This is probably going to be edited and added to a few times over the next few days but here's the gist. I think I found a way out of anxiety/depression/self-loathing that can work for me. I'm still putting these thoughts in a more digestible sequence and this is the first iteration. Also this may look a little schizo, if it looks like i'm skipping something, or ignoring something obvious, please point it out so I can examine my oversight.

1. I have been a believer in the statement 'The future will be like the past' which comes from the fundamental problem of induction just as strongly as I was a young earth christian as a child, equally fallaciously.

2. Rock solid, extreme to the point of irrational belief in this idea is a causative factor in my depression. I have been accumulating facts about heart failure/ hypertrophic cardiomyopathy for decades now, without re-examining why I was doing so. The childhood belief that 'Knowledge drives out fear' is a childhood belief; one that I need to gently set aside and use sparingly when appropriate. I need to emotionally accept that past a certain pragmatic point, all I'm doing by continuing to gather information is building up the case that I am condemned to an early death after a long lonely agonizing battle that cannot be fought or won with current technology. In theory, accepting that the opposite is possible will also increase my gratitude for the copious resources available to me to, and the gratitude for said resources should again in theory increase their efficacy. Time to start setting up some life sustaining feedback loops.

3. Facts only pertain to the present and the past. I don't think that there is any such thing as a 'fact' about the future, except that it will be weird. When I project forward and think about the future with only the context of current knowledge and past events, starting with the premise of 'the future will be like the past,' I am denying the opportunity to be proven wrong, or surprised. I completely deny the possibility for optimism. I completely deny the possibility that something other than catastrophe can happen. _refugee_, mk, I think this was the point you tried to make to me many moons ago, here and here or at least it's very closely related.

4. I don't have everything sorted out that I need sorted out. I need to be less angry. I'm pretty sure there is some grief in there too. But I think I have flipped the first 0 into a 1, to appeal to my binary bad habits. It starts with the belief that the future will not be like the past. Everything else starts there.

Thank you all for your patience and counsel.

_refugee_:

Love and luck, Ben. Wishing you both, and all those other things - what I/we've all wished you before, but harder.


posted 2683 days ago