I used to have a vague idea that if a catastrophe happened to me it would solve my life. Usually, this fantasy took the form of getting hit by a bus. If I just got hit by a bus (I reasoned) I wouldn’t have any problems. That this is not exactly the reported experience of people who get hit by buses did not really change the way it played out in my head. I didn’t go around throwing myself into traffic or anything—I wasn’t that convinced. But it felt like some huge life-altering event would clarify “everything” for me (in some unclear sense of “everything”) and force me to “get serious” (whatever that meant).
Then I did get hit by a (figurative) bus. It turned out that catastrophe, like everything else in life, is what you make of it, and it will not really force you to “get serious” if you don’t want to. It also turned out that the reason I wasn’t “getting serious” was because I was sick and I had been, in a sense, in a slow motion bus crash for (maybe) four years. So OK, all that wasn’t just me making excuses. But now it is, right? Now it is. Right?1
I recently told somebody that I’m not sure I experience my choices as choices most of the time. I think this is part of why I tend to struggle with things like statements of purpose—why am I doing what I’m doing? I don’t know. My eventual catastrophe did mean making some dramatic changes to my life, but the changes themselves didn’t mean all that much. Dropping alcohol might mean a lot when you need to get sober, but it means less if you’re just bowing to necessity.
But then (I reason) I do not really need to bow to necessity. And indeed many people don’t in similar circumstances. They keep on carrying on the way they have been, whether they get away with it or not. So should I give myself credit for not drinking (or for upholding the current, very annoying elimination diet I’ve been put on)? Would it be better or worse for me if I regarded these things as stuff I was choosing to do, rather than things I’m doing because I have to? What would it mean to “give myself credit,” anyway—what credit, in what bank, to be used for what purpose?
Why have I been feeling so down lately? That’s the real question. Why am I thinking gloomily to myself things along the lines of I guess you wasted your catastrophe? I went up to New York very briefly to celebrate my friend Becca’s book launch2 and I spent a lot of the time I was there in a warm glow of happiness. I’m lucky in many things in life but I feel most lucky in my friendships, and it was great to see people, talk with them, and mutually celebrate somebody else’s accomplishments. About three days after I got back all the glow went away and I just felt terrible.
At first I thought this was because of post-trip doldrums but actually I think the cause is much dumber, which is that I ended up back on Twitter for a bit because I had so much fun when I logged back on to promote the Know Your Enemy episode that I decided to hang around a little. And it was like oh. I feel bad because I keep plunging my head into the Feel Bad Machine. I should probably stop.3
The crabs in a bucket feeling of being online has only gotten worse as Twitter itself slowly dies. It’s impossible to imagine somebody in the writing world logging on with a piece of good news without a bunch of other people DMing it to each other with “look at this miserable bitch why does she get to do this” and so on. People who are all more or less the same level of “elite” commenting on how other people are elites, etc. So it’s like well that’s why you feel sort of sad and hopeless and like there’s no point in working toward long term goals. It’s because that’s the atmosphere.
But that’s just an atmosphere, not the only one, other ones are possible, and you know this because you were just in one. When I’m working—reading, note-taking, writing—I’m happy. If I stop to look down or around I’m unhappy. Somehow this extremely simple lesson is one I never seem to learn for good.
I proceed to have this pointless conversation with myself for the rest of my life.
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But then what will I do with pictures of my dog? Appreciate them alone?
I can help you get kicked off twitter
i'm getting the sense (from life in general, not from this post) that we all adopt narratives that serve us, and tweak them as we go, as needed, and that's fine. right now i would say, "quitting twitter helped me, but therapy and the right pharmaceuticals made the difference" in terms of getting out of a recent depression -- even though it's not like i was new to either therapy or pharmaceuticals.
in the sense you're describing, i don't think something you choose to do is less "your choice" just because it's something you "have to do." you could absolutely find a way to not do it. but more importantly, you are choosing to adapt to the consequences of this new mandate. you are using YOUR brain and willpower for that. even if you think you're just following an order, complying requires you to create the means of doing so -- a bunch of other, smaller choices, which are also yours. you do get credit for them. 1 credit = 1 piece of accepted evidence that you have positive agency and autonomy. the bank = your self-esteem. putting it in the bank = internalizing it. using it for what purpose = there will be times when you doubt it and need to check your account balance. the bank metaphor breaks down because you can't withdraw or spend this knowledge, but the point is we all need to accrue it. otherwise, stuff just happens to us, we (think we) never change, and there's no material with which to construct any other narrative. u feel me?