Let this message serve as a commitment to begin writing regularly again—I'll aim for biweekly.
I don't have a great track record in terms of commitment to completion: I tend to have far too many unfinished projects sitting around, and WFH has only exacerbated my difficulties in focusing, with no particular spatial demarcator of the work day. I'm being a bit dramatic here—I'm still getting some things done—but many days feel like they widen the rift between what I'd like to be doing and how I'm actually spending my time. This has been intertwined with a mire of depression that ate up all of fourth quarter 2020, and it took longer than ever to resuscitate the methods I know to get out of that mode. Routine, physical activity, sunshine, eating well, connection with others, exercises in agency, and, ultimately, a belief in myself. (It seems so simple to write it out, but I'm also just gliding over the fact that we're in a pandemic and there was an attempted coup and some personal complexities...) The turning point out of a depressive episode always seems to be the moment when you recognize that you want to be better, that you want things to change, and that you make a plan towards it.
I used to think of that desire to "be better" (i.e. not depressed) as a one-and-done thing. Naively hoping that by getting through a depressive episode, I'd be in the clear forever. I believed I could change myself in a way that would stick without continuous maintenance. At a broad level, I do believe in the human ability to change but that it becomes more difficult with time (something something neuroplasticity). And, well, depression is a beast. I realized recently that my first serious depressive episode was around when I was 18. (I think—I also had low feelings as a kid, but I remember that less clearly.) That means I'm a decade into this process which will probably last until I die. A long-term outlook on depression is new to me, and I'm trying to embrace it: to understand that I'll revisit it periodically like a long-lost moon.
Ava's newsletter has been a source of resonance recently, as she brightly articulates some of the trials of being in this late-20s zone, where there can be tension between a youthful desire to change and a more mature sense of knowing oneself. But this is not really a binary of flowing water versus frozen ice; I think it is about configuring a practice of self that includes knowing what can change and how to make the change happen. Action for change can begin in an instant, as long as it is revisited and maintained. You've got to launch, and then do the work to stay in orbit.
I passed one of the big exams in my department's PhD process recently. It's an annoying but useful mechanism, to articulate a research direction with longevity; ultimately, it served as a great exercise in actualization, asking me to celebrate and sing myself. The exam is in the rear-view mirror but much like my moods, its implications are not limited to a single occasion: the work from here is about setting up a system to maintain a sense of movement and progress to hone ideas and findings. A commitment to the subject as well as myself; another instance of revisiting and maintaining and orbital dance.
This newsletter feels far more narcissistic than I'd like—sorry for that. I've been spending so much time with myself through the pandemic that I feel pretty sick of my own bullshit, sick of this depressive loop around my own bullshit. My bullshit is an orbit of itself, but one that requires building centrifugal force to escape, in search of other commitments to myself and my research and my communities.
Here's to the nurturing of the orbital dynamics of our inner lives.
At escape velocity,
Lukas
p.s. A bit of a narcissistic dive no doubt, but I am motivated to revisit Seeing is Forgetting The Name of the Thing One Sees. Irwin's fundamental love for his own curiosity is inspiring, and a practical form of self-love that deserves more celebration.
p.p.s. What I wrote here is a very individual-scale view of depression, and I'm aware of some of the larger societal/biological forces that drive the phenomenon—they are just outside the scope of what I wanted to write.
I don't have a great track record in terms of commitment to completion: I tend to have far too many unfinished projects sitting around, and WFH has only exacerbated my difficulties in focusing, with no particular spatial demarcator of the work day. I'm being a bit dramatic here—I'm still getting some things done—but many days feel like they widen the rift between what I'd like to be doing and how I'm actually spending my time. This has been intertwined with a mire of depression that ate up all of fourth quarter 2020, and it took longer than ever to resuscitate the methods I know to get out of that mode. Routine, physical activity, sunshine, eating well, connection with others, exercises in agency, and, ultimately, a belief in myself. (It seems so simple to write it out, but I'm also just gliding over the fact that we're in a pandemic and there was an attempted coup and some personal complexities...) The turning point out of a depressive episode always seems to be the moment when you recognize that you want to be better, that you want things to change, and that you make a plan towards it.
I used to think of that desire to "be better" (i.e. not depressed) as a one-and-done thing. Naively hoping that by getting through a depressive episode, I'd be in the clear forever. I believed I could change myself in a way that would stick without continuous maintenance. At a broad level, I do believe in the human ability to change but that it becomes more difficult with time (something something neuroplasticity). And, well, depression is a beast. I realized recently that my first serious depressive episode was around when I was 18. (I think—I also had low feelings as a kid, but I remember that less clearly.) That means I'm a decade into this process which will probably last until I die. A long-term outlook on depression is new to me, and I'm trying to embrace it: to understand that I'll revisit it periodically like a long-lost moon.
Ava's newsletter has been a source of resonance recently, as she brightly articulates some of the trials of being in this late-20s zone, where there can be tension between a youthful desire to change and a more mature sense of knowing oneself. But this is not really a binary of flowing water versus frozen ice; I think it is about configuring a practice of self that includes knowing what can change and how to make the change happen. Action for change can begin in an instant, as long as it is revisited and maintained. You've got to launch, and then do the work to stay in orbit.
I passed one of the big exams in my department's PhD process recently. It's an annoying but useful mechanism, to articulate a research direction with longevity; ultimately, it served as a great exercise in actualization, asking me to celebrate and sing myself. The exam is in the rear-view mirror but much like my moods, its implications are not limited to a single occasion: the work from here is about setting up a system to maintain a sense of movement and progress to hone ideas and findings. A commitment to the subject as well as myself; another instance of revisiting and maintaining and orbital dance.
This newsletter feels far more narcissistic than I'd like—sorry for that. I've been spending so much time with myself through the pandemic that I feel pretty sick of my own bullshit, sick of this depressive loop around my own bullshit. My bullshit is an orbit of itself, but one that requires building centrifugal force to escape, in search of other commitments to myself and my research and my communities.
Here's to the nurturing of the orbital dynamics of our inner lives.
At escape velocity,
Lukas
p.s. A bit of a narcissistic dive no doubt, but I am motivated to revisit Seeing is Forgetting The Name of the Thing One Sees. Irwin's fundamental love for his own curiosity is inspiring, and a practical form of self-love that deserves more celebration.
p.p.s. What I wrote here is a very individual-scale view of depression, and I'm aware of some of the larger societal/biological forces that drive the phenomenon—they are just outside the scope of what I wanted to write.