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Should I be so angry? – Dissertation pt. 4

Another one? I did say it would a six part series. I’ve shown (hopefully) that it can be appropriate to be angry at an impairment (for being disabling) and now move onto asking whether you should be angry.

I enjoyed writing this section. Interesting stuff. In fact, I’d say all of it is interesting but I’m not reliable since I wrote it.

Maybe my next essay will be “Can I be too humble?”.  Anyway, although it’s the longest section, enjoy the rest of the argument :)

The previous posts:

The Two Models of Disability (part 1)

Martha Nussbaum on Emotions and Flourishing (part 2)

Here’s What It Means to be Angry (part 3)

 

I have established an important premise in my argument. It can be appropriate to be angry at an impairment and its disabling nature. This emphasised with the knowledge that disabling factors cannot always or completely be attributed to the poor design of society. However, because of this, if we accept the social model of disability, it does not regard these emotions as legitimate because impairments cannot cause these problems. One move left to be made is for the social model proponent to argue that you should not be angry because it is counter-productive or useless.

If it is established that you should not be angry at your impairment, then it matters much less whether it is appropriate to be so. The social model theorist could claim to only be concerned with the times you should be angry rather than trying to accommodate for ‘appropriate’ ones. I will now explain the objections to being angry.

“Anger is harmful and offers no new knowledge”

Opposition to anger has a long history going back to ancient philosophers such as Seneca and the tradition has come in more modern forms. Seneca had this to say about anger:

The other emotions have in them some element of peace and calm, while this one is wholly violent and has its being in an onrush of resentment, raging with a most inhuman lust for weapons, blood, and punishment, giving no thought to itself if only it can hurt another, hurling itself upon the very point of dagger, and eager for revenge though it may drag down the avenger along with it (1928, Essay 1-107)

Although our modern conceptions of anger do not need to be encoded with the desire to have revenge, this is still an important idea. Anger is said to harm the person who is angry and “Anger embodies nothing useful” (ibid. Essay 1-129). This is quite damning because it makes anger seem like the most useless of emotions and we definitely should not experience. In the context of a disability, anger would be an emotion which makes the experience of disability worse by intensifying the limitations one experiences.

Glen Pettigrove and Koji Tanaka (2014) helpfully point out some more opposition to anger in the Buddhist tradition. Santideva argues a few interesting points.

  • Anger is pointless (Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life vi. 10)
  • Anger presupposes a confused, unduly partial perspective, which gives exaggerated weight to my perceived interests and insufficient weight to the interests of others (vi. 4-5).

Here, again, the discussion of anger is agent centred but the objection can still hold if we do not consider the insufficient weight to the interests of others. Rather it can be interpreted as not taking enough consideration of:

  • Our own interests (to not feel worse because of our disability).
  • How we think our bodies and lives ought to be.

With this, we should not be angry because we have a misguided perspective on what the actual significance of the effect disability has on our lives. This will be important for the future discussion but I will explain briefly a more modern form of opposition to anger.

Pettigrove and Tanaka (2014), in one of their many points, argue that anger is not particularly epistemically useful. They argue and present evidence for the fact that anger is regularly misleading with respect to its proper object and unrelated objects which may follow (p.281). They present the case that anger often leads people to participate in biased, heuristic-reasoning and become less likely to accept evidence which is contrary to their view (p.280)[1]. Moreover, they cite Randolph Nesse (2005) in saying that anger works on the smoke detector principle – meaning it generates more false alarms than true ones. In place of anger in political contexts, Pettigrove promotes meekness as a virtue (Pettigrove, 2012).

This counter-productivity critique is arguably more potent with respect to disability than related discussions about anger towards other agents or political systems. When discussing other people and public policy, we have a greater ability to control the object (people, public policy, etc.) and direct it to productive change. If I am angry that a building does not accommodate for people with mobility concerns, then I can demand that the building managers make appropriate changes where they can. As I mentioned earlier, the social model snuggly fits into the notion of agent-centred anger. In contrast to disability and impairment, it is more difficult to see how anger might lead to productive change. It may force to me to demand a cure but that involves making claims against others. What this says is that anger might be so counter-productive because it is futile. It is directed towards an almost inert object and that fact alone might exaggerate the anger even further.

There are more different forms of oppositions to anger but they usually take a politicised form which Srinivasan (2015) discusses in great detail. However, I wish to focus only on the idea that one should not be angry because it is counter-productive, does not contain useful information and it harms you.

I will tackle the first two arguments together. In response to these criticisms of anger, I argue that the experience of anger can be very epistemically productive. It gives us knowledge which might have been hidden to us before. In the context of agent-centred anger, one might become angry at an injustice which you did not realise was a problem.

