The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
For most people, the question "What would fulfill me?" is simple; only the "how" is the challenge. Most men just want a woman, while a smaller contingent want wealth, fame, power, community, faith, or some mix of these. For virtually everyone, the template is already there for what to do, and life is simply a matter of meeting the standard. You like engineering, so you become an engineer, etc.
Currently I'm in my mid-20s, and I've stagnated heavily because none of the paths feel right. There is no person, past or present, who inspires me to follow in his footsteps and to do the same actions. Instead it's like I'm pulled far away toward some distant star, to something particular no one has done before. And no matter how confusing or inconvenient this is, it's the only way I can find fulfillment.
Oddly, this seems common with people interested in the Classics (they're also always misanthropes). Not just guys like Montaigne or Nietzsche, but even the blogger TLP who produced shockingly original work at the height of his powers. Their styles are so unique that we can't imagine their work emerged from anything other than a deeply felt, internally consistent drive. They're also all writers. At 6 years old, I decided I'd become a writer, but this dream died years later when I found all existing styles unsatisfying. Now I think I'm coming around to it. When drunk, I pace around in circles rapidly and then sit at my PC and type up a storm. Overall I'm a mediocre writer, but in rare moods everything flows out beautifully. Perhaps I'll find that star soon. I sure hope so.
I think this is a misconception of how writing works. Very few writers only write when they feel "inspired", and those that do almost never make a living from their writing.
Writing is a discipline: it's pre-committing to writing 1,000 words a day whether you feel like it or not, whether it feels like pulling teeth. Most writers I've spoken to (or writers who've written about the craft of writing) have generally made peace with the idea that the first draft sucks. As my cousin said "the first draft is you telling the story to yourself".
If you think that in order to be a successful writer, the prose needs to "flow out beautifully" on the first try (at least most of the time) - you're setting yourself up for failure. I imagine the number of successful writers who would describe their writing process like this is vanishingly small.
That's a good point.
I guess I have in mind writers like Melville or Hemingway, who wrote their masterpieces in a very short window of time. This makes intuitive sense to me, because their work is colored by a specific emotion or intensity that most novels lack. It seems like Hemingway's work flow was to endure a shitty experience, and then rapidly write a story from it as a sort of catharsis. The Sun Also Rises was written over six weeks, immediately after the events which inspired it. And most of his great work lies in his short stories, probably because he could compose them rapidly while he was 100% inspired. On the other hand, a work like A Farewell To Arms has some segments which aren't that interesting, even if the ending is amazing. I think he understood this, which is (part of) why he constantly threw himself into rocky situations and lived 10 lifetimes in a single life. Without emotionally turbulent subject matter, his style sorta falls apart -- the simplicity of his prose only works when it conceals an iceberg of emotion and complex tension.
But unless you're prepared to live a rollercoaster life like Hemingway, you likely need to emphasize some other aspect of literature besides constant pathos. Hence improving in raw technical skill by putting in 1000 words a day, rain or shine. Sometimes you just need to get from A to B and there is no immediately compelling way to do so, you've just got to do it. So yeah, good point.
My understanding is that Melville spent at least a year writing Moby-Dick. Sure that's short considering its word count, but I'd hardly call it short in absolute terms.
Sure. A short time-frame for arguably the greatest book of all time, though. I don't think Melville can write lines like Ahab having a "crucifixion in his face" without being deeply inspired or passionate. That kinda stuff only comes out when you're truly moved, and the whole book is full of things like that.
In my view, literature is often boring because writers force themselves to write when they're not inspired. Same with musicians, or art in general I guess. Only, the imperative of making money from your work tends to force out less than optimal material. I guess there's an argument to be made that regular practice will keep your base level of skill sharp, though. If an artist only waits for inspiration to strike, then his technical skill will probably decline in that interval. Ideally you'd split that time between raw practice, and just exposure to stuff that inspires you.
I once read this book called 31 Songs by the novelist and music critic Nick Hornby. It features an anecdote where he watches Patti Smith performing live, and he thinks to himself that he wishes music would only be performed by people who are as obviously passionate about their music as Smith is. But then he thinks about this for five minutes, and realises that some of his favourite songs ever were written by people for whom songwriting was a day job; and also there are millions of musicians who are incredibly passionate about their music, but their music sucks. A subjective feeling of "inspiration" on the part of the author doesn't necessarily translate into a work of art which is engaging and compelling for the listener/reader/viewer.
It's very romantic, this idea of great books only being written by people who are extremely emotionally invested in their Art™, but I'm not sure if it describes the reality of the situation. I suspect the average author of Sonic fan fiction is far more emotionally invested in the spiritual journey of his Original Character Do Not Steal than, say, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who pretty much openly stated that the craft of making believable fictional characters is a highly artificial process and no different, really, to what LLMs do. History is littered with examples of authors whose generally-considered magnum opus was written to put food on the table or fulfil a contractual obligation, while the book they poured their heart and soul into is generally considered pretentious, indulgent or masturbatory.
Guess I'm really just projecting from my own experience with art. Whatever the Greeks said about muses feels true; when you can channel that magic inspiration it's like you've made brief contact with the divine and you're just relaying their message. Only when I'm having really strong emotions does my best stuff come out. But everyone's different. I think we just have to find what works for each of us as individuals.
