4 ms·

One habit that has somewhat helped me is free-writing. Not for the sake of creating art, but for the sake of just expressing myself. I've been very lethargic fo

One habit that has somewhat helped me is free-writing. Not for the sake of creating art, but for the sake of just expressing myself. I've been very lethargic for the last couple of years or so - I find it very hard to write things (that aren't HN comments), and my mind gives me a lot of resistance. But setting a timer to 10 minutes, playing ambient noise on headphones, then forcing myself to write down anything that comes to my mind helps me "open up" in a way. There's no "wrong thing" to write - just write whatever your mind wants to write, repeat words, write nonsense, animal onomatopoeias - anything goes, as long as the words flow. Touch typing helps a lot. I feel like I'm very "closed" by default, in terms of my relationship with the world - I see, hear and feel things, but they feel dull, I can't really feel them. I can comprehend them, but it just feels empty, as if the whole world is fake - I listen to music, but it doesn't move me at all; I eat food, but I do it as quickly as possible to finish with the hassle; I watch a TV show but I need to put effort into not turning it off... After a quick session of free-writing, I find it easier to feel. Perhaps it's like a meditation of sorts.

drakonka 4y ago
> I feel like I'm very "closed" by default, in terms of my relationship with the world - I see, hear and feel things, but they feel dull, I can't really feel them. I can comprehend them, but it just feels empty, as if the whole world is fake - I listen to music, but it doesn't move me at all; I eat food, but I do it as quickly as possible to finish with the hassle; I watch a TV show but I need to put effort into not turning it off... After a quick session of free-writing, I find it easier to feel. Perhaps it's like a meditation of sorts. I can relate to this a little I think, though maybe not to extent you describe. For me it's mostly around people and feeling like my emotions are "dull" in comparison to others. For example, I understand when someone is telling me an emotional story and can comprehend why it made them sad or happy or whatever, but I find it hard to really engage on an emotional level. I used to see scenes in movies where a character is telling another why they're sad or whatever, and the other character gets emotional as if they're reliving that experience/feeling some semblance of the same emotion as the person speaking. For a while I thought it was just one of those things they did in movies that didn't reflect how people actually work, but I've since gotten feedback that people _do_ legitimately relate to each other like that. If someone tells me they're upset about something I'll understand it, but usually won't really feel anything unless I'm somehow the cause of it, which is different because then I'll feel _my_ side of that experience (guilt, remorse, confusion, defensiveness, whatever), not theirs. Both reading and writing fiction seems to make this better for me. A good story helps to drag me into another character's shoes, which then seems to make it easier to get into real people's shoes as well, for a while.

drakonka 4y ago

> I feel like I'm very "closed" by default, in terms of my relationship with the world - I see, hear and feel things, but they feel dull, I can't really feel them. I can comprehend them, but it just feels empty, as if the whole world is fake - I listen to music, but it doesn't move me at all; I eat food, but I do it as quickly as possible to finish with the hassle; I watch a TV show but I need to put effort into not turning it off... After a quick session of free-writing, I find it easier to feel. Perhaps it's like a meditation of sorts. I can relate to this a little I think, though maybe not to extent you describe. For me it's mostly around people and feeling like my emotions are "dull" in comparison to others. For example, I understand when someone is telling me an emotional story and can comprehend why it made them sad or happy or whatever, but I find it hard to really engage on an emotional level. I used to see scenes in movies where a character is telling another why they're sad or whatever, and the other character gets emotional as if they're reliving that experience/feeling some semblance of the same emotion as the person speaking. For a while I thought it was just one of those things they did in movies that didn't reflect how people actually work, but I've since gotten feedback that people _do_ legitimately relate to each other like that. If someone tells me they're upset about something I'll understand it, but usually won't really feel anything unless I'm somehow the cause of it, which is different because then I'll feel _my_ side of that experience (guilt, remorse, confusion, defensiveness, whatever), not theirs. Both reading and writing fiction seems to make this better for me. A good story helps to drag me into another character's shoes, which then seems to make it easier to get into real people's shoes as well, for a while.