In the context of disability, I will aim to demonstrate the epistemic productivity of anger by showing its productivity parallels well with realising injustice in political situations. In the 1950s and 60s,  Malcom X was seen as a very angry figure who was too radical not only in his aims but approaches to achieving them, especially when contrasted with his calmer contemporary, Martin Luther King Jr. His anger came from the historical and continued racial injustice committed by White Americans against Black Americans spanning hundreds of years. With this, we can see that the experience of an injustice or unfairness can cause anger. As a result, the experience of anger led to the knowledge they are experiencing injustice.

The knowledge granted by emotions in the previous example can be had with impairments. If someone suffers from chronic pain, they might come to realise that the reason why they are angry with their progression is because pain is very limiting. Then the anger is epistemically productive because it grants the knowledge that pain is disabling (rather than just not trying hard enough for example). Our bodies and knowledge of impairments are intimately tied to one another even though we can get things wrong about our own bodies. Being limited by your body, can be a very obvious experience for we are always experiencing what it feels like to use our bodies. We can have simple knowledge of it (i.e. ‘I cannot hear’ or ‘I am in continuous pain’) but that alone does not always signify a limitation because some do not view impairments as necessarily limiting[2]. When an impairment becomes disabling, then it might trigger anger and cause us to say “this impairment is harming me and places a significant limit on me”.

Therefore, anger contains useful information about impairments and the fact they can be disabling when we realise that it limits us from achieving significant life projects. A few points need to be emphasised. First, the notion of unfairness is important and must be remembered otherwise there is the risk of saying anything which prevents you from getting what you want can be appropriately responded to with anger. Secondly, the idea of significant life projects will be clarified. This notion is connected to the concept of Eudaimonia and personal flourishing. Meaning if personal flourishing is significantly limited by the impairment, this is usually regarded as disabling. Moreover, this might reflect things that nearly all humans desire for themselves (such as not being in pain or being able to recognise faces). Generally, this limitation will be long-term and have a near continuous presence in their everyday lives. Of course, people can dramatically change their goals and no longer view their impairment as a limit but as a reason for their flourishing. This is consistent with my argument.

I want to emphasise the focus on non-agent-centred anger versus agent-centred anger. Problems such as structural racism and sexism have a root cause in other people causing oppression by placing limits on others and causing harms. In this sense, society is disabling. However, with impairments being disabling, while society can be the cause of disability, it is not sufficient. An impairment can cause disability by placing limits on the person and causing harm without involving other people.

This is an important move for a few reasons. First, it means that disabilities which have no clear social remedies (this does not include curing the impairment) can be understood through the emotional experience of it. Perhaps another claim which follows is that emotions can contain valuable epistemic information. Disabilities such as chronic pain and fatigue often prevent people from achieving significant life projects, even if those projects are to not be in consistent pain or simply live a life without this general reduction in well-being.

A brief counter to whether one should or should not be angry might take the following form:

If one is learning how to walk, and they become angry because they find it very difficult, it might be responded that they should not be harsh on themselves.

However, while it may have good intentions, it can be misguided. They might respond by saying they are not angry at themselves because they are at no fault. They are angry that their impairment is preventing them from walking.

It might also be argued “do not be angry at things you cannot control.” If we cannot control the state of our disability, then we should not be angry at all. I ask that you recall the condition of significance and Eudaimonia in the discussion of emotions earlier. I could be angry because it is something I cannot control and feel I ought to be able to. For example, I myself cannot directly control whether systematic racism continues to exist or not and the fact it does exist, makes me angry. On the other hand, I cannot control whether the buses are on time (or show up at all) but the promptness of buses is much less significant to my life projects than experiencing racism is. Here it can be seen that the significance of the event can help us understand whether one should or should not be angry. If the event ends up being insignificant on a bigger picture, then there may be no need. On the other hand, if it remains significant to your life, then it is easier to deflect the criticism that you should not be angry.

Secondly, given the information that anger does contain, it prevents the social model theorist from attempting to explain away the emotional experience towards their body by explaining everything in terms of societal oppression. If a person is blind and is angry they cannot see anymore, it would be irresponsible to dismiss it by attempting to explain it solely in terms of what society has not done for them. It is true that society could do much more to help them navigate the world properly. It is not true that their projects are to simply being able to navigate the world nor should that be their only project or desire. They can be much more complex and personal. A blind person may want to see their child and their body prevents that from happening.

The third objection – anger is harmful – stands up better in face of criticism. It is plausible to believe that anger does make the experience of disability worse. Largely because it brings a negative section of your life to centre stage and makes you engage with it intensely. When one is angry, it is rarely a passive engagement between you and the object and thus can decrease well-being quite substantially. If something harms you, you wish not to be harmed then you ought not to be angry. Yet, I do not think this is enough to establish that one should not be angry. This is strengthened by the above points on the epistemic productivity of anger and leads to a different argument – does it matter if one should not be angry?

