AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Where are you and where are you going?
AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Thanks, @mF. That's a good exercise, and I was giving it a try yesterday. I set the timeline for two weeks because I've had a few friends who had to move suddenly in two weeks for work, so it seemed like a reasonable time frame. Under a two week paradigm, I'd probably spend a lot less time trying to sell or give away stuff and more likely just move everything I had then organize it once I'm in the new location. (I am trying to go from non-minimalism to minimalism, which is a whole effort independent from moving slowing me down.) Then I shove all my stuff in boxes, drop all my furniture off at Goodwill, put whatever I'm moving in a truck then go find a new apartment in the new location.

I think part of what is slowing me down is I am trying to continue to build a social life here AND think of moving at the same time, which are two contradictory goals. I don't really regret trying to do this because I've learned a lot, but I also don't want to get too comfortable here with a few okay-enough friends because I want to grow more. There is a bit of a risk of reaching "good enough" then falling back to a lower energy state.

Which, on the front of social milieus, I was trying to put myself out there/out of my comfort zone this weekend and putting some thought into the discussion here. I think that, instead of being annoyed x group has y norms, I'm better off to just alter my presentation per the group and give up the dream of some perfect Kegan3 group. This might feel like masking/lying at first, but I think a better way to frame it is simply "when in Rome, do what the Romans do."

Anyway, I have some new group meetups planned this week that are very out of my comfort zone/very different than what I do now, so I'm going to try and apply the "when in Rome" philosophy to them and see how it goes. I'm taking the group norms into account then crafting a persona of sorts based on how I want to come across, just like how I might do when visiting a different country. I'll give this a test and see if the mindset shift helps.

OutOfTheBlue
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by OutOfTheBlue »

Another thing that striked me lately from Gallegos was when he answered that we tend to see our relationships as this one, unified thing, but that they are actually two relationships going on: their relationship with us, and our relationship with them.

Changes on any one of these two relationships (and with ourselves) affect the dynamics of the other as well. This makes it worthwhile to work on our relationship even with someone who is not there (departed, absent or ended relationship).

You may not be able to change your parents, but you may shift how you relate to them, which in turn has an impact on how they see you. This change seems to be disconcerting to them. There is also a period of adaptation. I understand there is a work of grief, acceptance and forgiveness, and maybe a decision of distancing if needed. But one has to also appreciate when their parents are still alive and discussions can still happen in the physical realm. If both are still here, treating them as separate beings (not just together, as your parents) and spending time alone with each of them separately could help.

Your escapist reaction to emotions resonates with me. There is an East sub to tend to...

I may have a suggestion on a self-guided (or otherwise) therapy, but I'm a bit reluctant to share in the open at this stage... Need more time to experience it myself. Maybe in PM.

In the MMG and here, I see you as someone with good communication and relational skills, both individually and in a group, and it is inspiring to see you aren't settling for something merely functional but look to further refine and deepen your social presence. More advanced work, and more power to you.

I have noticed that you often speak in terms of social groups, sometimes a bit in the abstract, but I'm thinking some worth-to-meet people might not necessarily be found in bands and groups. For instance, I much prefer one on one interactions for developing deeper more personal connections (although I'll admit an initial group setting is often helpful). What's your take on this, groups vs individuals?
Last edited by OutOfTheBlue on Sun Mar 05, 2023 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Thanks for your thoughtful post, @OutOfTheBlue. These are all excellent observations and give me a lot to consider.
OutOfTheBlue wrote:
Sun Mar 05, 2023 6:54 pm
Another thing that striked me lately from Gallegos was when he answered that we tend to see our relationships as this one, unified thing, but that they are actually two relationships going on: their relationship with us, and our relationship with them.

Changes on any one of these two relationships (and with ourselves) affect the dynamics of the other as well. This makes it worthwhile to work on our relationship even with someone who is not there (departed, absent or ended relationship).

You may not be able to change your parents, but you may shift how you relate to them, which in turn has an impact on how they see you. This change seems to be disconcerting to them. There is also a period of adaptation. I understand there is a work of grief, acceptance and forgiveness, and maybe a decision of distancing if needed. But one has to also appreciate when their parents are still alive and discussions can still happen in the physical realm. If both are still here, treating them as separate beings (not just together, as your parents) and spending time alone with each of them separately could help.
This is very true. As we change as people, it changes our relationship with others, who in turn may be changed by that relationship. I do think this is true of my parents. They are not bad people, but it's a hard transition to deal with your child going in a different direction, as the parent/child relationship is a very primal one. I do think they will eventually come around. It's a growth opportunity for everyone.

I also see social forces beyond myself and them acting between us as I try to change. My parents came of age in a world that no longer exists. Utah in the 1960s is not Denver in the 2020s. As I try to reinvent myself for this contemporary area, the forces I am trying to adapt to now fundamentally conflict with 1960s Utah. This is creating conflict.

