This was posted originally to my newsletter Bits-and-paradoxes at: https://bitsandparadoxes.substack.com/p/bits-and-paradoxes-33.
It’s been a long time, isn’t it? I am not going to start this yet-another-introspective-letter with the cliche “how are you holding up?”. To each, their own. (This is pure emotions! I might cringe later!). Also don’t be offended. I am kinda lonely and want to rant a lot of things. The words are pretty raw and I don’t intend to refactor it much.
I)
I’ve been feeling a bit lonely for the past few weeks, and my anxieties are back again. Since my last letter, certain things have surely changed. I have tried regaining control over my life. Now my family situation is not that “unstable”[3]. I haven’t had my medics since then. No cigarettes. No weed. No alcoholic beverages. In fact, I have spent every day trying to not “give in” to the absurd rut we all live in. In fact, my mother has been especially cautious of my situation (hello, depression?). And I have been trying my best to not fall into the pits of absolute sadness. In fact, I like to remind myself that everyone is going through a lot of shits, especially catalyzed by [[COVID-19]] situations. I am not even going to pretend that I am not “feeling good. Of course, I am not. I have never felt good about my life itself. Every other task I do is just a coping mechanism to not give in to all the absurdities of life. But …
But for the past 2 weeks or so, I’ve been bombarded by the same old “vague anxieties”. Not sure why. But I think it’s because of [[Grad School]]s and all the rejections I am going through. I have tried asking for help from a few friends. Nothing. Some of them are helpful. But mostly I don’t get “good advice” [0]. In all, I am thankful that Bijay has been the badass friend [1] who has helped me to get my Grad School applications shit on the track. Thanks, Bijay. [1] But this letter is not about this gratitude either. I will have gratitude later…someday..when my mood kicks.
In this letter, I intend to talk about why I am feeling more anxious lately than I should have.
There are few things, I believe I can vaguely pinpoint the rising anxiousness within me:
- First, loneliness. Yes. Loneliness is a bummer. A mind-killer. Something that can destroy all your life.
- Secondly, Grad Schools. I am not sure how I can even “game” this shit.
- Thirdly, people don’t really empathize with my interaction.
- Finally (not exactly though): [[Idea Attenuation]].
II)
When I talk to people, I hesitate to open up right away. To those I don’t open up much, I tend to redirect them to my personal journal-based blog or this newsletter, hoping that they would get some glimpse of the absurdities I am pissing in.
Just in the month of May 2021, I got a few DMs (Direct Messages) from two “kind” strangers in the interweb. Of course, they were kind enough to say that this newsletter and other write-ups from me resonated strongly with them. One of them (maybe you?) is outright honest that this newsletter has been their (your?) coping mechanism to peek into the absurd life. I am, of course, humbled. I don’t have anything to say except: “to each, their own”. But I am glad (not in a sadistic way) that there are people out there who actually feel that these words from a very constricted life bubble are providing some sense of meaning to their life.
When I look back at the years passed by – almost through a decade-long lens – I feel the reason for all my depression was not just only from family struggles (and melodrama of life), but also from how much I got consumed by “archaic” philosophy of life. Most of the absurdist/nihilistic philosophies used to make me sadder than I should have actually been. I used to believe that everything I read should have some sense of “meanings” in them.
For instance, when I look back at [[The Walden Experiment]] from [[Henry David Thoreau]], I have a different perspective now. Of course, it sounds “good” in theory that you could isolate yourself somewhere in the woods (woods here is, of course, a metaphor), think back at your life in total selfishness and do things that you can do alone. Now since [[COVID-19]] lockdown is still having egregious impacts to almost everyone in the world, I can’t imagine if isolating yourself is the only therapy you can get. This of course coming from a guy who is on a [[Digital Detox]] for the past 2+ years, doesn’t makes sense. Almost paradoxical. I let this thought experiment to you.
III)
During our early years, we tend to “believe” that time is linear. That we have “plenty of time” to do “plenty of things”.
When we look back at our teenage-era period, or perhaps to our early 20s, we think we have all the time we need for life. To postpone works and learning for the future. To stack up all the time in our pockets to “have fun”. To pass through an empty space with ignorance, with negligence.
Image: “Linear time perception”
We believe that graduation would be easy. We would get into a career/job right after college. And that we can have a decent-earning career. Then would marry our partners. If we don’t have a romantic partner, we could depend on “arranged” marriage or some dating platforms to see if things would work out. If they do, we might have some wonderful life ahead.
(Did I just change the narration from “we” to “you”?) However, days turn into weeks. Weeks into months. And months into years. The final year. The sensation of “this will not last long” will start kicking. You’d find yourself drenched in heavy [[Imposter Syndrome]]. That you are not “skillful” and “resourceful” enough for any kind of job. That you are nothing. Your life isn’t creating any values. Even if you get lucky enough into a job, things will not be easy. You start to hit a quarter-life crisis. You start to feel “what the fuck is happening”. “Why the fuck I am doing this”. “Should I be doing XYZ?”. You get bombarded by a lot of uncanny feelings, the barrenness of which I can’t really describe here in these letters. This whole transition from a pre-adult life towards adulthood is very long, like a long game of fetch. It’s full of emotional rides.
