Monthly Archives: January 2025

Striving for Zen

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So you know Zen right? It’s a deep concept from Buddhism, or more like a subsection of the religion, an entire philosophy and lifestyle. But this isn’t about Zen. This is about the weird stuff that you think is Zen when you’re depressed.

You know like there is no winning or losing and you should always be seeking to strive for a balanced outcome, but that balance almost always means you agreeing to something dreary.

And grey is the best color because it’s between black and white so you should make it your guiding philosophy to “be the grey.” Find that middle ground and embody it. Regardless of whether your selected self-representation is preferable by your or anyone else’s standards.

Or maybe it’s that meditation is the thing to do and you should be capable of escaping the negative thoughts that fill your mind through spending time doing nothing but sitting and breathing.

And you should go leave all your possessions and live a life of austere simplicity, and rely on just the basics for survival. Learn how to live off the earth and all that. (Although probably do not eat unfamiliar mushrooms if you do.)

So is any of this Zen? Tangentially, in some form, it might be related. Yet you may have had some thoughts akin to these or other philosophical concepts that seem deep, but are somehow not quite helpful. Whether the original principles will really be helpful to you is important to consider, but yet another level of analysis is whether the derivatives of these thoughts are understood well enough or whether a partial comprehension is detrimental to your mental health. Perhaps even to your independent reasoning.

On Inspiring Others

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So the some of you who lurk (and the some of you who read and are less obscured) may have seen that there have been people inspired by the DepressionFTW style of communication. I know I’ve seen at least one music video, blog post, movie, book and commercial that seems to allude to my work. And sometimes when you see people taking inspiration from each other, it can beg the question: does it matter who said what first?

Throughout time and history, I’d argue the answer has been yes for a variety of reasons. But, in the case of this blog, I think it is a little more nuanced, because using these tactics can help spread a message that will hopefully provide support to people who might not feel comfortable seeking advice directly from the source.

I think that the purpose of this blog has been to alleviate readers’ symptoms of depression. But there are many people who do not know they are depressed, do not want to admit they are depressed, or do not want to read about depression. If another content creator gets inspired and wants to help people deal with their condition, isn’t that a good thing? And if they just want to do a little shoutout? Isn’t it nice to feel heard?

The only thing is that this blog has a mission, and it’s sometimes a little heavy. I have loved the esoteric shoutouts and seeing people inspired by the counterintuitive negative self-talk of the blog. Just remember that like how I am responsible for how people are inspired by my work, people who reference this work to inspire others are also now a part of that chain of responsibility. And if you don’t know exactly why I was using certain techniques, just be cautious about when you take them on for your own writing.

But that’s such a downer! Why can’t people just write their hearts content and overshare all their inspired thoughts and feelings! And who says your writing is so unique? You were inspired by other bloggers so should you really act like such a king of depressed logic?

We’ve all got our own fears of inspiring something that goes counter to our values, and so it’s important to me to pass on the responsibility of preserving the message of DepressionFTW.

Be the Change?

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So you know how Gandhi said “Be the change you wish to see in the world?” Or maybe that wasn’t him which you can read about here. But the point is someone, somewhere, seems to have said something like that and now you have to wonder: is that such a good idea?

Well sometimes you don’t really want to change, and you want the world to change, so this quote seems more accusatory than motivational. Like you’re being called out on being lazy because you don’t want to change something that’s wrong, but you still want other people to do it. Still, isn’t that kind of the point?

Because sometimes you’ve spent a lot of your time trying to conform to society’s expectations and assuming there’s something wrong with you because you’re “different” somehow, potentially including being impermissibly miserable. And at the end of it all, people considered that a fair thing to do, is call you out on your behavior. So why not turn it around on other people?

Make other people change in a way that makes you more capable of getting on with your life. Make them understand you and why you may or may not appreciate their intervening in your affairs. Expect other people to change, and in the process that will change the world, because you shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of being perfect and not hypocritical. Hypocrisy is a privilege and even if it is confusing and not the ideal for structuring a society, there are plenty of people living that way so you shouldn’t be required to have perfect standards.

Now how do you impact other people so that you don’t have to do the changing? Maybe that will require some communication and that definitely sucks. Still, if you can seek out the understanding of other people, you can be rewarded by adapted expectations. And sometimes people will even reform their behavior because they didn’t realize they were having such a detrimental impact. You can change the world, even if you stay the same. Sometimes you are the philosophical bulwark that other’s can morph their global understanding to include.

So you don’t really have to change to impact the world. It’s an interesting idea, but it puts too much emphasis on fitting into what other people are doing or at least expecting. Think it through, and make your decisions with care for the consequences, and then you can steer others to support your cause. Which is hopefully just and all.