What I have realized is we are all the product of contradictions in the world that created us, both me and my parents and everyone else in this world. Those contradictions cause conflict, internal or external. The more we try to fight these contradiction and force other people, ourselves, or our relationships into a Kegan3 box, the more unhappiness we experience. But merely accepting we are all contradictions without a need to need to fight each other over our differences can be liberating.
OutOfTheBlue wrote:
Sun Mar 05, 2023 6:54 pm
Your escapist reaction to emotions resonates with me. There is an East sub to tend to...
There very likely is. I need to pick up my Plotkin practice again. Plotkin is very grounded in nature, which I am increasingly finding is important because the social world is inherently unreal a la Plato's Cave. You have to translate for the Cave to connect to others, but nature-based practices like Plotkin stop you from getting stuck there.
OutOfTheBlue wrote:
Sun Mar 05, 2023 6:54 pm
I may have a suggestion on a self-guided (or otherwise) therapy, but I'm a bit reluctant to share in the open at this stage... Need more time to experience it myself. Maybe in PM.
I am always open to insight, although I totally understand if you want to withhold for your privacy. It's the same reason why I am somewhat ambiguous in these posts sometimes.
OutOfTheBlue wrote:
Sun Mar 05, 2023 6:54 pm
In the MMG and here, I see you as someone with good communication and relational skills, both individually and in a group, and it is inspiring to see you aren't settling for something merely functional but look to further refine and deepen your social presence. More advanced work, and more power to you.

I have noticed that you often speak in terms of social groups, sometimes a bit in the abstract, but I'm thinking some worth-to-meet people might not necessarily be found in bands and groups. For instance, I much prefer one one one interactions for developing deeper more personal connections (although I'll admit an initial group setting is often helpful). What's your take on this, groups vs individuals?
The primary reason I speak of social groups in the abstract is again for privacy reasons and also to avoid politics. I have also been trying to cultivate the habit of making conscious whatever Kegan3 milieu I am interacting with because it is my hope that awareness is going to bring me closer to Kegan5. I want to get to the point where I can synthesize a group culture to reflect the rapidly changing times we live in, and so becoming aware of the history/culture of a given milieu is very helpful.

That being said, I do agree that I prefer one-on-one interactions as well. One-on-one interactions tend to avoid intragroup petty political dynamics, which is why I think introverts often enjoy them more.

But an observation I've had while interacting with so many different groups and watching how I act inside those groups is that people significantly change between the groups they are in. Adding even a single person to an existing social group can seriously change the group dynamic, and not always for the better.

I have also noticed that I change depending on who I am with or what I am doing. This has been really fascinating to observe as I've gotten better at mindfulness. It's like different groups or environments will bring out different facets of myself. This is part of the reason I've talked so much about the empty nature of the self because what I've slowly realized is that there isn't an "authentic" me devoid from context because context often expresses itself through myself and others depending on the group that I'm in. I am trying to make conscious the exact factors that cause certain dynamics in the hopes it broadens my leadership abilities and deepens by Kegan development.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Mid-Month Update

Depression
Had to spend the last two weeks basically getting on top of the depression again. I am increasingly just seeing depression as a chronic medical condition that I have to manage, which helps me avoid catastrophizing about it. Really the key with managing it is to just stay on top of my lifestyle. I started to get behind on sleep last month, which caused me to skip exercising, skip healthy meals, etc and the whole thing just spiraled until I was able to get back on top of my sleep. This is incredibly annoying because I basically have to live a perfect healthy lifestyle or I struggle to function, but it is what it is. I also think in your 30s, you start to run into consequences for poor bad lifestyle choices more than you did in your 20s, so I'm just trying to look at it as an opportunity to optimize my health.

My plan for this is to get a really solid healthy living routine so that I am doing the things I need to do on autopilot and they don't consume mental bandwidth, and I want to do this before I keep trying to push myself out of my comfort zone because otherwise I end up in a cycle of overdoing it then crashing.

Internal Work
I know I've written on here before about how I feel broken/unable to be myself a lot, and I think I made significant progress getting past this mental block by realizing it just does not matter how I feel. Depression is a difficult mental health condition because it drags you inward and makes you only focus on yourself when you feel terrible, and getting out of depression requires you get out of yourself.

And what I realized here is that it just literally does not matter how I feel, who I am, or what I do in the grand scheme of the world. I, as a single individual, have very little influence over anything in the world. In addition, many of the factors that overdetermine my life (my race, gender, physical health, socioeconomic class, sexuality, ect) are things I did not choose. So it is extremely pointless to be wasting any kind of mental energy worrying about any of this because I don't control it and the fact I prefer short hair is completely irrelevant to the state of the world.

What does matter, however, is that I get outside of myself and start to care about something more important than me along side people that I actually care about. I think this is why going to all these meetup groups has been unfulfilling and felt like a waste of time because you are just hanging out with randos you don't care about and who don't care about you at a bar.

I think most people solve the problem of "I need to care about something" with having kids, but I just don't see myself ever getting married or having kids because I just don't want that nor have I ever wanted it, and I just do not see my core values changing. So the default option here is off the table, but it nonetheless is a problem I need to solve.

