Notpocalypse
Further to my last post, the friends I do want to keep close are nearly all in some sort of depressive/emotional crisis. Most of them are externalizing it too, which means they're still in the "the world is objectively terrible and so I have to be emotionally destroyed and nothing can be done" which is-- I mean, that's where it's depression and not the much more manageable grief and feelings about change that one honours and uses to inform one's continued *living*. It's mirrored so similarly in so many people. Folks wrote about the covid mental health crisis months ago but right now it's worse than I've seen it.
In a lot of ways it feels like my society has become a death cult that cannot acknowledge the existence of death or change. It sits there staring at the drain it's circling, waiting to be sucked down, throwing the stopper as far away from itself as it can manage. Everyone wants it to be over but not too many people want to build anything after; they hope that if that dies then the next thing will just happen. Systems that are good for humans don't just happen; they take deliberate organization and work and compromise.
And I've always found the best way to make a change is to add something better to replace the thing I want removed. It's a bit of a permaculture concept too: design for the way that people behave naturally, for the way energy naturally flows, and the system will be more robust. Instead of removing caffeinated drinks from the diet, try adding non-caffeinated drinks you love. Instead of yelling at yourself internally to just put the thing away, make a good spot for it to live close to where it's used. Instead of struggling not to call your mean ex, make a standing date with a friend or friends for the particular time of day when your willpower is lowest. Introduce better things and they will displace the bad things. It just takes a but of thought to know what it is you're seeking in the thing to be replaced, and make sure that your alternative has a way for that need to get satisfied. With that thought up front, the rest just ...flows.
Which is maybe why everything feels like it's dying in my little social sphere. There's so much disassembly and so little building. For all that I live very present with death around me in the systems I manage I am a builder, and I like to contribute to building good systems or, maybe better, supporting folks who build.
Anyhow, in the midst of this I extra appreciate Josh. He's always broken the mold for folks I tend to spend time with and this doesn't seem to be getting to him in the same way it's getting to ...everyone else.
Depression has always been my greatest nemesis: it takes all my friends and loved ones from me year after year after year. They struggle, they resurface, I get them back sometimes but so much is lost. In the past I've promised myself I wouldn't date folks who are prone to depression, or who are prone to depression and who don't have explicit ways of handling it when it comes up other than to numbly wait until it subsides. I hadn't extended that to friends, though, and I guess the above principle still applies: if I'm removing those folks, who am I replacing them with?
But. What I really want, I guess, is folks who can lift their eyes towards something meaningful to them and who find satisfaction? in moving towards it.
As the poem says,
"With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."
In a lot of ways it feels like my society has become a death cult that cannot acknowledge the existence of death or change. It sits there staring at the drain it's circling, waiting to be sucked down, throwing the stopper as far away from itself as it can manage. Everyone wants it to be over but not too many people want to build anything after; they hope that if that dies then the next thing will just happen. Systems that are good for humans don't just happen; they take deliberate organization and work and compromise.
And I've always found the best way to make a change is to add something better to replace the thing I want removed. It's a bit of a permaculture concept too: design for the way that people behave naturally, for the way energy naturally flows, and the system will be more robust. Instead of removing caffeinated drinks from the diet, try adding non-caffeinated drinks you love. Instead of yelling at yourself internally to just put the thing away, make a good spot for it to live close to where it's used. Instead of struggling not to call your mean ex, make a standing date with a friend or friends for the particular time of day when your willpower is lowest. Introduce better things and they will displace the bad things. It just takes a but of thought to know what it is you're seeking in the thing to be replaced, and make sure that your alternative has a way for that need to get satisfied. With that thought up front, the rest just ...flows.
Which is maybe why everything feels like it's dying in my little social sphere. There's so much disassembly and so little building. For all that I live very present with death around me in the systems I manage I am a builder, and I like to contribute to building good systems or, maybe better, supporting folks who build.
Anyhow, in the midst of this I extra appreciate Josh. He's always broken the mold for folks I tend to spend time with and this doesn't seem to be getting to him in the same way it's getting to ...everyone else.
Depression has always been my greatest nemesis: it takes all my friends and loved ones from me year after year after year. They struggle, they resurface, I get them back sometimes but so much is lost. In the past I've promised myself I wouldn't date folks who are prone to depression, or who are prone to depression and who don't have explicit ways of handling it when it comes up other than to numbly wait until it subsides. I hadn't extended that to friends, though, and I guess the above principle still applies: if I'm removing those folks, who am I replacing them with?
But. What I really want, I guess, is folks who can lift their eyes towards something meaningful to them and who find satisfaction? in moving towards it.
As the poem says,
"With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."