There is something to be said about whether someone ‘should’ be angry at an impairment or anything at all. Here, the separation between the ‘can’ and the ‘should’ becomes important. Anger (and other emotions) do not need to be justified solely in terms of their productivity or in terms of how they influence your well-being. If one is angry at a moral violation then that explains and justifies their anger. Remarking they should not be angry does not address the reason for their anger but says their reaction to it is mistaken. This is a problematic response because ignoring the reason for the anger is a perfect way to undermine personal testimony. This is undermined without reference to their reasons for being angry but the thought that one should not be angry for the reasons discussed above. It is enough that it is apt even if we have a case of apt counter-productive anger (Srinivasan, 2015, p.20).

So far I have argued that the criticisms of whether we should be angry fail. One last qualification needs to be made. I am not arguing that there is an obligation to be angry at an impairment even if it would be appropriate to be. Rather, if a person is angry, it not easily dismissed as counter-productive or being too harmful to be useful. With this, the social model of disability excludes anger as an appropriate emotional response to impairment which is an important mistake.

[1] Interestingly enough, they also argue (as Seneca does) that anger characteristically contains the desire to lash out at whatever has wronged you. This is a mistaken addition for a two main reasons. 1) Modern conceptions of anger do not need to contain that condition and you especially would not be justified in doing so simply because you are also justified in being angry. See Myles Burnyeat’s rejection of this (2002) and 2) given the earlier establishment that you can be angry at an impairment, there is no person to be angry at in this case.

[2] It is worthwhile to note the idea that impairment can also be socially determined. If this is true, then people might not find impairments limiting because society has not caused whatever biological factor in question to be a limitation. See Shakespeare (2006).

 

If you’ve made it this far, thanks. I hope you enjoyed the argument.

Do you think anger is useful? 

For long time readers of the blog (and people with the memories of the-opposite-of-a-goldfish) you might recall me writing this about anger. Do you think I’ve contradicted myself?

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

July Reading List

Suddenly, two months turns into eight. I don’t know how it happened but it did. I promise I’ve been reading though. Here are the previous reading lists:

October reading list

August reading list

Onto the current books…

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

Cal writes a blog over called Study Hacks over at calnewport.com and I’ve been following his work for a few years. Over the past year or so, he’s become really interested in learning how we can focus more by employing what he calls “deep work”. He defines it as:

Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capacities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.

The alternative, shallow work, is the opposite. Non-demanding tasks which are often performed while distracted and easy to replicate. The plight of every student around – writing an essay with Facebook in the background.

Originally, I thought that there cannot be much to say about concentrating really hard on really tough work for a really long time. After all, the crux of the book might be seen as ‘get rid of distractions and get to work’ but there’s much more to it. He goes through multiple tactics to increasing the amount of “deep work” you can get out of the day (it’s very limited since it’s quite tough. So don’t expect eight hours straight away) and why “deep work” is valuable both in a professional and personal sense.

After spending some time with the book and trying to increase my deep work (so I have to work less during the day), I found that it became much easier to do and resulted in a decent dissertation effort towards the end of my degree. More importantly, I found that this sort of stuff can be improved through training (and lost through the lack of it). Much like meditation.

I hope to share some of the things I’ve learned about working more efficiently but here’s one huge take away he loves to talk about – email is not important. Stop checking it so often.

If you do any kind of academic or creative work, you’ll benefit greatly from Deep Work. 

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

Chris Hadfield is my Canadian dad.

I’m not sure how that’s possible but I want it to be, so it is.

An astronaut with decades of life experience writes about how to live on earth. One hugely desirable virtue of Chris’s writing style is that he gives advice without sounding patronising and without the slightest hint of superiority over the reader. What you see is a character who is confident in his skills and abilities because of his experience in space.

Each chapter goes through a lesson he’s learned from his hours in space and showing us a moment in time where it applies. The great thing about these ‘lessons’ is how applicable they are to a multitude of problems we have in every day scenarios. He might say “prepare for the worst” in the context of crying in space (without gravity, tears don’t fall to the ground – they just ball up at the front of your eyes) or falling down a flight of stairs in front of loads of people where everyone is too far away to help but close enough to see (my tears fell to the ground perfectly. Thanks for asking).

Despite being an astronaut and being closer to the stars than most of us ever will, he seems to be very well grounded. The advice he offers is enclosed in funny and interesting stories that can entertain even the most apathetic about space.

He’s achieved a lot in his life but despite the magnitude of what he’s done, it isn’t discouraging. He inspires others to do the same.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

When I moved home, I started using the library more and came across a book called Jimmy Coates: Killer by Joe Craig. I fell in love with that book and the whole series. I’d stay up reading it and be too tired for school. When I’d write a story in class, I’d steal half my themes from the books and brand myself a literary genius.

I even emailed Joe saying that he’s awesome and can’t wait for his next book to come out. (I’m so glad I’ve stopped ending emails with “please reply, bye (a great fan)”.)