So what I'm doing is picking something to care about then I'm going to go try and find people to do something about this problem with. The issue I have decided to care about is the fact humanity is driving the planet off a cliff, and finding people to do something about this with is my new goal. Incidentally, I do think this is why I've had better luck making many good friends from this forum than at the bar because people here tend to share core values.

Now obviously this is a pretty broad strategy, and I'm going to have a lot of details to work out, but at least this points me in a direction where I can start taking action instead of being paralyzed by nihilism.

I'm also trying to get past the avoidant attachment style, which is going to take time but at least I can recognize the problem. I think a combination of doing loving kindness meditation everyday plus trying to view relationships through the lens of service is going to help. Again, I need to internalize that relationships are not about ME, they are about service/interdependence.

Travel
I planned a trip to Las Vegas with some friends for my birthday, and after that I am planning a road trip through New Mexico/Arizona to visit @grundomatic. I am excited for both of these trips, and I will post updates of the stuff I see/do in this journal.

Writing
My creative work has fallen a bit because I have been focusing on the internal work/lifestyle stuff, but I really want to dig back into this soon. I have still been chipping away at my novel, and I have a much clearer idea of the characters/history, but there is nevertheless still a lot of work to do.

Work
I've decided that I'm staying at this job while it remains easy and while the economy is in a downturn, but if either of those conditions change, I am probably going to just quit and attempt actual FI. This job really is the perfect job where I only work 3-4 hours a day fully remote and make ~$140k a year, but it is nevertheless still a job and it still consumes mental bandwidth/overdetermines my lifestyle. I also think I make too much money and it's making me complacent. Trying to shift my mindset here to actually quitting is going to help me start being frugal again and free up time/energy to focus on what I care about.

7Wannabe5
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

AE wrote:What does matter, however, is that I get outside of myself and start to care about something more important than me along side people that I actually care about.
I'm sorry to hear you've been suffering from depression. I frequently think about the factoid that women with 7 or more kids are least likely group to commit suicide. It's not the case that devoting yourself to the care of your children eliminates the possibility of unhappiness. It just changes it from likelihood of nihilistic depression to likelihood of "I haven't had a moment to myself for 5 days. I am so tired. Why did I bake those cookies? I am so fat. Please stop crying. Please stop hitting your sister!" IOW, it tilts the lifestyle pinball machine towards likelihood that you won't have the time/energy to provide yourself with basic self-care. OTOH, it's rare to have a thought along the lines of "It doesn't matter what I do." when there is always work right there in front of your face in the form of somebody waddling around with a diaper full of poo or literally tossing wads of paper at you, because you are trying to read a book and not giving them enough attention.

Most modern and post-modern humans are going to spend only a portion of their adult-life caring for their children. So, most of us have to come up with other ways to devote our caring energies. For instance, I purposefully chose to take up gardening after my kids were beyond infancy (age 6.) One good thing about plant babies is if you accidentally leave them locked in a hot car, your guilt-trip will be strictly limited.

My point here being that I'm not sure whether it is the "meaningfulness" of caring for something outside of yourself that combats nihilistic depression. It might be more the concrete immediacy of the situation. So, I'm not sure that caring for "the planet" is at the right scale, unless rendered into a more concrete immediate problem/project or set of problems/projects with at least the possibility of intermittent feeling of success analogous to "Everybody is fed and bathed and tucked into their cribs. NOW I can get back to reading that book. "

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2023 1:01 pm
I frequently think about the factoid that women with 7 or more kids are least likely group to commit suicide. It's not the case that devoting yourself to the care of your children eliminates the possibility of unhappiness. It just changes it from likelihood of nihilistic depression to likelihood of "I haven't had a moment to myself for 5 days. I am so tired. Why did I bake those cookies? I am so fat. Please stop crying. Please stop hitting your sister!"
This is a good perspective, and I agree. Sometimes being forced down the hierarchy of needs can be mistaken as a "solution" to "depression" because you don't really have time to worry about yourself or your own problems when the world is on fire. This does not mean it fixes the problem, however. It only shows that living a genuinely fulfilling and intentional life is a much harder problem to solve than putting out immediate fires.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2023 1:01 pm
My point here being that I'm not sure whether it is the "meaningfulness" of caring for something outside of yourself that combats nihilistic depression. It might be more the concrete immediacy of the situation. So, I'm not sure that caring for "the planet" is at the right scale, unless rendered into a more concrete immediate problem/project or set of problems/projects with at least the possibility of intermittent feeling of success analogous to "Everybody is fed and bathed and tucked into their cribs. NOW I can get back to reading that book. "
My perspective on the "meaningfulness" question is more that when you crawl into the upper middle class, it becomes extremely easy to insulate yourself from the rest of the world because you have the relative money and privilege to do so. In this environment, you can become hyperfocused on your own needs and your own emotional turmoil while also losing touch with the rest of the world. I think this is also an environment where failure to live up to social standards is more highly punished. So you end up swimming around in circles through Plato's Cave without realizing this game just does not matter.

