This sentence—”I am weak and pathetic and I should kill myself”—has been repeating itself in my mind for a few weeks. Why?
Because I am imperfect. I make mistakes. I don’t know everything. I am a flawed human being. I can’t make myself do everything I want to do. I don’t do everything I want to do on the first try. What I want to happen doesn’t always happen. I do not live perpetually in the “fun zone”. I have embarrassed myself.
Why does having normal human troubles make me so mad? Everyone else has these troubles. Most people are more troubled than me. I guess I hate them too.
I don’t understand how they tolerate themselves. How can you just be okay with you as you are? Do you not see what you could be? What you should be?
The problem with this philosophy is that it makes me worse than I could be. I spend so much time ruminating on my flaws. So much time not taking risks that would probably pay off on the possibility that I embarrass myself and end up in some pit of self attack.
To believe that I am capable. To accept that I am flawed and that it is unavoidable. To believe things will all work out if I just do my best and get back on the horse when I fall off. That works way better. It gets me much closer.
But I fall off the horse of that philosophy. Because fundamentally—and seemingly irredeemably—the only thing I can tolerate is perfection.
I am too conscious. I can be too stimulated by my own mind. If I was less aware, I’d do more. I’d have to engage more in something tangible, something connected to reality, to get the [flow] I’m seeking.
Writing like this is tolerable. I enjoy it. It is the only thing that I could just do, all the time, without having to try. But it is of no value. If it were ever to become of value, it would be in contrast to all the hard shit. I achieve something great, and then those looking for similar results will want to know the inner workings that got me there. But the inner workings are not in and of themselves valuable. Only as a complement to that which is.
I suppose I’d be bored otherwise. I just wish it was easier.
Why do I wish it was easier? Why do I have such an adversarial relationship with difficulty? I’ve spent years trying to acclimate to it. But I don’t think you ever actually really get better at tolerating difficulty. It just gets easier.
Taking a set to failure never becomes any less physically and psychologically grueling. Its just that the more you do it, the more weight it takes to get you there. Maybe there is a way to experience it differently. But it doesn’t seem to come from doing it more often. Or if some kind of change occurs, it doesn’t occur only from that. There is more. There something I have left to discover.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve really changed at all. I just scanned through one of my old blogs from over a decade ago. I’ve changed in some ways. I know more things. I’m less of a faggot. I haven’t written a suicide note in eight years. But did I really change? Or did I just get old? I am competent at some things now. I have more confidence. I am more authentic. I sit around doing nothing less often. But still more than I’d like.
No. I haven’t changed. And upon reflection, it seems clear that I can’t. I am stuck as me for the rest of my life. I only get one life most likely. And I have to spend the whole thing as me. How irritating.
What are the things I dislike most about myself? I think the laziness is the biggest one. If I would just do stuff more I think I could tolerate myself. My whole life I’ve just had such limited mental energy. I just focus on things too hard. I don’t know how to not burn the candle at both ends while exerting any kind of conscious effort. And it leads to me having only like four hours of focus per day.
The only time this isn’t true is when I’m not “trying”. When I am consumed by something. When I am possessed. But it’s rare I become possessed by something that is of any value to anyone else. Maybe it’s a book. Maybe it’s an idea. Maybe it’s a video game. But it’s never like a business. Or programming. Or something worth writing. Something that clarifies something new and interesting about the world.
Why shouldn’t I kill myself?
Well first of all, I just won’t. It’s not that I want to die. It’s just that nothing about being alive ever meets my expectations. The rare times it does, it was fleeting. And usually it’s something that happens to me rather than something that I was doing. Nothing I’ve ever created was half of what I knew it could be.
Again, there is this self defeating aspect to it. The more my creations are shit (always), the less motivated I am to create them. But the degree to which they will become less shit is the degree to which I do them.
I will spend my entire life angry and miserable, trying to create something beautiful, and it never being beautiful. Until I eventually do it. I will eventually do it. I doubt it sometimes but every time I’ve had an intuition like this, a decade later it’s always turned out correct.
I will create several beautiful works of art. Some will be philosophical. Some will be musical. Some will be more pragmatic. But I don’t think any of them will be beautiful for another decade. And that’s just so annoying. I don’t want to spend another decade in this state. I want to wake up motivated to create beautiful works. But I’m a retard with a crayon. And I will remain that way for another thousand attempts or so.
Why shouldn’t I kill myself?
Well a bunch of people like me and depend on me. I guess that’s nice. My wife is the most wonderful human being I have ever met. When I met her, it was a religious experience. Not in the like falling in love aspect. That actually didn’t happen in the way I was used to. In this like intense connection and enmeshment. After years of therapy and probably to some degree the trauma of having that shit go wrong enough times, that went about the correct speed. But in th sense that after only a few hours with her I was completely convinced she was a literal angel. Like an other worldly being completely transcendent from every other woman I’d ever even observed.