Ready Player One is probably the closest I’ve come to feeling that way again. The content isn’t similar but the pace and overall feel is just fantastic. I always wanted to know what happened next but also caught myself wanting to slow down and appreciate feeling so excited about a story again.

“Oh this chapter isn’t too short, you can read until the end. It’ll be the last one.”

The last time I lied to myself that much, I said I’d start my dissertation “today”.

Honourable mentions:

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh – This book feels so nice. Seriously, go touch this book, you’ll understand what I mean. It feels brilliant. The stuff inside is also hilarious.

Empathy by Roman Krznaric

Better by Atul Gawande

Do you have any book recommendations? Share them below! 

 

I’ve remembered I have a ill-used twitter account (@improvingslowly go follow it because it’s probably great).

As always, thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m 21

Every year, I write a post on my birthday which overlooks what has happened in the past year. Since I’m now 21, I decided to be a fashionably late… by a month.

I have a problem with reading dates wrong. And getting things wrong in general. Often times the mistakes make no sense. Here are a few examples:

I thought I needed to move out of my accommodation on the 14th of June. It was actually the 25th. Nothing is significant about the 14th, I just ran with that date for a few weeks.

My neighbour’s girlfriend is called Natalia. For the whole year I was defiant her name was Bailey. They’ve never mentioned the name Bailey to me other than to laugh at my mistake. I’m still convinced they’re lying.

I woke up really excited to go for a talk about sleep (because I don’t do it) only to realise I was two months late. Must have overslept.[1]

Enough of the shit jokes and back to the life of a 21-year-old. In the last two years, I simply went over some of the most important areas of my life. I liked the approach but this time round, I will answer a few question about the values I have, hope to develop and ways I can improve. These questions have come from a few sources: James Clear and Scott H Young.

photo-1456613820599-bfe244172af5.jpg
Credit: David Marcu

Am I being the person I want to be?

I’ll aim to answer the following questions and in the process, I’ll talk about how the year has gone. Please feel free to use this format if you want to do a similar post. I’ve tried to stick to three or four in each section. Should everything be a core value, you defeat the point.

  1. What are the core values that drive my life and work?

Growth

  • Anything worth doing is worth doing well
  • Improve slowly with compassion
  • Exude grit in the face of adversity
  • Examine the world honestly

Well-being

  • Give myself permission to be happy with how I am
  • Make steps to becoming the person I want to be
  • Eat healthily and exercise

Compassion and Contribution

  • Make the world better for others
  • Contribute to the world rather than simply consume it
  • Speak with kindness and leave negative judgement behind

2. Am I sticking to those values?

Growth

It was my dad who instilled the value of “anything worth doing is worth doing well”. From doing my bed properly to completing essays. Of course, not every task is going to be my best attempt but I might as well hold that standard for many of the things do.

I think I kept this in mind when completing my assessments for university and it paid off in the end. I’m graduating with a first class degree in Philosophy from UCL. Thankfully, I developed a much healthier relationship towards my grades at the end of my degree. At the beginning, I would have thought a first class is the be all and end all for me. Not true in the slightest. Now, it’s a pleasant conclusion to the work I put into the degree.

Grit, according to Angela Duckworth, is a key component to success in personal endeavours. She defines it as having a special blend between passion and perseverance.

I can say I kept this quality in my pocket. While, for a lot of my degree, I felt like I was going to be defeated by chronic pain, depression and all those other pesky health problems, I wasn’t. I kept on going by reminding myself that the work I do will be difficult now but pay off. And it did. Much more than I expected.

However, in close proximity to this is going through my degree with compassion. Here is where I fell much more. I wasn’t very kind to myself during the past year. It was full of anger, criticism and vitriol about why I’m not working more or applying for internships, jobs, you name it. Whatever I felt I should have been doing, I wasn’t. In the future, I’ll want to remember that chronic pain doesn’t leave me with much energy and I can’t do everything!

Permission to be happy, self-respect and health

As mentioned before, I didn’t give myself much permission to be happy with regards to work. Everything I submitted was bad, apparently. However, I did allow myself to enjoy time with friends and family. Man, I have such good friends. Not a single person has been an asshole about me being in pain or even accidentally said “but you look fine”. I don’t think I would have enjoyed my degree nearly as much without their support. Some people like Doris can’t handle my spicy food but that’s alright, she’ll come around eventually.

In some respects, I have been true to the values I want to hold. Throughout my degree, one of them was to help people and focus on tasks completely without distraction. I did both and developed really good systems to keep to it. In many other respects, I haven’t been “true” to the person I’d like to be. Far too much of my day has been empty consumption rather than creating and contributing to the world (as evidenced by my extremely excited and frequent blogging).