So what I want to do here is somehow get out of this simulated upper middle class reality and reconnect with other people/the world around me. The way I'd describe it is that I continually feel like there's three inches of plexiglass between me and the rest of the world. One way to get on the other side of the plexiglass is to find a common cause based in a real need with other people, so that's a direction I want to experiment with.

It is absolutely true though that "saving the planet" is a very vague and impossible goal. I'd like to translate that onto a local level either by getting involved in local politics again, building something the community can actually use, finding a way to serve others, etc.

OutOfTheBlue
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by OutOfTheBlue »

@AnalyticalEngine,

There are some things I like a lot about what you say above.

One is awareness. You're seeing yourself enter a depressive state. When it first occurred, I didn't know what was happening to me. There were some tell tell signs and previous latent states, but I just slipped into it, unknowingly. Awareness means you can respond to this early.

Another is your wanting to get back/reestablish the virtual circle of a healthy lifestyle. This is partly a call for better self-care and doubling down on nutritious food and exercise is a great way to respond to this.

Yet another, is your idea of caring for the world as an outward direction and therapeutic practice.

As Bill Plotkin references, "psychologist James Hillman proposed that offering yourself in service to the world can be more therapeutic than anything that could happen in a therapist’s office (James Hillman and Michael Ventura, WeVe Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy — and the World’s Getting Worse),"

But there are a few things I don't necessary agree with.

For instance, I don't see how seeing depression as a case of chronic medical condition is helpful. Personally, I don't want to see/label myself as a depressive person. It is not that I reject my sensitivity, but do not wish to make an identity out of it. For me, overidentifying would make it harder to free myself from such a perspective.

At the same time, depression (or in this case, the preliminary state you may be in) is trying to tell you something. And while it helps to also see/move outward, I suggest that you listen more closely to what it is trying to say.

Seeing what you feel or are as meaningless* "in the grand scheme of things" may be a symptom of a disconnected worldview.

By contrast, imagine you see yourself as belonging (and being indigenous) to the world, with a deep sense of interdependence, of being an integral part and a full member of the whole. Your importance derives from uniqueness and interconnectedness. If the world is in a sorry state and broken, and this rightly causes grief, then the best you can offer requires you to go towards becoming whole (unbroken) yourself.

Maybe you don't need to "manage your depression" as a chronic crippling illness, in the same way you don't need to manage your emotions by silencing them with your intellect or refusing to listen to them.

I hear what you say about often feeling broken/unable to be yourself and that you've made significant progress getting past this mental block by realizing it just does not matter how you feel.

But I feel compelled to recall a long quote from Plotkin's Wild Mind on depression:
Bill Plotkin wrote:Our subpersonalities of the North, East, and West may be able to “manage” the somatically and psychologically undigested emotions of our Wounded Children of the South — to suppress, deflect, or defuse these emotions. The catch, however, is this: Managed emotions are not digested emotions, and emotional digestion is what we need in order to continue developing psychologically. Managing an emotion can temporarily shield us from the pain of experiencing it or from the wrath and rejection of others reacting to how we might otherwise act it out, but this “protection” disqualifies us from benefiting somatically from the emotion or from learning — through the four-step emotional digestion cycle — about ourselves, our relationships, and our world. In contrast, the 3-D Ego, by way of the resources of the Self, possesses all the capacities we need to maintain good relationships with our own emotions and with other people (and other species and the animate Earth more generally).

The essential point is this: managed emotions result in depression.

For me, the most precise definition of depression is a bad case of suppressed emotions, emotions that have been managed instead of being felt, digested, understood, assimilated, and acted on in a way that preserves and improves our relationships. When a person is depressed in this way, she has a significant backload of undigested feelings piled up behind an inner dam, blocking the natural flow of her psyche and her life. If this blockage becomes severe or prolonged, her physical and psychological vitality will grind to a halt. She’ll become sluggish, “vegetative,” and quite possibly suicidal.

What the depressed person needs is to feel more, not less. This highlights the disastrous consequences of thinking of depression as a bad case of sadness, with the implication that the cure is to feel less sad. Such a prescription is exactly wrong. If a person is depressed because of a backload of unassimilated sadness (it could be a backload of any number of emotions), then what she needs is to fully feel her sadness, to grieve wildly. Any “psychotherapeutic intervention” that would try to talk her out of her grief, distract her from it, or suppress it with psychopharmacology would just make her depression worse, and certainly would not be therapeutic. Rather, it would result in the same sort of emotional suppression or repression that her subpersonalities have been employing all along. This kind of “therapy” perpetrates an iatrogenic (doctor-caused) depression on top of her intrapsychic one.
This is not the whole picture, and depression can come from other aspects as well, and you can see if something else is at play here as well. In a related footnote, he states that:
Bill Plotkin wrote:There are actually four kinds of depression, four varieties of obstructed human nature:
      •   South: blocked emotions
      •   West: blocked access to meaning, imagination, inspiration, or life purpose
      •   North: blocked ability to creatively manifest life purpose (for example, writer’s block)
      •   East: blocked capacity for present-centeredness, humor, or a big-picture perspective, or a blocked relationship to Spirit
The kind of depression discussed in this chapter is the South variety.
On that note, while I intended to wait a bit, I will share with you (and maybe our Writing Fiction MMG, before doing so later in public) a therapeutic approach that can be done alone (or with guidance) and could help towards wholing and healing (in combination with Plotkin's work), but also with reclaiming imagination and feeling as essential "windows of knowing" (which, in the case of imagination, can also be a boon for writing).

