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Now that is a great fucking article. I have to tell people this all the time and no one can truly grasp what I'm saying. You have absolutely nailed it.
It’s really encouraging to hear that the article struck a chord with you. Sometimes the hardest ideas to convey are the ones that matter most, and it’s awesome to know it resonated.
Here’s to hoping it helps more people get the message you’ve been trying to share.
Don’t people have partners, kids, aging parents, hell even pets that depend on them? The authors version of being stuck seems like a luxury, an inward exploration to find out how you are holding yourself back. To even approach it from that angle you need to have no one depending on you. I can’t “shake things up” by trying a new career or taking impulsive vacations because other human beings rely on me being “stuck”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm more annoyed by the usual phrasing of these things as life changing and revelatory. Maybe it's time to unstick yourself from these patterns. Life changing and revelatory can be as much evolutionary as revolutionary. There's no need to narrow them down to their extremes.
I suspect they're taking issue with the implication that these things are universally life changing, not that they can be meaningful at all. I have no doubt the author of this article uncovered personal truths, but the whole thing is framed as if they become an expert on everyone else's mental health by breaking free from their own depression. Personally for navel-gazy articles like this I think it's more useful to f…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a big grey area in the middle. How you want to label it is influenced by the outcome and whether you think it's a good idea. Quitting your job and flying to Central America is risky. If his life improves from there, then it was getting unstuck. If it gets worse or goes back to the same, then it was a manic episode. History written by the victors!
Well said. And for clarification, it was not a job but the business I started 6 years ago. More rencent update: The trip gave me a new perspective and I shifted the business model, rather than shutting it down.
I sometimes feel like I am in the same position as you were: > I had the uncomfortable conversation with my business partner to tell them I no longer have passion for it and am leaving them the decision to continue or quit.
When I feel burned out and/or unpassionate by my work, I automatically think about leaving it behind and move on, but after some rest (and discussion) I usually come to another easier-on-my-mind perspective which alleviates me, at least for some time. But I am worried I am just making compromises with myself in order to stay stuck in my comfort zone -- instead of going for more radical changes.
Cool article btw, thank you.
I’ve done this ever since learning about “brain plasticity” as a child. My logic was/is simple: if I didn’t want something to feel uncomfortable I had to do it regularly. To me, building physical strength/ability and mental strength/ability were the same. Sitting on a moving bike was uncomfortable and now isn’t, and architecting distributed systems, too. Perhaps simplistic, and not worth a long article, but pretty close to the truth it seems, as I look back.
"Here's the problem: Your brain and its cortical columns are designed to conserve energy at all costs." How does this model explain substance addiction? 'You need to consciously and repetitively seek out "False" signals and embrace the discomfort they bring. You need to construct a new reality.' Much like the 'why aren't you growing? you need to grow. grow!' sentiment in the beginning this seems more in line with som…
It explains psychological addiction. You grow attached to a familiar and seemingly safe numbing sensation. Physical addiction is another thing.
> I impulssively bought a plane ticket to Panama: > I cried. Haven’t done that in years. > I had the uncomfortable conversation with my business partner to tell them I no longer have passion for it and am leaving them the decision to continue or quit. > I forced myself to talk to strangers every single day. These also could be explained by someone entering hypomania. How would you distinguish stuck/unstuck from depre…
These energy levels are all relative, though. If you’ve spent most of your life in a depressed state, then suddenly having energy (possibly because you’re dealing with your mental health for the first time) then a lot of things are going to look like “hypomania” in comparison and I feel like that is the case for a lot of people.
Happiness and hypomania are easily distinguishable.
I've come across these kinds of articles before and they always seem to suggest that you rewrite the metaphorical firmware of your brain so that it operates in a way that is advantageous to you. There's some notion of self discovery from first principles. I'm not convinced that this is generally a good idea. It makes a person unmoored and open to anything ("so open minded that your brains fall out"). It's also often…
Did you know, the brain is hard-wired to be suckered by self-help books? One trick that I personally find very liberating and enlightening is to make a big pile of such material and burn it. It gives me a sense of warmth and inner joy.
Which is to say, once you read (or skimmed) enough of them, it's easy to get a sixth sense of the "intelligence" and "motivation" of the writer, and the sincere ones, even if not smart, are still pretty enjoyable if taken with many salt grains, and I'm a sucker for them (again, not in terms of following exactly what they say to do, but appreciating the motivation and good-intent of the author and possibly picking up something along the way.)
They'll have names like PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS and just be like "try to be nice to people and sit down and be quite a few times a day."
A sort of perfect example would be the fictional "The You You Are" from the TV Show Severance. I hope they actually write it, I know I'd LOVE it.