Even if you hit a stable career, the problem of marriage keeps on haunting you. If you have a partner with whom you can spend the rest of your lives, you still feel hesitant. In the sense, that “Will I be able to start a family with my current career? Will we able to handle a child? Will we get along?”. And such.
Image: “Non-Linear time perception”
This sensation of time that it’s almost “logarithmic” grows over time. By the time you are 27ish years old, you might realize that a lot of early years were just a filler arc in your life. That your current “self” has a lot of things to squeeze in a short period of time, especially when you have crossed the quarter-life milestone.
IV)
Human life is short.
I’ve been thinking about how short human life is.
<broken thoughts>
Most people achieve life satisfaction after 40. The best programmers are the old people. Philosophers got their works “appreciated” in their older days. Modern [[Social Media]] [2] abstracts these away to create a sense of “urgency” that we haven’t really done (or achieved) anything significant.
This thought has been haunting me for many months now. And I can’t shake off the feeling that you are only a few people who “know” about an abstraction of “Nish”
“Life is short. But it’s long enough if you use it wisely.” - Seneca, On Shortness of Life
”Uncertainty is resolved in a work of Art.”_
</broken thoughts>
V)
Over the past few years, I had believed in the “play the long game” narrative. But if I am to revise that notion, I can (for now) say: “Fuck the long game”. This is not coming from frustration, but from a very authentic side-effect when money is taken into the equation. If your life is full of financial struggles, then why the fuck do you have to improvise for the long game? The answer is pretty straightforward. You invest your current “self” towards immediate rewards. These rewards could be, perhaps:
- Asking directly for a salary raise.
- Doing something you wanted to do for a long time but (still) don’t have proper resources to do so. (In my case, it’s producing music)
- Expand your “lifey” bubble by directly working on it with immediate rewards.
Introspectively, I can say that if you are in a deep existentially dreading financial crisis (like I was), you should first evaluate all the skills you have, the values you have added to any organization, and start asking for a good reward. I am not saying your life should be totally money-centric.
Now that’s out of the way, there are still a lot of things I want to talk about tonight
VI)
Back to the original context of why I am feeling more anxious for the past 2 weeks or so…
I think the reason is how some people didn’t respond to my emotions the way I had expected them to be. For instance, if you are a “new person” to my naive “lifey” bubble, and I share some content like my music, my expectation is to have some kind of empathy from you. That means you should really “feel” the emotional state I am in. I think this has happened a couple of times, not just with new people but also with the older ones. I am not sure how to react to this.
One moment you are there saying “Hey Nish, how are you doing?” to which I reply “I am fine!”. And I don’t see any other interaction, that’s kinda bummer for me. I am not the best of the living beings out there who can empathize. But I can say that I expect something out of you to continue the interaction empathetic-ally. I really need some “empathetic” reciprocation from you. When I ping you and you just reply after few days and your message would be like “okay”, that’s a bummer. It’s a bummer because I had allocated more than an hour or so to write a long message to you and all I get is an empty reply. It’s a bummer that I didn’t get the appreciation for the video I edited for 2 hours during the weekend just for you. I shouldn’t just be “appreciated” for my research/coding skills (which I already suck at). I also sometimes expect that at least some other things are more valuable than just technical shit I live by. I don’t know. I am overthinking this. But this is hitting me hard suddenly. The abstraction of “Nish” isn’t just some “techy” guy to whom you get back to for advice. The abstraction leaks if you start to pay attention to things I write/read/consume. And at the core of this abstraction, there’s a very weird guy who likes to think that he sucks at everything, that he isn’t good at other things, that he’s helplessly introverted. So, yeah! That’s that! Now you don’t tell me that I should “grow up”. In fact “growing up” is continuous. It’s equally a phase.
This isn’t just about my personal life. It’s also about my work life. I have tried very hard to segregate my [[work-life balance]]. You get the idea, right? Again, my expectations are the actual culprit. But what can be done? That’s why I have some coping mechanisms for this: distract my mind with something else. This can be reading a lot of things, mindlessly browsing the interweb…or just keep on overworking.
VII)
One of the reasons why most of us feel very “shitty” is the way how [[Social Media]] bubble is affecting our mental health. This bubble is shaping our mindset to believe that every other person is doing great in their life. They are having a blast, with themselves as well as with their partners.
I think over the last 2 years, as I have quit [[Twitter]], I feel I am able to move away from that rut. In fact, just recently I deleted all of my [[Reddit]] accounts. There was this specific account that I had been using since 2015. I had a lot of great interaction with it on Reddit. Some of the interactions were wholesome. But having been in this space for a long time, even before 2015, I have come to this overly dramatic and epiphanic belief that all these interactions haven’t really added much value to my life. Everyone wants to project their ego to the world, making every other person feel like shit. The whole [[Dunning–Kruger effect]] is at play here. This makes me feel way crappier than I should be. It’s as if I am the only person who knows nothing about the ever-expanding thought-verse of political and historical agenda.
