Comment by Aerbil313
1 day ago
Congratulations on being lucky enough to not be afflicted by a bad enough mental health disorder! All you have to do is to "get out there and do stuff" to achieve fulfillment.
Maybe you'll consider not projecting your experience onto the many others who are literally unable, even though they are equipped with the same number of functioning hands and feet as you do, and don't seem disabled by mere appearance.
> They fill up their time with worthless empty "calories" of media consumption, ethanol, and doom scrolling.
You might consider extending this empathy by also not blaming the otherwise healthy people falling into these dopamine traps that are designed by professionals to entrap, designed carefully over many thousands of man-years to maximize ad revenue.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you for the most part. Yet I'm struck by the complete omission of the robber from the story, and the focus on the robbed houseowner's weakly built front door, when it was already made of steel. And of course, the non-negligible fraction of the population whose front doors are made of weaker material through no fault of their own.
> Almost all of them are unhappy.
Then surely they would climb out of their dopamine gravity-wells in the first chance and pursue happier, more real lives, right, if they could?
I kindly ask you to reconsider your beliefs regarding "willpower".
> Congratulations on being lucky enough to not be afflicted by a bad enough mental health disorder! All you have to do is to "get out there and do stuff" to achieve fulfillment.
It’s true that mentally ill folk (including yours truly) fall prey to these dopamine sinks more easily as an escape or coping mechanism — and they’re even more vulnerable to the predation of marketers and UX engineers trying to maximize ad-views. It is important to have these talks about society and social structures. But ultimately, on an individual level, it very literally is about just “getting out there and doing stuff.” That isn’t dismissive or discounting hardships, that’s just how it is.
Getting out there and doing things is the answer, for those with mental illnesses and those without. Upping your willpower and your ability to cope is paramount. How you do it differs from person to person: It might be tweaks to routine, taking medication, or getting therapy. But this is a universal human thing. The goal is the same, the steps is the same — but some of us have more intermediate steps than others.
You know, I'm looking at this conversation, and it reminds me a lot of the challenges of starting a physical health kick.
The answer to how to get into better shape isn't a mystery: eat well, work out. The environmental forces against you are not a mystery. But DOING this is really hard, and these habits involve skills, which have to be developed from zero over time. Your first cardio is going to suck. If you are a beginner cook, I've got all sorts of ideas on what to make and how, you need some direction.
The worst thing to do is nothing. The best thing to do is learn to cook one thing and start going for long walks. You iterate on the practice them there.
So what's the equivalent Step 1 for the doomscroller?
Because I agree with you, "delete all the apps and go be social" isn't going to cut it. For a lot of people, starting with basics "go see a band play, shut off your phone for the evening" or "instead of getting carryout, take a book to a restaurant and sit at the bar" (traveler's hack: you can do anything alone if you bring a book).
If you try hard enough you can always find reasons to justify failure and explain why no improvement is ever possible.
Lazy gunna laze.