FA+
Shop
Depression and Loneliness
12 years ago
General
Stress comes from, and leads to a lot of problems in life. It is my firm belief that anyone capable of rational thought is also capable of understanding logical concepts, and thus are capable of coming to the same conclusion as any other human being given enough time, enough knowledge, sufficient motivation and a way to overcome distractors.
Despite this firm belief, most common signs of stress and depression involve in some way one of these four attributes; Deadlines are stressful because they limit your time, lacking knowledge is stressful because it makes you doubt whether such knowledge is attainable, lack of motivation is perhaps most damming of all as it makes you question the very right you have to exist and makes you fear anything which may disprove your legitimacy of a human being, and finally distractors convince you that your focus is miss-placed by forcing you to think about other things.
In absence of these limitations, the difficulty of any task is meaningless. The search for the last digit of Pi would be trivial if you have infinite time to work it out. If a person did not worry about knowledge they would be more prepared to except contradictory or incomplete information as the best available to make a decision. If a person is driven to strive towards something, as a plant's stems are chemically drawn to grow towards light or our muscles retract from intense sources of heat or pain, then progress will always come eventually. If one has no distractors one is never shaken from their thoughts; never drawn into repetitive cycles of sorrow, anger or doubt.
Of course, in practice this is impossible. You could spend your entire life working on a single story, a single poem, a single piece or art and never perfect it - your effort ultimately futile, falling as time strips the last of your strength. The tolling of a church-bell is a deadline, but perhaps not even the most definite one as a rumbling stomach or parched throat demand attention at regular intervals, or perhaps even the drive for sex or violence could be considered as deadlines - concepts which demand a person take action before the stress becomes too great.
It is an oft-noted truth of learning that the more you know, the more you know you don't know, and this appears universally true. What is, therefore the value of knowledge? There is a good argument to the effect that if knowledge is intrinsically valuable, then ignorance holds a value to. If someone is said to be ignorant in a subject, their knowledge could be said to be objectively less than someone more knowledgeable, but if asked each person were asked how much they did not know the knowledgeable man would live in greater poverty than the ignorant. The only way to sensibly quantify knowledge is to assign a value on what is needed to be known. It is also oft-noted that necessity is the mother of invention, and when so much of science was driven by the imminent threat of war or death it is hard to find argument to the contrary. Indeed, if one was to assume that knowledge should only be valued by it's usefulness it is a wonder that we choose to learn anything at all before having a justification to need to knowledge. To search for knowledge of unknown utility is to stress oneself, even if a true use for such knowledge does exist and is just obscured in the present.
Without knowing why an action is important, or with the threat of an impossible deadline it is hard to become motivated. To begin a project which one might never see the completion of, or to expend effort on something of no discernible function is illogical. Motivation is difficult to conquer because every instance of motivational analysis is subjective based on one's psychological reaction to a stimulus. Conforming, peer-pressure, inspiration, social pressure, financial pressure, time pressure, biological need and many more influencing factors are examples of motivators, but none of these are directly controlled by the person experiencing the motivation. Even internal factors such as desire or perception of difficulty are not under the full control of an individual, no matter how tasks are broken up or otherwise re-evaluated. When the desire to conform is love, or the threat of financial pressure drives no action then no action is taken, just as when our stomachs are full we feel little desire to eat.
Finally, the mind is prone to wander, reminding you of that film you wanted to watch, that book you wanted to read, that other thing you should prepare for, how tired you are, your first boyfriend or girlfriend, your friends and family. The mind of the human reads a hundred words further before it suddenly realizes it's daydreaming about the significance of the first word of that paragraph, and whether the author had considered that "finally" might cause his reader to suddenly decide to think about other uses of finally, or the way the word seems quite out of place considering how much of the post is still to come. A glance at a watch, or the time in the system tray of a computer shows how costly a daydream is, and suddenly a productive choice becomes stress.
So why talk and analyse about stress? Because stress leads very quickly to depression. I am depressed. Lonely, I miss my old life with old friends and my first love. I wonder if my life will ever go anywhere, and fear I'll run out of time before I make a choice. I refuse to research my options, afraid that knowing the choice will damage my motivation further as each unpalatable option is placed before me. I notice how distant I am from my friends, my colleagues, and how detached I am with my emotions, how cold... clinical my text. How all my interactions are white-gloved, sterilized. Even the poetry of my soul is cleansed of it's unnatural wildness, struck to form and rhyme, caught in my comfortable distance. I find no kinship to guide me, no future to strive for, just endless doubt. Worst of all, every second my mind calls me away from my task, convincing me that penning my thoughts is worth more than finishing any of my work - that just one funny image might cheer me more than an hour spent with imaginary love and chaos. That I should regret the things I did for those I loved, when it makes me hurt so bad.
And I indulge in my solitude, I swim in thoughts of black ink and crumbling text. Here there is no structure, there are no rules, there is no desire, there is just endless calm. Closed eyes in darkness as hands press against cold, transparent glass. The visceral sensation is more real in that moment than any of my learnt knowledge. It calls to my existence more than school-rooms and essays. In a simple touch there is more humanity than all I strive for in my waking life. I deny the world my work. I shun those I love, and who perhaps love me. I shoot myself in the foot to deny me a future as an athlete. I listen to old music from which I'll learn nothing. I feel, every inch of skin a unique sense, distinct from all others.