I fully support you in your inner work, and it does not have to be at odds with a movement towards others and the world. Both ways support each other.

---

* Which reminds me of that Neil Young quote from On the beach:

"Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away".

This song deeply resonates.

---

Personal note:

My grandmother had a rough childhood. The older one of her siblings, she had to provide for her brothers and sisters and in many ways replace her own failing mother. She learned to be strong. She had to. She also went on and raised four children of her own, and when she lost her husband, she still dedicated herself to volunteering and cheerfully being of service. At the same time, she refused to herself (and others) the privilege of expressing much emotionality, woundedness, vulnerability and weakness. Many old people have learned to be like that, possibly to survive. How many war or abuse survivors don't speak of the past? Around her, one felt they had no "right" to feel bad, when so many people had it far worse around the world.

My depression was brewing, when, that Christmas, I went with the train for a family reunion. Stunningly, my then girlfriend openly warned my grandmother and parents sitting around the table that I was in depression. My grandmother could not relate. Nobody else saw it happen.

I respect busy mothers. I respect the old timers. But the silencing of their wounds has repercussions down the line.

Yes, depression can feel like a luxury or a matter of having too much time on your hands and of being self-centered, but it is also a great invitation and opportunity to be fully present to sorrow and other emotions, and in extension, to our lives. Today, I have the privilege of allowing myself to feel and of working toward wholeness. The healing work is not only for me. It is for all the silence of the past. And hopefully, the fruits will benefit others through my being more fully present, more fully human, more fully aligned with and capable of expressing my gifts.

I want to say, no more silencing. no more ignoring or burying.

Feeling has a voice. Listen to it. It is beautiful.
Last edited by OutOfTheBlue on Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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grundomatic
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by grundomatic »

F*cking depression. Mine also told me that nothing I did mattered. It's a lie, though. You do matter.

ertyu
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by ertyu »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2023 4:14 pm
Sometimes being forced down the hierarchy of needs can be mistaken as a "solution" to "depression"
I have caught myself doing this to myself subconsciously, mostly by making dumb investing decisions (money disappears from stash and i must therefore keep working) and by making dumb employment decisions, thus keeping me in a state of immediate-responding-to-external-demands and low-grade exhaustion. Provided here as a data point.

My depression prefers, "there are no roads i see where, by taking them, you end up happy. happiness is for other people" over "nothing you do matters." What also blows is that depression has this way of making you feel like by seeing the hopelessness and despair in everything, you're seeing deeply into the true nature of life -- so thoughts like the above can be incredibly compelling.

tl;dr: +1 to fuck depression and strength to anyone who needs to manage it

ertyu
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by ertyu »

OutOfTheBlue wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:12 pm

I respect busy mothers. I respect the old timers. But the silencing of their wounds has repercussions down the line.
reminds me of this dude who recorded himself after his therapy session, in tears in his car, saying something along the lines of, "there's something about us, the first generation that takes the time to deal with intergenerational trauma. yes, i understand my parents had it hard. yes, i understand their parents were shitty, too. but at the same time, if my father had done this, i could have had a dad."

7Wannabe5
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

A wise older INFP friend of mine once observed that some types draw energy from "gazing into the abyss" and other types (ENTP me) lose energy by that practice. INF's are better able to transform their "negative" emotions into art or activism than other types. INT's are better able to transform their pessimistic thoughts into productive accomplishment than other types.

My first marriage was to a dysthymic musician type. Every other intimate conversation we had over the course of our 20 years together was on the topic of his dysfunctional family of origin. For the sake of the kids, somebody had to be the happy one, so that was me. Our dichotomy became so pronounced, at one point he admitted to me that he no longer wanted to have sex with me, because he was envious about the fact that I enjoyed it more than him. My more positive perspective could never be as valid as his negative perspective, because clearly I was just distracting myself from all the horrors of the world. Like many artistic types, he was also physically attractive and stylish. Near the end of our relationship, I mentioned that I had always found his laugh to be engaging, and he replied "Thank you, I practiced it." For some reason, this clear revelation of his essential vanity is what finally tipped me over from my own functional depressive mode of guilt-transformed-into-slow-motion-duty into enough-anger-to-dump-his-ass.

We're actually on fairly friendly terms now. Recently he sent me a 20 years overdue mortgage fee refund check made out to both of us with a note that said "I think this is all yours." ,and I my thought was "Yup." as I cashed it.

