Past fifteen years as viewed through a lens of yes I did have depression, on and off, explains so much. Prozac being the first thing that really got me out of it. Exercise was temporary relief but required ongoing effort which was absent when an episode hit. Needed something that could sustain me. Same went for meditation. Religion was also a relief but kept me in a vicious cycle of thinking of myself as bad and needing relief from it through religion. Digital detoxes kind of worked but I still felt like I needed something. Common theme throughout was feeling like I needed something deseperately. Lacked a sense of comfort, security, peace. Always striving for the next thing.

Oh, and of course I’d pursue grandiose projects when depressed. Smaller projects with less of an impact weren’t good enough for me, they didn’t fit the bill of being grand enough to make me feel like if they were accomplished, I would achieve that thing that I’m striving for. Because I’ve done smaller projects and they didn’t quite do it for me. So I took big swings. But the problem with those swings is that in order for them to work out I need to do something that no one else would have thought of. And since I’m looking at big-impact projects, it would need to be in a domain that a lot of people work in. So plenty of people trying to make an impact, plenty of smart people, and why would I magically do something that surpasses all of that? I’d need to be an actual genius. Maybe not even, maybe what I was trying to do was straight up impossible. Highly likely, admittedly. No free lunch. Never any free lunch.

In order to actually play the game, work the job, invest the money, do it all, I’d need to actually be happy with everyday life. The reason why I didn’t do those things, at least not sustainably, is because I was depressed. Never satisfied. I didn’t work the job because I saw no meaning in it. Because of two reasons: a) I didn’t value my life outside of the job enough, because it didn’t satisfy me, and b) I thought, if only I’d solve the big grand problem then this problem would be trivial.

Now I find myself wanting to work at Amazon so that I’d make a bunch of money, because I think that would satisfy me. It’s the same voice that I heard when I went to Stripe. It’s not going to fix anything. The problem is deeper.

Ways depression showed itself: irritability, tiredness, insomnia, sleep procrastination, general procrastination, rumination, addiction, confusion/feeling stuck. Plenty more.

Moving forward, I want to be able to detach from the internet when it behooves me, but I don’t want to be completely detached. Current solution: parental lock on my phone, disable hotspot, router with no wifi, ethernet connections to work computer and desktop, lock box for ethernet cables if needed. I don’t think I’ll need the lock box, but it’s there if I do.

I want to be detached, but I don’t want to remove the enjoyment from life. I want to play/make music, play video games, watch movies, have fun. But I don’t want to get addicted to reddit. I need to be able to handle life administrivia. Whatever I put in place, it needs to be sustainable.