Health… let me tell you a story. God told Lucifer “bow down to me” and Lucifer stood there saying “I can’t sir, I have bad joints”. Obviously, God misheard this as “I won’t sir, your hairline is not on point.”

Infinitely offensive statement.

God banished Lucifer to Hell and every other terrible barber ruins hair for a living.

Lucifer noticed that hell was quite hot and could do some stretches down here since he’d be there forever. Over the next few thousand years, he created a program of 26 stretches and 3 breathing exercises. He called it Bikram yoga.

Once I started Bikram yoga and the back story made complete sense. Every class I feel like I’m being punished for a sin I committed. It sucks. But its exercise so there’s something.

I also began walking much more which is cool… unlike yoga.[2]

Compassion and contribution

These are some of the most important values and a place where I think I’m falling behind the most.

I haven’t created much of anything recently. Throughout the year there are some pockets where I write a lot and many long periods where I produce nothing. It’s a bother not only because I can help other people but it’s not fulfilling at all to simply consume the world and hope that something interesting pops up. It’s one thing to learn by reading and another to mindlessly browse the internet all day.

However, as said before, I can’t be too harsh on myself. I work on a Saturday school with a range of year groups and a year eight student came up to me and said:

“Sir, you remind me of one of my favourite teachers!”

“Why do I look like him?”

“No, you make learning fun!”

My heart melted and I’m pretty sure I still haven’t recovered. That’s a positive contribution and I like to remind myself of that. Still able to add value to other people’s lives. Pretty cool.

  1. How can I set a higher standard in the future?

So what can I do over the next 12 (now 11) months to improve?

Stay in for the long haul: Whatever area of life I’d like to improve, it’s not going to happen quickly if it’s going to be sustainable. It helps to remind myself of that when I don’t see the changes I want straight away. Grit. Perseverance. Persistence. These keep you going.

Write consistently: Holy moly this has consistently been something I want but I’ve never been really consistent about it. One of the most fulfilling things I did throughout the past 3 years was writing and helping people but I didn’t stick to it.

Be more proactive: One source of frustration for me was just seeing life pass me by and not feeling like I’m engaging with each day as it comes. When I have energy, I’d like to utilise it more.

Continue meditating and writing: Despite my disappearance from the blog, I still meditate near enough every day and write in my journal daily (streak is at 881 days). Maintaining these habits will make everything else easier.

Express more gratitude: Yes, however soppy it sounds, I want to be more thankful for the people and things I have in my life. In the depths of sadness, I’m still lucky to have friends and family who are sometimes funny.

The end

I thought the integrity report was interesting to do for it gave me a chance to see who I’m trying to be. I wasn’t sure for a long time and I’m still not but I have slightly more direction now. If you want, try the same whether in a blog, Facebook post or privately.

All the health woes I’ve complained about are still very present unfortunately. I didn’t reach the goal of not using my walking stick by the age of 21 but I can happily say that isn’t for lack of trying. Anyone who knows me has seen my progress so it isn’t something I must be pessimistic about.

What are some of your core values? Do you think you’re living in accordance with them?

As always, thanks for reading.

Previous annual posts:

I’m 19

I’m 20

[1] ayyyyyyyyy

[2] lmao

Welcome, Lifehack readers!

For regular readers, I’ve written a post on lifehack titled: 8 Things to Remember If You Love Someone With Chronic Pain.

If you’re new, I post about once a week on personal development, mindful living and simple ways to create habits.

Here are some posts to start with:

  1. The One Phrase to Beat Procrastination
  2. 5 Reasons to Start Meditating
  3. Don’t Break the Chain
  4. Create Without Expectation
  5. How to be Happily Unproductive

As you may have guessed, I also suffer from chronic pain.

  1. Living with Chronic Pain
  2. Who Would I Be? 

I have a fortnightly newsletter which you can sign up to for free HERE. I post a summary of the posts I’ve done over the past 2 weeks and talk about anything else that might be of interest to you. Like my favourite guided meditations and articles around the web.

Sign up for the Newsletter. 

Look forward to talking to more of you in the future :)

August Reading List

If anyone wants some books to read, here are a few of the best books I’ve read in the past month or two:

  • The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks. 

This book gave insights into personal identity that were both unexpected and humanising.

Many people have heard of the titled case where a man has a neurological disorder which means he loses the ability to recognise faces and ends up thinking his wife is a hat. Many of the other cases presented by Sacks are sometimes as comical but more importantly, he does a brilliant job of making every person he sees a real person. It’s surprisingly easy to just see them as  the unfortunate or people with super abilities (cue all the documentaries about savants).

He gets to know his patients and views them much more holistically than a mere diagnosis or popular documentary might.

Amazon.

  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I wrote in my journal that this was a ‘funny, absurd, entertaining and astonishing depiction of war in WWII’. The more I think about the book, the more I laugh.