(Just trying to lend the stiff-upper-lip grandma perspective some depth here.)

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

@OutOfTheBlue - This is all really interesting stuff and gave me a lot to think about. I appreciate challenging my perspective on emotion because that brought to light a lot of internal behaviors I could improve. I did grow up in a very emotionally repressed environment due to Mormonism and my parent's parenting style. I'm starting to realize that I do try to control how I feel a lot and I'd probably have better luck learning to embody my emotions per Plotkin instead of just managing them. I think a mix of just accepting my internal state/emotions but trying to change behavior/my environment may lead to better success.

You're also right on the risk of making depression an identity. This is something I've seen an uptick in society lately and I don't think it's helpful. Depression isn't an identity and it's not even an objective medical condition. It's just a cluster of symptoms that can respond to certain triggers or behaviors. Proper diet, exercise, etc is half the battle and the other half is learning to navigate your internal emotional life, which is why things like trauma, childhood parenting style, etc can all make it worse.

I know my depression manifests a lot as low energy, escapism, and letting self-care slip. I used to fall into these periods without recognition before, but I am much better at noticing my triggers and managing it now than I used to be.
ertyu wrote:
Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:26 am
My depression prefers, "there are no roads i see where, by taking them, you end up happy. happiness is for other people" over "nothing you do matters." What also blows is that depression has this way of making you feel like by seeing the hopelessness and despair in everything, you're seeing deeply into the true nature of life -- so thoughts like the above can be incredibly compelling.
I relate strongly to both of those experiences. It is incredible easy to mistake depression for insight, and I think that's because depression has this ability to suck you inward and ignore anything that might challenge the worldview. It's incredibly insidious. My depression also has a tendency to replace genuine emotion with ruminating, where I just end up rehashing something endlessly without actually processing it. Part of the reason journaling has been so helpful for me is I start to see what actually is just ruminating vs what is a genuine pattern/emotion.

@grundomatic - I appreciate the support and my condolences you've gone through the same thing. Keeping in mind that it is a lie is very important.

@7W5 - Interesting perspective on how temperament might change the "looking into the abyss" experience. I think introverts may be more prone to existential depression and extroverts are more prone to "acting out" their distress. I will say, having every intimate conversation you have with a partner be about a dysfunctional background/mental health is a huge, HUGE mistake I've made in basically all my relationships (romantic and friendship) for the past 10+ years. I'm starting to see that "trauma dumping" as the kids call it can feel like genuine intimacy when it's not, and it's a characteristic in new friendships I am trying to avoid.

-----------------------

I ended up redirecting most of my energy this week from other hobbies/social stuff toward getting my diet, exercise, and sleep back on track, which made a huge difference and I am feeling better now. I have found that eating 3 meals a day of mostly vegetables (intermittent fasting does not work for me at all), getting 9+ hours of sleep, and vigorous exercise 4+ times has to be a non-negotiable part of my life.

I also spent a lot of time journaling and reflecting and came to the realization there is literally no reason I can't just go live whatever life I want right now, social, career, or otherwise. If I want to express myself a certain way, I can just go do it. If I want specific friends, I can just go make them. If I want to move, I can literally just go move.

I was caught up with this idea of myself as being """too weird""" that I think was largely a fabrication. And even if """being normal""" is somehow a value, all I have to do is """act normal""" if that's what I REALLY want. My social skills/etc are all totally fine, and given that, I don't think anyone really cares if I have short hair or write historical military fiction. But once you adopt this identity of """too weird,""" it sabotages you from even trying, which is a trap I think I was falling into.

Anyway, I think managing my healthy lifestyle and then just continually trying to walk the walk with ERE is going to be the key. And then in terms of friends, I think I'm just going to actively seek FI-type people and ignore bar-friends because I have found FI-adjacent people to be easiest to relate to with their values, hobbies, etc.

Jin+Guice
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Jin+Guice »

I'm sorry to hear you are struggling with depression.

I've had a life long struggle with depression, though it hasn't effected my conscious thoughts for a long time. Depression, or perhaps at this point I view it more as the accumulation of emotional and social trauma (defined as therapists use it), has a pernicious way of infecting the subconscious long after being vanquished from consciousness. I also find it necessary to keep a watchful eye on the horizon, as once depression is present, it can always come back.


IMO, depression, as well as many other heavily medicated psychological conditions is a reaction to modernity. We have created a word of great material comfort, yet left ourselves physiologically, emotionally and socially bankrupt, disconnected from ourselves, each other, our communities and our natural environment. Add to that a constant stream of information and artificial emotional stimuli as well as several other factors separating us from the conditions the human body was designed for, and well, my theory is, anxiety, depression and ADHD are some of the results.

Not much one can do to escape from modernity, which does also have its advantages. If your view is that we live in the age of the pinnacle of human existence, where the vast majority of societies winner spend most of their resources and energy sitting staring at screens in desperate competition to create ads to get the other winners to click and buy this or that product, then depression can feel like an entitlement. I personally don't think this time or culture is that much better or worse than any other, each had their problems and each their advantages. From that vantage point, depression is simply an obvious symptom of the way we've chosen to live for the past few hundred years.

