higgsboshark The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it LIke ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the wortd. But It’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm Checkmate, nihilism.
cheskamouse This is a powerful positive message.
pluckyredhead I’m literally reading a book right now (Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski) that says this is scientiically sound.
There have been studies done on rats and dogs where they develop learned helplessness in the animals by giving them impossible tasks. Eventually the animals stop trying, even when the task stops being impossible. (.e. put a rat in a maze with cheese it can’t get to until it develops learned helplessness, then put the cheese somewhere it can get to it and it won’t even try ) But once they show the animals they CAN do something - i.e. physicaly moving the rat to the cheese-the learned helplessness goes away.
No one can move you to your cheese for you, but the book says DOING something - which they define as “anything that isn’t nothing” can help. Make a food. Work in the garden. Clean a thing Do a favor for a fiend. Call your elected officials.
Knit a sock.
If you feel overwhelmed by existential despair, do something. It doesn’t have to be big It just has to be anything that isn’t nothing.
You must log in or register to comment.
I have to post a warning: If you think about starting to knit or crochet be aware that you will begin with a 2 dolar hook/needle and a 1 dolar yarn and suddenly, out of nowhere, your credit card will have 300 dolars in yarn and tools and you’ll have to give away your clothes to be able to store all of it. Crazy shit
Two weeks ago I downloaded Godot and started using YouTube to teach myself game dev.
Made some tranquil grass with a wind effect. Downloaded a 2D pixel sprite and made an animation state machine. Watched couple more videos and then decided to try out 3D modeling. I now have my first low poly character sketch done and am working on animating the rigging.
My depression has dropped significantly as actively working on building new skills and giving myself the ability to express ideas I have had kicking around in my head for the past 15 years is incredibly empowering.
Go find your thing.
This is very wholesome. I should really do the same or something similar in my field. It’s hard to recapture the magic when you are exhausted from work all the time.
This is similar to an old behavior therapy technique called Behavioral Activation. In essence I get you to engage with an activity and once you’re doing that the intrinsic rewards of doing that activity cause you to feel more willing to engage.