Just a few days back I also had thought of deleting this newsletter. Then I came to terms with that this newsletter is one of my coping mechanisms to the absurd. That I can always get back to this newsletter to talk shit just like I am doing right now…
VIII)
Every interaction should create some value. This is actually my new motto to keep on learning. If I talk to you and you talk about all your existential crises, I get some values as a side-effect. In that process, I learn that there are people like me who are actually having a lot of crises in their life.
Being a pessimistic guy for all my teen and adult years, I like to pretend that some interactions shouldn’t have an agenda. In hindsight, it should. If I am having a conversation with you with “I am feeling lonely right now”, and all you can reply is “You have your mom..your family”, then I am afraid that reply doesn’t add any value to my ever-growing crisis. It’s not that I was seeking therapy. But whenever you come to have a conversation with me, it’s all for your benefit, not mine. The archetypal “nice guy” narration engulfs me. Of course, I am nice to everyone. Of course, I am helping everyone. Of course, I don’t like to be “that guy” who solves only the “technical problems”. Of course not. I am a human after all. I want to have conversations deeply to mitigate my loneliness. To keep on living my absurd life. Keep on ranting about things I want to change. And also keep on listening to whatever things the person on the other side has to say…
At this point, I am so skeptical about interacting with anyone that, I feel I need an “agenda” first to even interact. It’s been 2 fucking years since I haven’t had any romantic conversation with anyone. It’s been 5+ fucking years since I have been out of touch with my college “friends”. I heard someone just got married. I also heard that someone had their 2nd child. I also heard that some folks have finally graduated from country X (not Nepal). Of course, I feel envious in some ways that I have to get rejected by a lot of shits in life. Not just grad schools. Not just a romantic relationship. Not just people mocking at my “ugly looks” back in the days. If I am on a “rant” sprint, I think I can win at least some races. But this is not a race, but a battle within myself. Of course, “I feel great” while I keep on reading books that help me to open up more of the world to me. Of course, “I feel great” when I keep on staring into the abyss while I am coding. Of course, “I feel great” while I pick up Rusty (my guitar) and just have orgasmic musical time. Of course, “I feel great” when I get a reply saying: “Man! Your music has elements of [[Steven Wilsom]]. This is so authentic!”. Of course, interactions that add “positive” values to my life are the ones I am looking forward to, most of the time!
IX)
This last section is about how I joggle with an inherently meaningless world and try to find “meanings” in my own existence.
Over the last year, I have become more existentialist than being utterly nihilistic about life in general. This existentialist mindset is just another abstraction to the [[Absurdism]].
Like I said in the beginning, all the archaic philosophy we are used to “consuming” directly cannot be applied to our lives directly, especially towards the mundane things we live by. I still remember vaguely the early existential terror I had in my childhood, which has mutated throughout my life. Different philosophical paradigm shaping my life: from [[Franz Kafka]] to [[Nietzsche]] to [[Albert Camus]] to [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] to [[Henry David Thoreau]] to whoever is there today… A lot of sadness seems to have stemmed from directly placing myself in all of these shoes, trying to “feel” what kind of light enters through all these telescopic lenses. And that I always feel “related” to each and every philosopher [3]. That’s that.
Ending Thoughts
I think I have gone overboard talking all these shits. Have a “great” night ahead!
BTW, I am now a “verified artist” on Spotify. Haha. Just search for “Voids and Paradoxes”.
I also have my first release on Spotify: Hope Leaves (Eerie)
You can also find this track on my YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxrhsU42auM (Do give it a listen. Might help boost my ego. haha)
This is the 4th track from my album “Eerie”.
I am still recording the final (5th) track. Here’s the snippet from the 10-min mark Guitar solo of the 5th track:
Hope you are as excited as I am with the final track! I hope I can meet my personal deadline.
Footnotes
[0] - What the fuck even “good advice” means? Perhaps, I like to “believe” that good advice is fragmented opinions, which can re-direct me towards something better for me.
[1] - I am not sure how to describe Bijay. He’s one of my closest friends who has seen all my ups and downs. All the metamorphosis I have been through. In a nutshell, he’s the closest person who actually “resonates” (aspires) in my naive little bubble. I can’t even pretend all the rejections he himself is going through. What the fuck works for Grad School anyways? Why the fuck we are being rejected? Why the fuck is he being rejected? I get that I suck. But it feels weird seeing him get rejected too. That’s the story for some other day. Not today. I guess.
[2] - Maybe modern society too creates the abstraction that an “ideal life” is to have a stable career with decent pay, marry and have children, and retire…
[3] - I don’t know why I relate to Franz Kafka more than anything else. Perhaps it’s because of this weird relationship I have with my father. Haven’t really talked with him for more than a year. Our family situation is pretty bad. I am not even going to talk about how my sister eloped away stealing a very large sum of money! (Don’t worry. She’s back. But a brother’s rage is a brother’s rage, especially I can’t tolerate anyone stealing my money for which I work hard every day! I can only hope that she learns her lesson from me being silent with her for a few months now…)