Past a basic survival level, getting more material wealth doesn't correlate super well with making people happier. So why would anything beyond necessities correlate with solving depression? Despite our constant insistence to the contrary, material wealth and economic capital is what we are absolutely fantastic at. Emotional, social, communal and environmental capital... pretty much totally vacant. I know this is a wild proposition, but maybe living in a world where you are entitled to an iphone but not to love, understanding, compassion, friendship and sense of belonging and purpose means living in a world where depression is an inevitability and not a luxury.



Anywho, here are the things that have helped me deal with depression:

Sleep: Fucking sleep. This is an absolute must. If I'm tired I know that I cannot trust my emotions, which will usually turn against me. My sole emotional goal is to get to bed before making decisions based on tired emotions if I'm under slept.

Exercise: I am personally a running addict. I refer to running as my anti-depressants. If I haven't run in three or more days I am almost certain to fall into despair. Other forms of exercise are also useful, but medium distance running is the most effective mentally for me.

Other physical factors: Are you hungry? Are you getting laid? Do you need to go on a walk? Do you need to breath some fresh air? How are you not physically taking care of yourself and what are you doing to change it today?

I realize depression ties into not physically taking care of yourself, which is a death spiral. In the world of modernity, maintaining physical health is a task that most people fall short on. Don't beat yourself up, but do take this seriously as a step to becoming unrepressed.

Stay in the present: This is important for several reasons, but I'm going to use it to talk about physical health above. Ate bad yesterday? Eat well today. Didn't life yesterday? Lift today. Didn't rest enough yesterday? Rest today. I rarely hit all of the categories above as hard as I try to, yet I am still in the best physical and mental shape of my life, despite being older today than I have been on any other single day of my life.

Allow yourself to exist: So simple, yet so difficult. Personally I don't believe in any absolute morality. There is nothing you "should" do. It does not matter. Imo, all morality is relational, which means basically everything can wait until tomorrow. This is useful for me bc I almost always put too much on my plate. It allows me to forgive myself if I don't do something that I was "supposed to." Generally the authority I am answering too is me of the recent past, who is an utter and absolute tyrant and bully.

Pay attention to your emotions: How are you feeling when you are depressed? Is it a spiral into an abyss? The feeling of nothingness. Personally I love to dissociate, so depression for me is dissociating. What is it for you? Why do you think you feel that way?

Pay attention to your energy levels: What makes you feel energized and motivated? What makes you feel sluggish and demotivated? Is there a way to do more of the former and less of the latter?

Subconscious/ Shadow work: What are your triggers? What is the darkness that resides in your subconscious from past trauma? I've found viewing these components as another person, using the Jungian concept of the shadow-self to be very useful. What is your shadow self like? What do they enjoy doing? How can you accept and integrate these things into your conscious mind? Warning: This is a bitch to do. The shadow-self likes to fight back and they are usually a motherfucker.

shaz
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by shaz »

It sounds like you are doing a good job of figuring out what it takes to keep yourself healthy.

One side of my family is very prone to depression and I have battled it myself. My take on depression is that it is fundamentally a brain chemistry problem that can feel like negative emotions and can be triggered or exacerbated by negative emotions but is actually a physical problem.

Things that are important for me personally to fend off depression, roughly in order of most important to less important:
1. Sunlight
2. Exercise
3. Sleep
4. Healthy diet
5. Avoiding prolonged stress
6. Avoiding alcohol

If I get those right, I may feel sadness, or grief, or loneliness, or deal with unresolved traumas, but I won't fall into the sucking black pit of depression.

Jin+Guice
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Jin+Guice »

I spent the last few days reading your whole journal.

It looks like you know way more about Jung's work than I do.



While I still recommend thinking about all of the things I wrote above for depression, I have some notes now that I've read your journal.

MOVE!

There are several places in your journal where you talk about how difficult it is to make friends in your 30s. I'm in my 30s and I meet new people and make new friends all the time. I don't think this would be true if I lived in a conservative suburb of Denver.

I don't think you are living near likeminded people. Who wants to fucking drive to everything? It's awful. No wonder you are depressed, sitting in your house alone all day and then driving around all night, hanging out with people who don't get you.

MOVE!!!!!


You have been contemplating quitting your job for a long time. You talk about it a lot.

You personally have my dream job, easy mode work from home full-time, that you finish in half the time allotted and are paid handsomely for. I will note that you often talk about how kush this job is, then talk about how much energy it actually drains from you. 4 hours of focused sitting energy is a lot of focused sitting energy. Don't let some asshats guilt trip you into thinking that just bc you are making a bunch of easy money, that sitting around doing something boring and energy depleting for 4 hours a day 5 days a week is somehow great. It's not. It blows. It's the devil you know, and maybe you accept that devil for now, but don't thank that arrogant son of a bitch!

