Tag: Mental Health

Touch more: a manifesto

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Starting at puberty, it becomes socially unacceptable to exchange touch with anyone but romantic partners. This is bad. Touch is calming. It’s connecting. It’s fundamental to proper growth and development. Touch should happen more. 

On a road trip with a friend, I hadn’t touched another person in a week. That’s a long fucking time. A week without touch is a cruel punishment that I wouldn’t subject on any animal. It’s not even a sexual thing – I just wanted physical contact. I asked if I could lie on my buddy’s lap. He said sure, so I did. Our conversation continued. I felt human. It was great.

Why does our society suppress touch? I understand the moratorium across gender and the requirements that touch be consensual. But why is it weird (or labeled “gay”) for guys hanging out to touch each other? We’re primates. Primates touch. Even gorillas – the biggest and strongest among us – pick nits out of each other’s fur.

I’m not sure why, but I don’t like it. I also can’t see a good reason against it, so I’m going to touch more.

When is it okay to avoid the world?

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At 9:11am, the morning’s not-funniest time, I slipped 50mg of caffeine past the tape on my mouth before crawling back into the safety of my dreams. Another hour-and-a-quarter passed before my bunkmate awoke, only after which did I first leave my bed. How much of this time was spent avoiding the world?

I’m coming off a cold. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been sleeping so much. I’ve also been emotionally exhausted, overcoming a childhood trauma and rebuilding after a breakup.

My bed is warm. My bed feels safe. In it, the world feels far away. My mind moseys, wisting aimlessly from place to place. I like that safety. I like that oblivion. I live for that vacuum between conscious and gone.

I understand hypochondriacs.

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I struggled through five doctors over ten years before one correctly diagnosed me with obstructive sleep apnea.

It’s subjectively difficult to tell if something’s wrong with you because corroboration requires a doctor’s agreement. If they don’t see a problem, perhaps nothing’s wrong. Then again, perhaps they’re incompetent, or perhaps you didn’t communicate it clearly. Most doctors see a lot of patients, and communicating a subjective experience to a second party is very difficult. And even if you can’t get second-party confirmation, it’s still really your experience.

I pee frequently. Frequently enough that my friends comment on it. This causes me concern. I don’t know that there’s a problem, but I suspect something’s up. I could see a urologist, but that’s a minimum of two visits at inconvenient times to someone who I’ll probably conclude is incompetent.

Some doctors are great. Most are god-awful. It’s hard to know before seeing them. I’m delaying, which isn’t the logical choice, but it’s easier than calling medical offices. I’m solving my sleep now—one issue at a time. I hope I don’t come to regret waiting.

Fasting isn’t difficult, but it is trying. 

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(Context: I haven’t eaten food in the last 72 hours.)

Fasting isn’t difficult, but it is trying:

  • It’s trying to get something to eat and then not.
  • It’s trying and failing to fill the void inside you that food usually patches over.
  • It’s trying to slow down and succeeding and enjoying that success.
  • It’s trying to speak French with the Uber driver from Ethiopia and not minding the embarrassment when he sticks to English.
  • It’s dancing with the devil and winning for a step or two.
  • It’s trying to wrench up gunk from within your soul but, digging deep, not even finding a soul.
  • It’s trying to find God in the man with the megaphone and instead just achieving an intense, god-like focus.
  • It’s molding yourself like a wet ball of clay.
  • It’s trying to define a self while also trying to change it.
  • It’s trying—and succeeding—to sleep peacefully, because nothing else matters when you’re hungry.

Embrace and love your nerd-dom

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Embrace and love your nerd-dom. All successful people geek out about stuff. Whether it’s sci-fi, sports, music, art, or math, they’re passionate and driven, and that’s a good thing.

I grew up a self-hating nerd. My interests were swayed by society’s judgments. I spent years getting over that, understanding it’s okay — desirable, even, to be passionate. I’m still struggling with it–with judging my loves.

It’s even desirable to be into super nerdy stuff? Absolutely. Sci-fi, e-sports, board games, and reading. Philosophy and sports and theater and art. All things I love. All things are great. Bill Gates is into bridge and board games. Steph Curry likes organizing his garage – how’s that for a weird nerdy hobby?

Every topic has passionate zealots and harmful stereotypes about them. It’s good to have passion. Passion moves the world forward. Do your passions, no matter how you judge them.

Most ideas are bad ideas

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Don’t jump at once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Time-constrained doesn’t mean high-quality. Top-of-mind doesn’t mean you should say it. Most ideas are bad ideas, even scarce, enticing ones.

Prioritization and patience are a pair of twins: prioritization is the concept, patience the implementation. Priorities are a rank-order of your values consistent across situations. Patience allows you to align your behavior with those values whenever a new idea arises or an opportunity presents itself.

When someone makes me angry, I often implicitly prioritize that anger, but I don’t have to. Some people channel their anger into achieving their goals instead of letting the anger steer them. The same can be true for other emotions.

An effective marriage between priorities and patience is part of why people with singular focuses are more likely to succeed. If your whole life serves the purpose of creating great literature, each thought, moment, and event slots somewhere under that heading. Every moment could be a story; every word becomes fascinating. If your life serves a purpose, each perception does, too.

An Uninformed Yalie’s Notes on Suicide 

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“It’s not about death as a good choice, per se: more a rejection of all that exists and a disbelief in underlying capital-V Value that prompts a strong and visceral disgust of all that I find. And, so, without any importance to be found, the act—suicide—becomes as equally rational as it was previously irrational: trading the next terrestrial 60 years for that same time spent in that void I’ll reach eventually is just as fine as not. No value is no value is no value, and what’s 60 years to a rock.”

Yes, I wrote those notes (lightly edited for clarity) as an undergrad dabbling in nihilism. And know what? They’re bad—morally bad. That line of thinking breeds Columbines and Unabombers. They’re also wrong. Meaning is made. Even if Value is a construct, that means it’s constructed. That means you can make it! And just because you make it doesn’t mean it’s not real.

But golly, could I write. And for a nihilist, I sure had passion.