The book mainly follows Yossarian who doesn’t want to fly any more missions because he doesn’t want to die. Yet, everything around him seems to force him to fly more like the infamous catch-22 which means regardless of the scenario, he has to fly. For example, he’s a good pilot so is told to fly more. When he flies, he evades enemy fire with great urgency because he doesn’t want to die. Because of this, he’s seen as a good pilot that should fly more.

It may take a while to understand the humour but I found it helpful to imagine them as characters in a sitcom. Many jokes are carried across chapters with seamless ease. The characters are ridiculous and enjoyable. The style is incomparable to any book I’ve read recently.

Nothing else has made me laugh more about some of the worst parts of history.

Amazon.

  • In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 

This details the murder of the Clutter family in 1964, Kansas by the Perry Smith and Dick Hickock.

To describe the book, I’d call it a non-fiction story. It’s very immersive and quite easy to forget that it isn’t a complete fiction. If I had to compare this to another book I’ve read before it’d be To Kill a Mockingbird. Not for the content but for the overall feel. The court case at the end of the book was one of the best chapters of any book that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. I felt as if I was sitting in the audience of the trial.

The only thing I had against the whole book was the length but that might be a comment on my concentration rather than the length.

Amazon.

A final note

I said nearly two years ago that I’m going to review Earth Abides. I never finished it. I gave it to a friend and she didn’t finish it.

That’s all I’ll say about it.

If you liked it and found it helpful, the share links are below :)

I’m 20

I’m 20

Self-review can be difficult. Especially when it feels like the negatives from the previous year have become worse and the positives more rare.

However, there is nothing wrong with this difficulty. This year has been tough but there’s little value in either trying to show a false persona (whether the portrayal is happy or sad) nor would I benefit from ignoring it completely.

I’m turned 20 a week ago and here’s the review of my past year.

What’s happened in the past year?

Writing

My journal has continued and become an even more important part of my life. I started when I was 18 and it’s still going. I’m nearly at 500 days with over half a million words. Even if it just tends to be personal rambling, it shows the usefulness of consistency. In the early days, there were times when I just didn’t want to write anything. Either because I’m too tired or I’ve had a bad day. Now, I don’t do it based on how I feel. It’s just something I do. It’d be weird if I didn’t write every day. I’m pretty sure journalling is more regular for me than eating breakfast or sleeping for 8 hours.

It’s a wonderful habit which has slowly proved itself as a much needed anchor throughout my day.

On the other side of the coin, my blog has been inactive. I will explain why later. I did have a productive month in March but I can’t explain to you why that was the case! The same thing happened last year. Maybe March is just the best month of the year.

I have a few favourites though. My post on living with chronic pain is the best explanation of my current problem. I also enjoyed writing about comparing yourself to others and why we should listen.

University

I study Philosophy for those who don’t know. I’m still at university and it’s not the worst thing in the world. I’ve kept and made new friends. I don’t actually know if I’m any better at philosophy at the moment but I have gained new interests in the field. The main one being about global justice and health.

The course is based on what can and whether anything should be done about healthcare in countries around the world. Currently, there is a great inequality of healthcare around the world and it’s something we all know. However, we are also much less likely to actively do anything about it and much less likely to claim responsibility for all the poverty-related diseases in the world. Questions such as ‘Does Aid Work?’ and ‘Are all humans moral equals?’ were central to the course. I feel the course has made me much more compassionate and at the same time, it’s made me feel like my arguments are actually increasing in relevancy instead of being dismissed as useless.

For anyone reading this who know me in real life, I’ve gone on and on about this course. I apologise for nothing.

Depression and Health

This is what I wrote last year:

“Being in pain every day for over five years has started to take its toll on my mental health. My various coping mechanisms are struggling to handle just how prominent all of these medical problems are in my life.”

Unfortunately, nothing positive has developed. My depression is much worse and my pain continues without change in intensity.

I could write for a long time about this depression but I won’t bore you with the rambling. Depression makes me feel alone in the company of my best friends and sad when I’m surrounded with happiness. It has sucked out any motivation I’ve had for the things I used to enjoy and made it difficult to just do normal things. For a while, even during my exam period, I would just lie in bed doing nothing of value. But it’s not like I would sleep either for I also have to deal with insomnia. I’m also still using a walking stick. Which clearly doesn’t help this whole situation.

As you can guess, this year has been filled with a lot of frustration which is often directed at myself. I still meditate but I’ve struggled to find any kind of peace. The days when I would walk outside and just appreciate the sounds and sights are far and few between.

Very recently, I was actually told I can’t have anti-depressants yet because I needed to test stronger painkillers! That seemed to just highlight some of the absurdity of the whole situation.

But that’s ok. Things like that happen to people all the time. I’m not alone with this depression but I don’t know how much comfort that brings to me any more.

So that helps explain why I haven’t written that much over the past year and my current difficulty with university.