So I guess that was a reward from God. Or maybe a punishment. At least something to give me no way out.
Why shouldn’t I kill myself?
It’s the wrong question. There is something cathartic about taking it to the extreme. When I was a teenager I was obsessed with suicide. I would practice drowning myself in the bathtub all the time. See how long I could hold my breath.
It was all an intellectual game until I actually tried for real. When I took those pills. After that point, we knew I would never try it again. That everything from that point that looked similar was just me wrestling with the truth that I was stuck here. I tried to find other ways to get the relief I was seeking. First it was romantic relationships. Then after enough of those blew up, it became video games. Then learning about science and philosophy. Then business and career. What have I been obsessed with since then?
Kind of nothing. I used to have a list documenting the autistic things I was obsessed with for some series of months. But recent years I’ve been just chasing the dragon. I’ve already found most everything intersting to me enough to create flow.
Why shouldn’t I kill myself?
It’s the wrong question. The right question is why doesn’t everyone else want to kill themselves. And what can I learn from them.
I am too suggestible is my problem. It was true before the drugs. But the drugs made it worse. LSD is supposed to subside after a few weeks.
But I once took a bunch of LSD and MDMA while I was on a cocktail of anti-depressants and ended up in the hospital. This was a month after the aforementioned suicide attempt where I was institutionalized for a week. Which itself was three months after I was institutionalized for a month because I refused to speak or get out of bed for two weeks. Fifteen was an exciting year.
Anyway, the question remains: Why doesn’t everyone else want to kill themselves? I assume they just have a bunch of defense mechanisms that prevent them from seeing all the ways in which they are wretched and evil. For whatever reason, I see mine. And I can’t not.
So what do you do when you’re painstakingly aware of all your imperfection? It doesn’t really help to compare myself to most people. I see most people as subhuman. And comparing myself to truly great people is just a reminder of my imperfection.
Getting off the internet has helped a lot. Having all my social interaction be that of observing internet personalities and billionaries really made me feel like I was worthless by comparison.
Let’s back up. We know my biggest gripe is my laziness. But let’s say I actually did everything I thought I should. What would that be like? Is it possible? What would it look like? No TV, no phone, no Twitter, no Youtube, no vidya. What do I replace the time with? We know I only have four hours of really productive focus per day, and most of that goes to my “real job” right now. I could write like this. I could play music. I could work out. I could walk around.
My first gripe here is it would just be wasted energy. More “investment” that will likely never pay off. The energy I’m spending writing this, is it really worth more than watching Netflix. Does anyone benefit? And if not now, will anyone one day benefit?
I guess I benefit. It clarifies things for me. As long as I don’t have to go back and make it coherent, it’s not that much energy. And there is some level of satisfaction I derive from completing a post even if it’s not an MD or AH poast.
I would like to record an album before I die. I’d also like to write a few AH related books. I’d also like to program my habit app. I try to “save” my energy and only focus on one project at once (right now it’s my real job and MD). But maybe that’s wrong. Maybe the wisdom that works for everyone else doesn’t work for me. Wouldn’t be the first time. For me, I am only motivated when I’m winning. That’s probably true of everyone. But the thing that’s unique to me is that I only feel like I’m winning after I complete something. So for example, posting this is likely to make me more motivated to complete “Delusion Is A Pre-requisite To Civilization”.
The problem is that all the projects I want to undertake are giant and will scope creep me to death. So when I start one thing that should take a day it takes months. It’s this really strange and ironic thing that the guy who only feels happy when he completes something is also the posterboy of scope creep.
Here’s something I know but seem to have forgotten: Writing like this gets me clarity. And clarity creates motivation. When stuck—when in need of an easy win, just post here. Don’t worry about the product that comes from it. Leverage this to create motivation to create products elsewhere that aren’t trash.
And also post this on your white board:
Dont:
Phone
Youtube
TV
vidya
Do:
Walk
Lift
Bike Ride
Read Pocket
Read iBooks
Read Audible
Love wife
Hang with kids
Minor Dissent write
AH 3-2-1, procrastination book, or habit book
Program (weather app)
Play Bass
medidate
I’ve made a list like this before. The question is why do I do it for a little bit and then stop? Well, one because I am a dumb flawed human and that’s what us dumb flawed humans do. But two, because I am chasing easy. I am chasing completion. Maybe my habit app won’t help anyone else. But it certainly helps me. The ability to get that “reward” for completion really helps me.
I need to be completing things. I need to feel like I’m winning. Completing something useless is OK. It’s better than doing nothing, procrastinating something useful. Because the act of completing creates a bunch of motivation to complete something else which can create progress toward a useful thing.
There is more here. There is always more. But this is enough for now. Time to complete this.
But what standard are you reaching towards? What WOULD make you satisfied? If you were Leonardo Da Vinci and could work 24 hours a day? Would that be enough?
Can you imagine some other life where some set of things about your temperament was different that WOULD be satisfying?
no TTS. Fuck