Are you actually going to be able to write after that or not really? Could you write every other day? What kind of financial shape are you in doing this for another 1-2 years? Could you go part-time? Do you for sure need to say "fuck it" and quit today to feel alive again? These are the questions I would be asking myself in your shoes. After I moved cities, of course!

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

@J+G, @shaz - Thanks for your tips with depression. I agree with what both of you said. I've come to see managing depression as a mix of self-care and also learning to take your own emotions seriously/learning to recognize them and act on them in a healthy way. Depression is better described as paralysis more than sadness, and dealing with that often requires multiple inputs.

@J+G - I agree with you 100%. I need to move. I've gotten so complacent in my current environment because it's the path of least resistance, but I have realized there's just no future for me here. I try to think about 10 or 20 years in the future. When I'm 52, will I have wanted to live in the same depressing suburb that entire time? Or will I have wanted to put myself out there, taken risks, and actually experienced the full extent of my life?

I've had a lot of complex, competing priorities, such as finding a more interesting career, making new friends, getting in shape, writing the novel, and moving. The fact I've tried to do too much at worse has been hindering the moving efforts.

But I think you're right. My problems are so location dependent that I should probably move first then worry about all of those other things after I've moved. It doesn't really make sense to make my life perfect then move because location is basically the foundation of your lifestyle.

What I'm going to do then is prioritize moving and then take these steps.
1. Road trip around Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona
2. Pick a city to move to
3. Get rid of all my shit (harder than you think when you've lived in the same spot for 8 years and bought a lot of items you could sell for $50-$100 each and feel bad about getting rid of or feel like you need to sell them)
4. Rent out my condo (I'm hiring a property manager so I don't get bogged down on this forever)
5. Move to new city into a short term rental
6. Now if I hate new city, moving somewhere else is 100x easier. The biggest thing is I've dumped my location liabilities and would find future moves easier

Then at this point, I can worry about all the other goals I have, like writing my novel or becoming fit or even dealing with my career. Because while I don't love my job, I think my location is the bigger problem.

Jin+Guice
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Jin+Guice »

Wait. You living in the suburb that you grew up in?!? The one where your parents tried to force you to be a Mormon?!?

I would highly recommend you prioritize moving.

Unless you're running a very small homestead, the suburbs are shit for ERE anyway.

I used to be an unhappy person. I know the exact date that changed. It was October 1, 2009. That's the day I stopped living in the suburbs and moved to a city. I had no idea that would be the key for me, it was complete luck. I think we under estimate how important location is to our happiness.

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:51 am
Then at this point, I can worry about all the other goals I have, like writing my novel or becoming fit or even dealing with my career. Because while I don't love my job, I think my location is the bigger problem.
I agree you should focus on moving first, but I'm not sure putting fitness and what you feel called to do on pause until then is a good idea. Can you work out and write for 30 minutes a day each? How about one for 30 minutes one day the other for 30 minutes the next? Or just ten minutes of writing? And be nice to yourself when you're busy or tired and miss a day?

I have a friend who's trying to publish a novel and he writes for 30 minutes to 2 hours each day, missing several days a week. We do writing sprints together with my roommate sometimes. He just got several short stories accepted to various magazines.



I forgot to mention one other thing in the above post. I think you are in the WL5 trap. This trap is very comfortable, but it sucks. It's not fun or sexy. WL6+ is fun and sexy.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

I'm from Utah originally but my dad was in the army when I was growing up so we moved around a lot. Colorado is where his final assignment was and I just ended up staying here. I do live by my parents, however, and this is a significant part of my current problem because my relationship with them is, as you might imagine, not the most healthy. Part of the reason I want to move is to escape family.

That is good to hear though you've enjoyed living in the city. I think it will be significant for my quality of life. No offense to the suburbs, but where I live is primarily populated by people who want to keep to themselves and stay inside their million dollar houses. It's really not very good for ERE or meeting people.

That is also true on writing/exercise. I can squeeze it in, and while it's no full-steam-ahead focus on a single project, it won't be a complete standstill either. Still I think I need to moving up to the top of my priority list because moving tasks are currently what keep falling through my to do list presently.

I'm definitely stuck in the WL5 trap. I even think about that with my easy job. Yes, I am making the most money for the least effort, but another job might tie more of my goals together even if I get paid less.

Jin+Guice
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Jin+Guice »

Based on what you’ve said, I would treat moving as a crisis response. I would also guess that it’s a major cause of your depression.

The day my life went from being a wasteland of despair to slowly improving was the day I moved away from my hometown and parents…. sadly to another suburb, but at least in offered reprieve from my family.

Anywho, good luck on moving, I look forward to hearing about where you chose. Lmk if you want to visit New Orleans.

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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by jacob »

Being temperamentally and memetically compatible with one's environs is one less problem/kind of misery to resolve.
I suggest reading this: https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations ... 0143122029 et al.

There are two ways to expend one's energy to solve this problem:
1) Try to become the person who can fit in everywhere. (Easier if you're closer to the middle.)
2) Explore the world to find your best fit. (Easier if you're an outlier.)

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