| i've been there. here. :-D the last time i strolled into this, i was reading (listening to audiobooks) and heard the word 'ennui' (ahn-wee). i was like, i've heard that word, but....shit, this description of it...this is me! like, exactly! so that was cool. another +1 for reading. i'd been in that state before, but didn't know what it was called, didn't know other folks had felt it, etc. and then I stumbled upon the word 'ikigai' -- again (japanese for 'reason for being'). and that was kind of interesting. it reminded me of the few times when i'd felt like, 'Fuck - _this_ is the shit!' and those were often times when i was doing some project -- typically a side software project that would inevitably do absolutely nothing -- but sometimes other offline stuff, like volunteering or bike blogging or some other hippie do-gooder shit. and i remembered reading about how the puritanical american psychotic mentality of beig dedicated to overwork and 'achievement' was part of what is making the world a terrible and worse place to live for most people. fortunately i have at least one friend who thinks about things other than money, so i could talk to him about trying to do important work instead of just work. and i remembered a lesson i learned when i was actually full-on depressed as opposed to just bored/not motivated -- start doing more of the things that you like, and less of the things that you don't like. one of my recent insights is that, "I should do something mid-life crisis-y". and there are a few reasons for that, but one of them is, whenever you are learning something new, there's a pretty good chance that it's going to make you feel good, just because it hits something inside of us. and another aspect of it is that, when you do some of those new things, inevitably it seems like at least one of them is like, "Holy fuck - i can't believe nobody managed to covince me to actually try this earlier". and now there's a new world that is open to you. like, riding a bike. if you haven't ridden a bike 10 or 20 miles, just buzzing around town, etc., and you actually live in a city/town where you're not likely to be murdered by a terrorist just for riding your bike, then that might be something you should look at. audiobooks, b/c doomscrolling is poison. i think chilling for 3/6/12 months is cool. i've actually been straight burned out before -- not depressed, not ennui, burned out. and all it took was 6-12 months of doing jack shit, then i was fine. but if it was 5.99 months? would not have been enough. most of the stuff i read on burnout didn't really capture it. i know one of the nordic countries started an official 'burnout office' within the government. i suggest a bunch of googling on ennui to start. then watch some good Mubis. then go vote. and then read/watch some Chomsky. |