Fixed, thanks.
There’s a joke in here about getting negatives wrong when depressed...
Sable
Karma: 733
Let’s Design A School, Part 1
You’re welcome! I’m glad it was helpful.
I also just looked up monotropism—I haven’t run across the term before—and was like, yeah, that seems about right for me.
Interesting.
You’re welcome!
Call it...unintentionally intentional? It makes sense to me that the mechanisms between them are related in some sort of Unified Field Theorem of the Mind sort of way.
I also have mental metaphors involving thermal mass and emotions...
Huh.
As a fellow procrastinator, I’m right there with you. I’ve found, for instance, that downers (alcohol, barbiturates, etc.) can allow me to be productive if anxiety is the cause of the procrastination, but if it’s depression than the downers don’t help at all.
Sure—I’m always interested in hearing other perspectives.
What’s your secret?
Is it yoga?
(I bet it’s yoga.)
Not being very sad all the time is good for you, 10⁄10 recommend.
Words to live by, right there.
I think everyone has some experience with anxiety and depression; the alternative is literally ataraxia. The distinctions come with things like, “is it transitory or chronic?” and “is it ruining your life?” I’m glad you’re not in that state anymore, though.
With regards to anxiety, I’ve had thoughts recently along the same track; maybe I’ll write them up at some point. It’s almost a case of “the dose makes the poison”—some amount of anxiety is natural and can motivate you, but too much and it prevents you from doing anything.
That’s a fascinating description of your own state, and I hope you’re working through it with your own resources.
For the post I was focusing more on a behaviorist approach to depression and anxiety, explaining what the resulting state/actions were by metaphor of how it felt internally, but I do also get the low mood and the feeling that everything is terrible.
I think I also get the ‘lose the ability to perceive gradations of color’ thing, which I think Scott’s talked about before.
(I also had a nihilistic phase I grew out of. There’s only so much ‘depressed French people complaining’ I can take!)
Thanks for sharing! I definitely like Scott’s take on depression being a trapped prior.
When I’m depressed, sometimes a friend will make me go do stuff anyway and it usually makes me feel better, although I never expect it to make me feel better. Even when I know that it will.
Brains are weird.
Thanks Anders! That means a lot, I really appreciate it.
Thankfully I’ve seen my psychiatrist and I’ve switched to the next medication, which is doing a better job. I’m also looking into getting Ketamine treatment; I’ll probably make a post about how that goes.
You may!
Zoloft managed the depression but not the anxiety, and Lexapro the anxiety but not the depression.
For what it’s worth, I have zero expectation that anyone else would share my exact response to the medications; both have helped plenty of people in the past.
Anxiety vs. Depression
I think this post highlights some of the difficulties in transmitting information between people—particularly the case of trying to transmit complex thoughts via short aphorisms.
I think the comments provided a wealth of feedback as to the various edge cases that can occur in such a transmission, but the broad strokes of the post remain accurate: understanding compressed wisdom can’t really be done without the life experience that the wisdom tried to compress to begin with.
If I was to rewrite the post, I’l likely emphasize the takeaway that, when giving advice or attempting to transmit such wisdom, the point is that you have to take the time to convey the entirety of the context of what you’re saying, unless you’re just reminding someone of something they already know. “Don’t zip your wisdom, just transfer the whole thing” might be a better title than “wisdom cannot be unzipped”, for the practical application of the lesson.
I do like—and intend to continue—inserting pieces of related knowledge into posts, in the way that this post teaches a little about what compression is in the course of conveying its message. I think that benefits the discourse, and by assuming a low level of shared knowledge, makes the post friendlier to newcomers and beginners.
I don’t see this as a conscious choice people make to not solve the problems the institution they’re a part of is supposed to address. I agree that many of the individuals within the institution are working in good faith and genuinely care.
The issue is that the incentives of the people are not the same as the incentives of the institution itself, which are to grow and attract more status and money, which happens when the problem is seen as harder and more important.
Yes, Climate Change is obviously not solvable by a few activists, but there’s a finite amount of time/energy/money in the world, and it’s not clear to me at all that it’s optimally distributed between cause areas. More time/energy/money going into solving climate change means less going elsewhere.
I use homelessness as an example, but I believe the logic generalizes. You’re right that in many cases, the incentives facing an institution aren’t powerful enough to matter, or the people involved could/would just go do other things.
But there are also a lot of cases (see: almost all nonprofits) where people’s jobs depend on the existence and salience of the problem, in which case I think the incentives do start to matter.
While I haven’t looked at the data lately, there are a lot of institutions in the US, as I use the term. Surely of the many social ills they address there are some that solvable/solved?
While I used ending homelessness as an example, the salience of an issue matters too. Climate change organizations receive lots of funding because their cause is seen as an important priority. If that changes, their funding dries up. So they have an incentive on the margin to overemphasize the importance of their associated problem—they benefit from the problem, while generally not solving it. Hence, commensalism.
Thanks! I’ve been pointed to them by others as well; it’s a good example of an institution surviving the death of their problem.
I do think that the case underlines how important problems are for institutions, in a sort-of “exception that proves the rule” kind of way.
They would need another problem to pivot to.
Also, I suspect that such a pivot on an institutional scale is difficult to pull off. People often prioritize altruistic work because they’re passionate about a specific cause—maybe they were homeless in the past, or they were a cancer survivor, etc. That wouldn’t necessarily translate.
They both tend to limit my (already limited) tolerance for it and make it much harder, although the depression makes it harder in general while the anxiety only makes it harder in higher-stakes situations, such as at work with a boss.
Your post is another interesting perspective I haven’t delved into as much as I’d like. It reminds me of the parts work some of my friends are fond of—taking something negative in one’s brain and asking, “but how is this useful? What is it doing for me? What is this piece of me trying to protect me from?” and then running with the result.
I’ll have to give it more thought.