…
From the outside, generally, stay away or just observe from far away:
- People who post political/religious/racial comments every 5 mins or so on social media, whether their view aligns with yours or not
- People who are too passionate about one thing
- People who don't keep their identity small in public, be it digital or real life
- People who have black and white thinking
- Social media
From the inside:
- Exercise (I do Karate)
- Have other creativity outlet (I do Aquascape, play electric guitar, bass, and sing, aside from programming)
- Read a lot various subjects, anything that spike your curiosity (I read programming books, theological books, finance, aquascaping, music, philosophy, economy)
- Have some other non thinking hobbies occasionally (I play games, go out with my spouse, watch movies)
- Help your communities (I am quite active to my church)
I still need to work on these:
- Eat healthier food
- Have more consistent sleep cycle
Generally if I have to sum it. Keep your public identity small, but keep your private identity large. You can definitely tell I grew up in Asia.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Politicians think that riots are the problem and if they stop the riots with force the problem goes away. But riots are just a symptom of a sick system. No the system and other systemic or social problems are just a excuse. Riots, at least those in recent events are an example of contagious social behavior. That is evidenced by the fact that the blamed issues have been known problems for longer than two weeks with…
It's quite clear that recent events, specifically the death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are the exact reason why people have decided to "suddenly congregate into emotional hysteria". Yes, these issues have been present, but, undoubtedly, those deaths sparked something across the country. Are riots and violence the solution? That's debatable, but they do send a message in a society where money is…
The reason why recognizing group dynamics is important is because it can serve as a means to deprive individual liberty.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the book he describes the ways modern life has disconnected us from a lot of what humans find meaningful, and given that it's not surprising that rates of depression and anxiety have skyrocketed. Yeah. See Yvain's excellent review of "Empire of the Summer Moon": All of the white people who joined Indian tribes loved it and refused to go back to white civilization. All the Indians who joined white civilization ha…
Having an abundance of natural resources that are easily accessible at a low tech level seems like it's a very large precondition to making this work. Sounds like someone drank the "Noble savage" koolaid in writing that.
Disagree, "civilized" societies have vast surpluses of the resources needed for survival (Level 1 and 2 of Maslows Hierarchy) compared to tribal societies, although those resources may not be distributed properly -- which is indicative of that which we truly lack: community belongingness and love (Level 3 of Maslows Hierarchy).
For myself. This is what I've been doing and working for me. From the outside, generally, stay away or just observe from far away: - People who post political/religious/racial comments every 5 mins or so on social media, whether their view aligns with yours or not - People who are too passionate about one thing - People who don't keep their identity small in public, be it digital or real life - People who have black…
Does that just mean not trying to do your own personal branding so people can find you on the internet? Or is it more about "everyone that I care about, aka local people, should know about me - that's my private identity".
I'm curious, as an American born and someone who's continually trying to learn about other cultures.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i would also add actively minimizing stress. those are actually the 4 pillars of health: eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, minimize stress
Congrats, we have rewritten the OP blog post...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The current mainstream approach of western medicine does not follow this - eg. there is little evidence that anti-depression drugs actually cure depression, and the side-effects are horrible. Yet the pharma industry profits greatly by selling snake oil that just makes people more sick.
[citation needed]
Then he indulges in exactly the kind of casual, "if you just do this you'll be _fine_" sort of reasoning from armchair diagnosticians that leads people _actually_ suffering from mental illness to think, "oh man, I guess I'm just undisciplined and all of this is _my fault_."
I'm sorry, but no. Just stop. Your "helpful tips" equate the _symptoms_ of mental health issues (lack of sleep, inability to focus and plan, over-consumption of alcohol, etc.) with the fixes that are available to you if you "just try harder'.
Telling someone deep in debt that smarter decisions made long ago would have avoided their current problems may be _accurate_ but is neither helpful nor compassionate. Likewise, telling anyone who'll listen that acute mental health crises can be prevented proactively by "simply following these few tips" does less than nothing for those suffering right now: in fact, it worsens the perception that their illness is their own fault, it's too late to make any improvement or progress, doctors will just try to sell them snake oil so why bother, etc., etc.
Perhaps if the author had said something like, "I too have struggled with mental health and found the following things made a difference for me. YMMV, and of course you should only attempt self-fixes in combination with treatment by a qualified professional, etc. etc." He did none of that, nor is he a trained psychiatrist or counselor, which makes his "hard-earned wisdom" suspect to me.
"Be more like me and you too can be successful/happy/rich/etc." is not a terribly useful kind of advice. Likewise "the trained experts in the field don't want you to know this, but the solution to $really-hairy-problem is just to $follow-my-convenient-five-point-plan."
In case my umbrage at the tone and content of this article wasn't clue enough: I have been diagnosed as bipolar, with concurrent major depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder. Many of the symptoms and aggravating factors were buried or even encourage by the "startup life" and I'm deeply skeptical about VCs and founders who purport to care about the mental health of their peers and employees while making a constant push to "hustle", "put in the hours", "not settle for a lifestyle business", etc.
Throughout my career my manic periods have consistently been the most productive weeks and months of my working life, but the corresponding depressive episodes usually resulted in me being fired or walking away from an otherwise-decent job because no one understood or bothered to ask why a "high performer" had suddenly become flaky and uncommunicative. Advice on how to "prevent" mental illness from those who have neither suffered from it or been trained to treat it is _not_ going to make things better for me or folks with similar experiences.
For myself. This is what I've been doing and working for me. From the outside, generally, stay away or just observe from far away: - People who post political/religious/racial comments every 5 mins or so on social media, whether their view aligns with yours or not - People who are too passionate about one thing - People who don't keep their identity small in public, be it digital or real life - People who have black…
Can you explain more about keeping your public identity small but your private identity large? Does that just mean not trying to do your own personal branding so people can find you on the internet? Or is it more about "everyone that I care about, aka local people, should know about me - that's my private identity". I'm curious, as an American born and someone who's continually trying to learn about other cultures.
For everyone that you care about and if your care is reciprocated, I think no matter how small you try to keep your identity, they'll just still be enamored by it.
I myself try to generally keep my identity small, both in public/digital space and within my friends, but yeah my friend can't help but still know who I really am, what food that I like, what music that I like, just as I can't help but to know who they really are. It is the result of close proximity in relationship. But this results in more organic and more understanding. My friends don't judge me purely black and white, and I don't judge them purely black and white either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course the riots are just a symptom. And of course a lot of people of in those riots are not there for the cause. Would there be riots right now had Floyd not been killed? Have you even seen a riot started out of nothing? Just for fun? I doesn't change the original point that if a politician's first goal is to stop the riots, it's only to cover a symptom while the real problem is not fixed. And it's a matter of ti…
> Have you even seen a riot started out of nothing? Just for fun? It's a pretty well-known phenomenon. You hold a sports riot when your team wins , not when it loses.