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With all due respect, this is nonsense written by someone who doesn't deal with this problem. This argument comes from people seeing movement from A to B, and
by pdpi 5y ago
With all due respect, this is nonsense written by someone who doesn't deal with this problem.
This argument comes from people seeing movement from A to B, and assuming all movement from A to B is identical. This particular pattern is that they're motivated to move toward B (and the fact they started at A is incidental), and can't understand that other people can move from A to B because they're motivated to move away from A (and ending up at B is irrelevant). For an extreme example: A Saudi man and a Saudi woman both moving to Norway. The man might be motivated to move towards a country with snow where he can ski, while the woman is motivated to move away from somewhere where she has limited rights.
I understand (and sometimes fall prey to) the stereotypical Civilization "one more turn" phenomenon, and have e.g. booked holidays and pulled an all-nighter to power through a new Warcraft expansion or some such nonsense — a clear case of "movement toward". But I also have anxiety issues, and this sort of "movement away from" procrastination is very much part of how it manifests itself. The two are distinct things that feel very, very different internally.
Ultimately, I don't actually care what it is that I'm doing, scrolling through reddit or playing a game, or even tidying up the house. I might even be exhausted and struggling to stay awake — the point is I don't want to go to bed, because high anxiety usually triggers my brain going into uncomfortable thoughts when I go to bed, and because going to bed puts me that much closer to the next day's anxieties and stresses.
A different (and ultimately unhealthy) sort of "movement toward" is the choice to not go to bed as an act of self determination by way of rebellion. Sort of "I don't feel in control so I exercise control on the one thing I feel I can, consequences be damned". The important part isn't the thing you're doing, it's that you're choosing to do it. AIUI, self-harm works along these same lines.
In short: please don't patronise people struggling with real problems by telling them they're just over-intellectualising things.
- rosstex 5y ago>going to bed puts me that much closer to the next day's anxieties and stresses Rarely is this cycle of self-harm behavior expressed so plainly. Sorry you are dealing with this.
- Aeolun 5y agoRegardless of the people struggling with actual problems, most people are probably doing exactly what the original author says. At least, I do both. I can on one hand try to stay awake because I’m absolutely convinced I’ll die in my sleep. Or on the other hand (most days when my anxiety has not flared to ridiculous levels) it’s just the first time during the day that I have some time that is truly to myself, so I can read and comment without interruption.
- toyg 5y ago> A different (and ultimately unhealthy) sort of "movement toward" is the choice to not go to bed as an act of self determination by way of rebellion. This is actually what I've been doing pretty much my whole adult life. Revenge Bedtime Procrastination gives it a name and a framework to express the problem and (maybe) face it - which is something I found really exciting in the linked article (before the political angle was shoehorned in).
- haswell 5y agoThis is really well stated and resonates with me deeply. The “doing things I don’t even want to do” aspect of this is what also separates this from “just staying up late”. For me, I’ve had some vague notion of trying to build a time buffer between today and tomorrow. Something to separate today’s stress from tomorrow’s stress.
- blacktriangle 5y agoWith no due respect, Ed Zitron nailed this. Only a generation as devoid of meaning in their life as our current one could turn watching Netflix before bed into some idea that they're part of the cultural zeitgiest reaching out for collective labor action.
- SyzygistSix 5y agoBingo. Life devoid of meaning because we spend most of it working, and the work doesn't have much meaning or do much for many people other than allow them to survive... to work another day. Sure, we could pretend that the people who don't find meaningful work are just not as good as those that are able to find meaningful work. Or we could decide that life isn't about work. Which does indeed begin to look like collective action is called for.
- blacktriangle 5y agoIf you need collective action to find meaning in life you're already screwed.
- Apocryphon 5y agoCollective action has been employed to fulfill every other step of Maslow’s hierarchy, why not the capstone?
- dwaltrip 5y agoWhere does meaning in life come from?
- dwaltrip 5y agoYou haven't addressed a single thing in the comment you are replying to.
- seoulmetro 5y agoThis entire comment reads worse than if he were actually patronising someone. You are reverse-patronising someone for supposedly patronising you. Ironic. Both comments have merit and are both problems that exist based off the original problem of not wanting to finish the day/fun thing/event that is better than the next. You need to grow up and stop playing a victim. People are allowed to realise what something is, even if it isn't the same realisation you came up with.... and yes. "I have this problem" and I know this problem very well, in case you want to cry out that I do not.