I’ll get better. I haven’t lost all hope in the world. I need to get to a million words in my journal, after all.

Looking Forward

To every psychologist I’ve spoken to, they’ve asked me: What are your goals for the end of our sessions?

I have to filter out the standard “I don’t want to be depressed” answers because it isn’t that useful.

To all of them, I have said in response “I want to be ok with how I’m feeling”. That doesn’t mean that I have to feel happy all the time. It is centred on finding peace with myself and mindful of who I am. And really just being involved in my own life rather than being a passive spectator of the days that come and go.

Aside from the standard goals of becoming a better writer and developing new skills, I’d say that is the most important. If that means that I’m not on a walking stick when I’m 21, all the better. If I still have to deal with chronic pain, hopefully I’ll still be able to find some peace in my day.

And that is it. Here’s to a better future.

 

I’m 19

Yesterday was my nineteenth birthday. I thought it would be worthwhile to share my thoughts on the year that’s just passed and things I have planned for the future. It probably won’t all be positive but that’s ok. Reviews are done so the future can be improved.

Looking back on the past year 

  • University

I started university last September and began studying philosophy. I’ve had to learn to become much more independent and proactive. Simple things like no longer having a structured school day could have resulted in excessive procrastination because I have so much more freedom from things. I’m no longer told to wake up at a certain time or even read relevant books. All of that is up to me now and I think it’s been more of a positive than a negative. It’s allowed me to break the basic monotony of going to school then completing homework. Now, I can travel around London whenever I want or sleep in then order pizza. The new found freedom has been nice but it does have its downsides. It requires a lot more self control since it’s much easier to travel in the right direction when there are signs everywhere but now there aren’t. I’m meant to be an adult now. I’m not. But I’m meant to be. I’ll get there eventually.

  • New Habits

I’ve also started writing and meditating regularly. These two habits have been the most beneficial things I’ve started doing and I hope to continue them with increasing volume over the next few months and years. Writing for this blog and my private journal has taught me a few important things. I know that I enjoy writing and researching articles related to personal development and similar areas. I know that I have many more ideas than I once thought I did about the world. Even if they’re based on poor information and faulty arguments, it’s something that I’ll slowly develop and work on. For the better ideas I have, writing about them is improving my ability to express myself clearly and effectively.

  • A Few Negatives 

Unfortunately, this year hasn’t gone without the bad. This year marked the 5th year of my chronic pain and leg injuries. That’s a difficult thing to say because of how normal it sounds. Over the years I’ve met a lot of new people and this means that nearly all of my friends at the moment know me as the person who is always on crutches. The pain appears quiet but it is as loud as the moment I first noticed it. Being in pain every day for over five years has started to take its toll on my mental health. My various coping mechanisms are struggling to handle just how prominent all of these medical problems are in my life. This year alone I’ve had two operations in the space of four months. It’s difficult and definitely hasn’t been the brightest part of my year but I’ll remain optimistic about there actually being an end to all of this even though the tunnel could not seem more dark.

Looking forward

I have a few simple goals for the next year. For now, they’ll be vague. I have reasons for that and I’ll say why in a future post (if I remember :D)

  • Writing 

I have a whole summer ahead of me and I hope to take writing, for this blog and possibly elsewhere, much more seriously. I say ‘seriously’ to mean I’ll dedicate more time to it, not to mean I’ll suck out all the possible fun from it in order to make it profitable or anything like that. I have been thinking about a number of posts I’m excited to write about and you should enjoy reading them too. One of the biggest posts (which will probably be a small series) is about why the world isn’t as bad as it may appear. For a long time I’ve had the desire to explain to myself and others why it’s better to put your money on the world improving as a whole rather than it getting worse. Another one is to expand on what it’s like to live with chronic pain. It will be personal to me so it won’t be a universal guide for people who haven’t experienced it but wish to learn more. Nonetheless, I still hope it’ll be useful, if not engaging, for some.

  • Personal projects 

The desire to learn everything can be infectious. However, I have narrowed that desire to a few things. Those being, computer science (mainly programming but I wish to eventually learn more about artificial intelligence) and learning languages (Polish and German). Those two areas have stood out to me the most because they are the most interesting and useful.

  • Health 

This will probably be the most ambitious of my hopes given my past track record but it’s worth a shot.

I hope to be walking normally again before I’m 20 and spend a whole week without worrying about my chronic pain. If I had to say which one was more probable, it would be the end of my chronic pain.

Overall view

This year has definitely had its difficult moment but it hasn’t all been terrible. Hopefully, there will be much better content to come and it’ll be a good year for all of us.

I’ll add that the inspiration to do this post came from Scott Young at scotthyoung.com. If you haven’t read any of his stuff, I strongly recommend it.

 

The Value of a Smile

I recently came across a poem that I’d like to share.

The Value of a Smile 

It costs nothing, but creates much.

