3 ms·

A lot of people are having a difficult time. I don't pretend to know anything about psychology or depression, but I do know that between the elbow of exponentia

A lot of people are having a difficult time. I don't pretend to know anything about psychology or depression, but I do know that between the elbow of exponential growth in all things good and bad, and our increasing awareness of it, that it's good to reach out to friends and read between lines, and ask if we're all ok. Sometimes flipping a stone over to check in can really make a huge impact in someone's life, even just a random coffee that wasn't normally meant to be.

tomp 7y ago
> it's good to reach out to friends and read between lines, and ask if we're all ok Will this actually reach the people that need it? I mean, just having friends (and/or people you're regularly in contact with) is probably quite helpful in preventing these situations from arising... I imagine the path towards suicide / serious life & mental health issues is quite gradual, rather than a cliff... so people would become negative, unpleasant to be around (hence lose their friends) way before coming anywhere near suicide... by then it's already too late. I often think, in terms of my life (highly privileged, smart & well educated, upper class, rich or at least high-earning, programmer, young, healthy, lots of career options, career resistant to automation, first-world citizen so easy to migrate, ...) I'm really quite isolated from "normal", "average" people... I don't actually even know anyone who's poor, or not in a career (i.e. just has a dead-end job like a bartender or truck driver)... just by virtue of the education system, I've been kept away from people like that since I was 15! How am I to even imagine what they're going through?! Sure not everything is rosy in my life, and even rich people can get sick and depressed, but I sometimes consider this viewpoint for some perspective...
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  This is a good point. I live partly in the country and small towns are full of guys 40-60 years old with no immediate family and, I presume, a limited support network. I realized at some point these are the men society marginalizes and sends out into the country to die. Only 40-60% of men become fathers. It's something I think about a lot after failing out of school. No one wants to date me, and the chances of me ever forming a nuclear family are getting slimmer by the day.
- digitalsushi 7y ago
  You owe it to everyone else to go talk to some random people, people that you don't think you have any business talking to. Because they are the people you have the most business talking with, to help you learn about everyone else.
- zarkov99 7y ago
  I salute you for having the humbleness to see it. There is horrific pain and suffering out there, one has only to hang out a bit with people outside the tech bubble to see it. Talk to your mechanic, the waiter, the landscape guy, the aging bro at the gym, the broken vet. There but for the grace of god is any one of us. It is unspeakably shameful that we dismiss their suffering because of their supposed male white privilege. As if that made them less worthy of empathy and respect.

tomp 7y ago

> it's good to reach out to friends and read between lines, and ask if we're all ok Will this actually reach the people that need it? I mean, just having friends (and/or people you're regularly in contact with) is probably quite helpful in preventing these situations from arising... I imagine the path towards suicide / serious life & mental health issues is quite gradual, rather than a cliff... so people would become negative, unpleasant to be around (hence lose their friends) way before coming anywhere near suicide... by then it's already too late. I often think, in terms of my life (highly privileged, smart & well educated, upper class, rich or at least high-earning, programmer, young, healthy, lots of career options, career resistant to automation, first-world citizen so easy to migrate, ...) I'm really quite isolated from "normal", "average" people... I don't actually even know anyone who's poor, or not in a career (i.e. just has a dead-end job like a bartender or truck driver)... just by virtue of the education system, I've been kept away from people like that since I was 15! How am I to even imagine what they're going through?! Sure not everything is rosy in my life, and even rich people can get sick and depressed, but I sometimes consider this viewpoint for some perspective...

snagglegaggle 7y ago
This is a good point. I live partly in the country and small towns are full of guys 40-60 years old with no immediate family and, I presume, a limited support network. I realized at some point these are the men society marginalizes and sends out into the country to die. Only 40-60% of men become fathers. It's something I think about a lot after failing out of school. No one wants to date me, and the chances of me ever forming a nuclear family are getting slimmer by the day.
digitalsushi 7y ago
You owe it to everyone else to go talk to some random people, people that you don't think you have any business talking to. Because they are the people you have the most business talking with, to help you learn about everyone else.
zarkov99 7y ago
I salute you for having the humbleness to see it. There is horrific pain and suffering out there, one has only to hang out a bit with people outside the tech bubble to see it. Talk to your mechanic, the waiter, the landscape guy, the aging bro at the gym, the broken vet. There but for the grace of god is any one of us. It is unspeakably shameful that we dismiss their suffering because of their supposed male white privilege. As if that made them less worthy of empathy and respect.