I understand where you're coming from, and obviously you shouldn't be trying to get a book published if you don't believe it's any good. I'd just caution you against assuming that what feels like your "best work" to you will necessarily inspire that reaction in the people who read it. I think you might be surprised by how many books you've enjoyed were written by people who only wrote them to make rent. The example of Melville is well taken, but Dickens and Hugo were paid by the word. On the other end of the spectrum, Kafka was so embarrassed by his novels that he requested they be destroyed posthumously - and isn't the literary world richer that that request was ignored? Think of how much poorer we'd be if we'd trusted his assessment of his own writing ability.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Then why not just... write? Where's your blog, your Substack? What are you putting in front of people? All the guys you mentioned did not ruminate and just did stuffs. That's the hardest step one can take, but by far the most important one.
I haven't been writing because I think our current literary forms aren't doing the job, and I've been daydreaming a lot about how to fix that. That probably sounds like a waste of time, but I do think I'm getting close(r) to some answer.
Can I ask what your thoughts are? I'm in the same boat. I feel like:
To the general public, written entertainment is obsolete. Your average person doesn't enjoy reading -- only a great book like Blood Meridian with no adaptation will convince him to read. Dune is basically a better version of Star Wars yet nobody knew that for 50+ years because people just don't want to read.
Books are competing on the same battleground for attention as films, as podcasts, as music, and they're losing. Basically, the only way to approach book writing in 20XX is to write a book so explosive and interesting that it lures you into reading it. This is stuff like Gravity's Rainbow, or Blood Meridian or Infinite Jest. Alternatively, it's totally batshit stuff like Philip K. Dick's work. These books are still read because they offer you experiences other media can't give you.
Does literature have a future? Well, to the extent it can compete. There is absolutely potential for more books like House of Leaves to attract the attention of normal people, to move literature forward in some way. But obviously, it's going to take a lot of talent. You have to be a master writer now to compete with other media. Unfortunately that's just how it is. But it's possible, yeah.
It sort of sounds like you're saying that, yes, novels have a future, but only if you're a master writer who can produce a work of transcendental genius. Which... sure. But unfortunately most of us aren't that. And most normal people aren't reading novels, either. I want to write something that a regular man-on-the-street can enjoy and talk about with his friends.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That regular guy on the street doesn't read, neither do his friends. You can write a good book but the odds anyone reads it are low. But of course, the odds of success in any creative medium are bad, so do what you enjoy.
Sci-fi and fantasy are very much alive, so if you have any interest in those books, you should try writing one. It's a niche, but a very steady one.
Can you give some examples of recent sci-fi and fantasy that you like? I used to love it as a teenager, but I've fallen out of it since then. It seems like it both ran out of ideas (no more Einsteins or Tolkiens to generate new material) and also got woke.
I don't read SF myself but Three-Body Problem is pretty recent and massive, you should check it out.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How is the lying down in front of a fan routine going? Any new insights on your health issues?
Not much has changed. I tried yet another antidepressant (Auvelity == Buproprion+DXM), and after 10 days I went cold turkey on it to see what would happen. Supposedly, going cold turkey on Auvelity is a nightmare and you'll get anything from brain zaps to headaches, nausea, fatigue, insomnia...
I felt nothing. This is one of the strongest antidepressants on the market, but after around 3 days it's like I'm on nothing. Same applies to Paliperidone which I tried earlier this year. And I've done the whole, "8 weeks and change" song and dance before, it never works. However my body's set up, the overall mechanism of psychiatric meds is apparently subverted.
Anyway, no progress. Interestingly, sleeping in front of a fan produces very little effect, maybe due to a lack of stimulants like sugar/caffeine (which I'm usually hopped up on) to magnify the effect. But another angle is, perhaps my breathing is shallow during sleep. The fan stuff doesn't work without deep breaths. I should really do deep breaths for an entire day and see what happens.
Dextromethorphan as an antidepressant, I had not encountered that before. Buproprion seems like it would be a good medication for a person dealing with anhedonia -- though my experience, as someone whose depressive episodes are secondary to anxiety, was it just made me more anxious than I'd ever been before. Like "have a crisis of faith because of brand-new worries"-level anxious.
Anhedonia sucks. Scott wrote once about how his patients with anxiety+depression often said that the anxiety was more disabling than the depression, and if they could just get a handle on the anxiety they could handle the rest. That's true to my experience. But anhedonia is the one thing that's worse: there is genuinely nothing as confusing and soul-destroying as not just feeling a lack of pleasure but a lack of any ability to understand what would give you pleasure.
Interesting that you haven't experienced any brain zaps. But it might actually be too early -- I only get brain zaps after about a week cold turkey off similar medications. It's possible that the brain chemistry changes that cause a lot of the (let's call it what it is) withdrawal syndrome are slow to manifest. So you may yet encounter the symptoms.
The DXM extends the Buproprion's action, but the tradeoff is you're effectively high on cough syrup anywhere from a couple days to indefinitely on this drug.
Maybe. My gut instinct is that there'll be zero withdrawal symptoms. Honestly, I've never had them before with anything (a mild headache when I quit caffeine cold turkey a couple years ago though). If ADs produce any effect at all, it'll be 1-2 mild symptoms in the first couple days, then nothing. Hell, even the Paliperidone felt like I was on nothing after week 1.
The upside is you get used to it. There's only about 2 things I can physically enjoy and I've optimized my life around it. If a recovery happens, the experience would be so powerful it'd be like having a second childhood. I don't remember what it's like enjoying a film, or forming a connection with friends, or having those mysterious and grand feelings as you watch the sunset, but I remember that these experiences exist and that they're amazing. This sounds depressing, but I do believe I'll figure it out soon (no thanks to the medical system). Has to be right around the corner.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link