If you're feeling depressed don't read this!

[Cognisant]

So I've just read this:
http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/938070?pool_id=3659

Ah that brought me back to some dark places, it feels nostalgic to once again wander in this cold dusty corner of my brain although I'm well aware that I'm not really getting the full experiance, it's just a memory of pain not the actual thing. Btw with the warning in the title I was referring to this thread not the doujinshi specifically because while I'm not depressed I'd like to discuss the sort of philosophical musings one has while in that frame of mind. If you are currently feeling depressed (be honest with yourself) please for your own sake don't read any further because dwelling on such things is just going to make you even more depressed.

Sometime depression is really just the realisation of uncomfortable truths, in the doujinshi Marisa was incredibly driven to make something of herself and this determination drove her mad when she couldn't forgive herself for giving up. Personally I would have found the story more relateable if she had been torn between her drive to succeed and the very sane realisation that she'd be happier if she just settled for a normal human life.

After deciding what one wants to do with one's life (if indeed you ever decide at all) that conflict between striving and the self inflicted misery it causes seems to typically be the next big problem. After that you begin to second guess where your motivation is coming from, to access the motivation to continue after you know for a fact that you want to give up one has to resort to a kind of madness but the problem is you know this is madness and it's only sane to be concerned by it.

Finally there is fatalism, the visceral realisation of futility, not that you can't succeed but rather even if you do it dosen't matter and considering that every minute passed is a minute forever lost that is a very sane thing, after all striving for greatness (whatever it may be) is essentially the pursuit of happiness, some sense of self satisfaction or the acquisition of praise, or at least it was...

But then again how does one live without something to strive for?
To have goals to strive for is so very comforting I couldn't imagine how anyone could live without them, even if it's futile, even if it costs more happiness than it brings just having a reason to live, a purpose, can be enough to prevent you doing silly things.

 

[Nick]

How many languages do you know Cognisant?

 

[Cognisant]

English, bad English, C, HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT and I really ought to learn PHP.
Why aren't the translation boxes showing up?
I can speak a little Japanese and read some hiragana but I'm not fluent enough to read it, at best if two people are talking I can get the gist of who/what they're talking about.

 

[Reluctantly]

Well, you could kill yourself and then these are no longer problems. Were you getting towards that?

 

[Cognisant]

No.

I'm actually quite happy at the moment, the doujinshi reminded me of a time when I wasn't and I just wanted to examine those dark thoughts under the light of day, so to speak.

 

[Reluctantly]

After deciding what one wants to do with one's life (if indeed you ever decide at all) that conflict between striving and the self inflicted misery it causes seems to typically be the next big problem. After that you begin to second guess where your motivation is coming from, to access the motivation to continue after you know for a fact that you want to give up one has to resort to a kind of madness but the problem is you know this is madness and it's only sane to be concerned by it.

How'd you deal with this? btw. I'm not sure I ever did. I think deep-down I believe that if I stick things out long enough, striving for things in life will not bring as much self-inflicted misery, if any at all. I guess that's my motivation and in some ways is insane because I don't know if it will become true.

 

[QuickTwist]

This is why I don't try.

 

[Cognisant]

How'd you deal with this?

You think it's all going to be worth it eventually but you're not sure, uncertainty is such a terrible thing and there's really nothing that can be done about it, but still better to try and possibly fail than to regret never trying at all.

 

[The Grey Man]

Uncertainty isn't all bad though, because it produces what I believe you two have just described as being what drives Reluctantly: hope. If we don't know whether things will get better or not, we know that there is a chance they will.

 

[Polaris]

A normal human life is just the current Zeitgeist.

Pretty much it's still mostly about procreation and people finding 'meaning' for themselves as humanity still face the problem of the average human life being too short to be able to learn anything significant about ourselves, our planet, universe and the human race in general.

In order to step ahead of our limitations we must push ourselves beyond the point where most humans give up. That means to rid ourselves of real and imaginary constraints, societal, cultural and technical. The only way to do that is to sacrifice the 'normal', prescribed life for something that may inevitably (and one must be comfortable with the odds that are against one) render one quite isolated and/or alienated in the end. It's the cost of attempting something different or greater than oneself.

There is an immense drive that comes from the origins of repression and constraint. It is the kind of drive that will dismiss every hindrance and bulldoze ahead no matter what; it's a big "Fuck You" to the voices in one's head that keep telling you that it is unattainable or impossible, or that it goes against one's race, gender, religion, whatever bullshit society has instilled into one's psyche.

It's the realisation that one is human precisely because one is capable of pushing through these boundaries -- and there will always, always be other humans there to drag you down to 'normality'.

But, to give up is to give up on one's own humanity.

And even if, by the end, I am sick, exhausted and worn out from the stresses of gaining knowledge at any cost and pushing ahead despite my intuitions, anxieties and programmed limitations, and I realising that what I put in was far more costly than I gained, I will at least know that I didn't fucking give up.

Because I would never forgive myself if I did, and surely there must be something to gain, if not for me, but for others. What I did I did not just do for me; I had humanity in mind as much as I despise most individuals, because I don't blame them for their limitations, for their lives and experiences are limited just like mine.

 

[Nick]

The trick is making your minds default option of feeling something good, supported by an environment you've created.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Interesting thread, reading about Marisa despite not identifying with her had me thinking about my past so I decided to try to articulate what I currently think about motivation and outcomes.

What I consider a difference between a human and the object is that while both begin in some relatively determined form, the object loses its value once it loses its form and the human gains value by changing and reshaping.

Life is a state of struggle with my weaknesses, there are days without change and I don't grieve, but I consider them lost.

I've had periods of depression in my past, where the basic problem was my negative impression of me wasting time or me not being successful despite trying and this was also a part of the larger enviroment I created that was expectant and demanding of a particular kind of behaviour, which I couldn't realistically fulfill.

I've come to accept all three separate states of mind, the giving up, trying and being.
If I can muster enough strenght to be productive this day, that's nice, I want this.
If I fail the other day, well that's what I am now, but I'm not giving up on improving.

In the end I may or may not progress much, it's always relative and I don't want to be the exact same as the greatest people of every discipline I've chosen, but both the process and the progress I've made are satisfying.

It's been a long time since I was depressed and I attribute avoiding it a lot to my acceptance of my ineffectiveness and to the knowledge that I can do something, maybe not as much as I have imagined, but sometimes what I can do goes beyond my imagination in a positive sense.

At any point in time if I were to think who I am, I am the sum of my knowledge and ability, the sum of possible options I have.

 

[StevenM]

A cool video about depression. Perhaps, some things you may not agree with, but also some other interesting points thrown in as well. That is, if you already haven't watched it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eBUcBfkVCo

I like the part starting at around 10:15. He says something about the depressed not with a veil of gloominess, but a veil now taken away, and one can now see the true nature of the world.

Also an interesting phrase: "The truth lies".