It lasts a moment before my brain reminds me of a future, with needs and desires. My libido reminds me to put "falling in love" on my to-do list. My stomach tells me that though it's fine for the moment I should probably go shopping soon. I feel guilt for ignoring my work, though I know I won't use that guilt to motivate me to do it.
I am human, after all.
Despite this firm belief, most common signs of stress and depression involve in some way one of these four attributes; Deadlines are stressful because they limit your time, lacking knowledge is stressful because it makes you doubt whether such knowledge is attainable, lack of motivation is perhaps most damming of all as it makes you question the very right you have to exist and makes you fear anything which may disprove your legitimacy of a human being, and finally distractors convince you that your focus is miss-placed by forcing you to think about other things.
In absence of these limitations, the difficulty of any task is meaningless. The search for the last digit of Pi would be trivial if you have infinite time to work it out. If a person did not worry about knowledge they would be more prepared to except contradictory or incomplete information as the best available to make a decision. If a person is driven to strive towards something, as a plant's stems are chemically drawn to grow towards light or our muscles retract from intense sources of heat or pain, then progress will always come eventually. If one has no distractors one is never shaken from their thoughts; never drawn into repetitive cycles of sorrow, anger or doubt.
Of course, in practice this is impossible. You could spend your entire life working on a single story, a single poem, a single piece or art and never perfect it - your effort ultimately futile, falling as time strips the last of your strength. The tolling of a church-bell is a deadline, but perhaps not even the most definite one as a rumbling stomach or parched throat demand attention at regular intervals, or perhaps even the drive for sex or violence could be considered as deadlines - concepts which demand a person take action before the stress becomes too great.
It is an oft-noted truth of learning that the more you know, the more you know you don't know, and this appears universally true. What is, therefore the value of knowledge? There is a good argument to the effect that if knowledge is intrinsically valuable, then ignorance holds a value to. If someone is said to be ignorant in a subject, their knowledge could be said to be objectively less than someone more knowledgeable, but if asked each person were asked how much they did not know the knowledgeable man would live in greater poverty than the ignorant. The only way to sensibly quantify knowledge is to assign a value on what is needed to be known. It is also oft-noted that necessity is the mother of invention, and when so much of science was driven by the imminent threat of war or death it is hard to find argument to the contrary. Indeed, if one was to assume that knowledge should only be valued by it's usefulness it is a wonder that we choose to learn anything at all before having a justification to need to knowledge. To search for knowledge of unknown utility is to stress oneself, even if a true use for such knowledge does exist and is just obscured in the present.
Without knowing why an action is important, or with the threat of an impossible deadline it is hard to become motivated. To begin a project which one might never see the completion of, or to expend effort on something of no discernible function is illogical. Motivation is difficult to conquer because every instance of motivational analysis is subjective based on one's psychological reaction to a stimulus. Conforming, peer-pressure, inspiration, social pressure, financial pressure, time pressure, biological need and many more influencing factors are examples of motivators, but none of these are directly controlled by the person experiencing the motivation. Even internal factors such as desire or perception of difficulty are not under the full control of an individual, no matter how tasks are broken up or otherwise re-evaluated. When the desire to conform is love, or the threat of financial pressure drives no action then no action is taken, just as when our stomachs are full we feel little desire to eat.
Finally, the mind is prone to wander, reminding you of that film you wanted to watch, that book you wanted to read, that other thing you should prepare for, how tired you are, your first boyfriend or girlfriend, your friends and family. The mind of the human reads a hundred words further before it suddenly realizes it's daydreaming about the significance of the first word of that paragraph, and whether the author had considered that "finally" might cause his reader to suddenly decide to think about other uses of finally, or the way the word seems quite out of place considering how much of the post is still to come. A glance at a watch, or the time in the system tray of a computer shows how costly a daydream is, and suddenly a productive choice becomes stress.
So why talk and analyse about stress? Because stress leads very quickly to depression. I am depressed. Lonely, I miss my old life with old friends and my first love. I wonder if my life will ever go anywhere, and fear I'll run out of time before I make a choice. I refuse to research my options, afraid that knowing the choice will damage my motivation further as each unpalatable option is placed before me. I notice how distant I am from my friends, my colleagues, and how detached I am with my emotions, how cold... clinical my text. How all my interactions are white-gloved, sterilized. Even the poetry of my soul is cleansed of it's unnatural wildness, struck to form and rhyme, caught in my comfortable distance. I find no kinship to guide me, no future to strive for, just endless doubt. Worst of all, every second my mind calls me away from my task, convincing me that penning my thoughts is worth more than finishing any of my work - that just one funny image might cheer me more than an hour spent with imaginary love and chaos. That I should regret the things I did for those I loved, when it makes me hurt so bad.
And I indulge in my solitude, I swim in thoughts of black ink and crumbling text. Here there is no structure, there are no rules, there is no desire, there is just endless calm. Closed eyes in darkness as hands press against cold, transparent glass. The visceral sensation is more real in that moment than any of my learnt knowledge. It calls to my existence more than school-rooms and essays. In a simple touch there is more humanity than all I strive for in my waking life. I deny the world my work. I shun those I love, and who perhaps love me. I shoot myself in the foot to deny me a future as an athlete. I listen to old music from which I'll learn nothing. I feel, every inch of skin a unique sense, distinct from all others.
It lasts a moment before my brain reminds me of a future, with needs and desires. My libido reminds me to put "falling in love" on my to-do list. My stomach tells me that though it's fine for the moment I should probably go shopping soon. I feel guilt for ignoring my work, though I know I won't use that guilt to motivate me to do it.
I am human, after all.
