“It often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music; the rest, mercy, beauty, sleep, clean water and hot food are all the work of the Increate. Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own—hard for me, at least.”
Severian ∞
This sickness has been an education in depression and hope and the weakness of cognition.
I got a cold. It was a few weeks ago. Colds in the Northwest last for, like, 18 weeks. They’re oily residues that stick to everything.
Whatevs, I got better. For three days I breathed free and easy. Then I got the flu.
It’s been a good few years since I had the flu. Fuck the flu. The flu are assholes. At least it’s only at its worst for a couple days. Then it does that residue thing too, sticking around for several days.
The asshole is still sticking around. I’m dealing with the rattly head thing and snot, lots of snot, too much snot, really.
Ok, let’s talk about what these assholes do to my brain thoughts. Want to know what I’m like? I’m like this dog:
I’m a golden retriever—I love you, I dance and lol and frolic. I enthuse and brighten and dream and think and lick, lots and lots of licking, too much licking, really.
My mind works quick and fun, that’s what I’m like. That quality defines a good deal of me to others and to myself as well.
But when I’m sick, the sick residue makes everything stick, makes me slow and lonely and empty in my brain. I don’t get thoughts. I don’t frolic. And I definitely don’t lick.
When I’m sick I get down, I start thinking shitty, sticky thoughts. Clearly nothing I’ve been planning will work out. Clearly that other guy is doing everything better than me and I should just quit now. Clearly there’s no point in following through on those decisions I made for my career recently, I’m no good at that stuff. Clearly I’ll have to settle the rest of my life on mediocrity and my son will look at me with pity and resentment when he grows.
Clearly.
That’s what it’s like. It’s all so clear when I’m sick. So clearly failing. So clearly pointless. So clearly without hope.
So, here’s me: this frolicking, excited, inspired young man. And then here’s me when I’m sick: this bleak, dense, frowning depressed guy.
I would like to have control over these thoughts but they come unbidden, in both camps—when I’m healthy and when I’m sick.
Here’s the rub: I’ve still got work to do, even when I’m sick. Even when my mind and mood are constantly shitting on whatever I’m working on I have to try to make some progress. And boy oh boy is that a lesson.
So I’ve made it a practice to remind myself that I’m just dealing with a little depression right now, my physiology is reinforcing it and acting like a shit head, so just do the best you can and stick it out. The project will look totally different in a few days when you’ve got healthy eyes again.
It all makes me feel like a crazy person. I had to put this piece of writing down a few times for this reason. I want to be a golden retriever again.
The Flu Are Assholes™
The universe is a vast and uncaring place.
There is no right or wrong, morality is a human construct. Nothing we do will have any significance beyond our tiny, worthless, unimportant sphere of influence.
Yet here I am, waiting in line to order a veggie sandwich with locally grown ingredients, and holding in a fart.”
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all. Shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
In this Ted talk Andrew Stanton, screenwriter at Pixar, gives us the building blocks of story. He doesn’t lay out these thoughts in a list, but it kind of makes sense to display these elements that way.
All life is suffering.
Attachment is the root of suffering.
It is possible not to suffer.
If you are a robot.”
Geoff Barnes via Pappy
“So throw away those lamentations we both know them all too well. If there’s a Book of Jubilations we’ll have to write it for ourselves. So come and lie beside me baby, let’s write it while we still got time.”
Josh Ritter
This is the life. This is the work.
The work is spiritual—it matters.
The work is sweaty. The work is followthrough.
The work is about solving problems.
Real problems—not problems that only exist in our heads.
The work is about fishing. The work is about farming.
The work is about insights. The work is about ideas.
But the work is mostly about sweat and followthrough.
Props to David on the whole “the work is spiritual” seed.
“No one can say what that means, [to take someone’s life]. The body is a colony of cells. Divided into two major parts, it perishes. But there is no reason to mourn the destruction of a colony of cells: such a colony dies each time a loaf of bread goes into the oven. If a man is no more than such a colony, a man is nothing; but we know instinctively that a man is more. What happens, then, to that part that is more?”
Gene Wolfe Shadow of the Torturer