The horrors persist but so do we
Get in loser, we're going to (retail) therapy 🛍️
Existing is exhausting, in part because we have to do a lot of Sisyphean tasks we’d rather not in order to stay alive, or at least minimally functional. This has always been true and yet somehow it all feels worse than ever, probably thanks to the 24/7 reminders social media delivers of how everyone else is doing it better than us (or more efficiently, beautifully, quirkily, sponsored-ly, or whatever).
Most of us react to this somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between “giving up completely and moving to the woods to be reabsorbed by the ecosystem” and “developing a personal routine that borders on masochistic”. Algorithms obviously love the latter1.
I loved this way of framing it from
which showed up on my Substack feed a few weeks ago:
It really can go either way: what are you putting yourself through because you have to, to survive? Or what are you putting yourself through voluntarily because you’re trying to get Optimized and the only way society has taught us to do that is through Suffering?
It’s already a great question, but I thought of a good addendum to contextualize it: what, of the thing that you’ve been putting yourself through, has been ~*worth it*~? We put ourselves through a lot, but what do we keep showing up for on purpose?
It’s that line we have to navigate, between discomfort and pain. Discomfort is good for us; it forces us out of our comfort zone into growth. Pain tells us that something is wrong and we need to pay attention right now and stop doing whatever bonehead thing it is that we’re doing to cause it.
As a runner, I am deeply familiar with this line. You get a perverse pleasure from the discomfort that comes after a long training run or a hard race. There are times when I’m running in a particularly beautiful place that I’m like “Wow this is so great” but mostly it’s like writing— the only preferable state is the satisfaction of having written.
So tell me about your Suffering, my darlings, and I will tell you mine. But more importantly tell me: what has been worth it?
Get Rec’d
What I’m reading, watching, being haunted by.
What I’m reading: This book showed up on my doorstep2 the other night and I cannot wait to meet my neighbor for the first time under these circumstances.
What I’m watching: I started Reacher and I love our large friend so much.
Reality: Everyone’s a sellout now !!!
Escapism: Need some armchair travel? I have a little roundup of YouTube channels just for this very purpose.
Wildcard: If you would like to learn entirely too much about the history of dragons and why we assume they breathe fire etc, do I have the post for you!
Until next time.
Cue one thousand Morning Cold Plunge videos !!!
Whenever someone forgets to put their unit number on their address, I for some reason get the package