It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give.

It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.

None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits.

It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.

It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote for trouble.

Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.

And if in the last-minute rush of the business-day, some of our colleagues should be too tired to give a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours?

For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give!

***

When I remember people that I like to be around, I tend to remember them when they’re happy. Although we have a great tendency to attach ourselves to negative events, genuine smiles are wonderful memories.

It can be difficult to smile when you feel that everything is against you but greeting a person with a warm smile might improve their day.

I can’t remember the last time I was ever annoyed by someone smiling at me. I only remember smiling back. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?

I don’t have a title

The feeling of emptiness is an odd one.

It’s not something I can describe too well despite spending hours and hours just asking myself ‘what am I feeling?’ If I am successful in finding out what I do feel, it often takes a long while just to say ‘I’m feeling ok’. Or more frequently ‘I’m sad’.

This feeling is strange because I have an idea of what’s causing it. I’m trying to change it because I want to feel better. I’m aware of it. But it still washes over me like a huge water wave.

Over the past few years I’ve had problems with chronic pain and an assortment of various issues. While I don’t want to appear extremely self centered or anything similar, it bears down on my mental well-being. Noticing that other people are going through more or less than me doesn’t change anything. Why should it? They’re living their own lives and travelling their own journeys. Not controlling my own.

The chronic pain has become much like an annoying friend. He’s there from the moment I wake up to the moment I try sleeping and even tries interfering with me then. He’s disrupted a few important things which has affected my self esteem. He even tries taking away from the simple pleasures I have in life. Regardless of all of this, I’ve tried to get rid of him in a variety of different ways but he refuses to leave.

He’s still knocking on my door every morning but I have no idea when he’ll get bored and leave. The uncertainty is an extra factor I dislike about the whole situation. But I can do very little about that. No screaming or tears will suddenly create the magical deadline.

I compared this chronic pain to an annoying friend. He isn’t a friend. (just in case that wasn’t clear).

I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure what the aim of this post is. I guess I just want to talk aloud instead of letting it boil over in my head. I’m not particularly angry or sad about this situation right now. I’ve been dealing with it for so long that I simply feel empty.

I do have techniques that I’ve slowly developed over this time and realisations that I’ve made (if that’s even the right term) over the duration of this problem. A few of them I’ve already shared. My posts on venting, selfishness and hatred are an example of this. I will share more since writing is fun even if I doubt or dislike a few of the things I write.

However, I’m not completely alone. I have a few very supportive people by my side who help as much as they can. So I’m thankful for that.

If there’s anything useful to take away from this post, I hope you find it because I can’t. Thanks for reading nonetheless.

Feeling empty is definitely strange.

Why you’ll fail your new years resolutions

They are created impulsively.

They are vague.

They are unplanned.

They are too big.

They are ultimately unimportant to you.

Many goals start off in such a fashion. Our pursuit of them works for a short while because we’re still in the ‘This year is a new me!’ stage. We have vast amounts of motivation because we now write 2014 instead of 2013.

After all, that was the push we needed to pursue the change we want. A change of date.

When we make new resolutions on new years, we attempt to change almost instantly. If you’ve been eating bad food for years, why would it be easy for you to change your mindset towards food in a day? If you spend all your days sitting down, why would it be easy to start a rigorous exercise regime after a New Years party?

We move far too quickly with no real direction when we attempt to complete our new years resolutions. It’s why the gym is packed to the brim in January but quickly empties during February. They’ve probably told everyone about their new goals which leads them to feeling slightly accomplished about their goals (even if they’ve done very little). No one will ask for a follow up on their friend’s progress because they have better things to do. Then they’ll look back on the statement they made at the beginning of January and realise they haven’t stepped into the gym for over 6 months.

How do you stop that from happening this year?

Making valuable progress towards your goal 

  1. Start small

This is probably the most important thing you can do if you want to make progress. It makes it much more difficult for you avoid and much easier to make steady progress towards a goal. Focusing on one goal is much better than making a weak effort towards five foals.

2. Focus on a routine rather than the goal

This emphasises consistency. Working on building a reliable routine more than you do a goal means you’re more likely to work towards it steadily throughout the year instead of making random bursts of effort towards it.

If you want to improve your writing over the next year, make sure your routine involves writing regularly (if not everyday). If you want to lose weight (or gain muscle), make sure your routine involves going to the gym at least 4 times a week.

3. Make your goals specific

No more ‘I want to be happy’ or ‘I want to be a better person’. If you want to improve your grades in school, say what grades and by how much. If you want to lose weight, say how much and how you’ll do it.

A new year is not the reason why you’ll become a better person. You are. You shouldn’t depend on motivation throughout the whole year because it burns out quickly.

Start small, remain consistent and that’s the way we make progress.

Here are a few similar articles on the topic:

Are you keeping any resolutions for the new year?