higgsboshark
The thing about knitting is it's much harder to fear the existential futility of all
your actions while you're doing it
LIke ok, sure, sometimes it's hard to believe you've made any positive impact
on the wortd. But It's pretty easy to believe you've made a sock. Look at it.
There it is. Put it on, now your foot's warm
Checkmate, nihilism.
cheskamouse
This is a powerful positive message.
pluckyredhead
I'm literally reading a book right now (Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski)
that says this is scientiically sound.
There have been studies done on rats and dogs where they develop learned
helplessness in the animals by giving them impossible tasks. Eventually the
animals stop trying, even when the task stops being impossible. (.e. put a rat in
a maze with cheese it can't get to until it develops learned helplessness, then
put the cheese somewhere it can get to it and it won't even try ) But once they
show the animals they CAN do something - i.e. physicaly moving the rat to the
cheese-the learned helplessness goes away.
No one can move you to your cheese for you, but the book says DOING
something - which they define as "anything that isn't nothing" can help. Make a
food. Work in the garden. Clean a thing Do a favor for a fiend. Call your
elected officials.
Knit a sock.
If you feel overwhelmed by existential despair, do something. It doesn't have to
be big It just has to be anything that isn't nothing.
Two weeks ago I downloaded Godot and started using YouTube to teach myself game dev.
Made some tranquil grass with a wind effect. Downloaded a 2D pixel sprite and made an animation state machine. Watched couple more videos and then decided to try out 3D modeling. I now have my first low poly character sketch done and am working on animating the rigging.
My depression has dropped significantly as actively working on building new skills and giving myself the ability to express ideas I have had kicking around in my head for the past 15 years is incredibly empowering.
This is very wholesome. I should really do the same or something similar in my field. It's hard to recapture the magic when you are exhausted from work all the time.
Make some grass. No seriously if you can play pause and follow this along you can expand from there. There are so many amazing devs out there sharing everything you could possibly want to do in a game.
As someone who has survived the last 15 years by throwing myself into various creative and offline things, I will say that there is a limit to how much it can help.
I have to post a warning: If you think about starting to knit or crochet be aware that you will begin with a 2 dolar hook/needle and a 1 dolar yarn and suddenly, out of nowhere, your credit card will have 300 dolars in yarn and tools and you'll have to give away your clothes to be able to store all of it. Crazy shit
This is similar to an old behavior therapy technique called Behavioral Activation. In essence I get you to engage with an activity and once you're doing that the intrinsic rewards of doing that activity cause you to feel more willing to engage.
I don’t know if “call your elected officials” is a good example of “anything that isn’t nothing.” Seems like anytime I’ve been motivated enough to contact one of my reps to oppose specific legislation, it turns out they’re one of the bill’s co-sponsors. It definitely feels much closer to the learned helplessness scenario.
The idea is that it's a task with no buyin and, realistically, no failure state. Don't try to change their mind, just put your voice out there. Advocating for yourself and those around you, even if it doesn't affect any changes, is still a powerful something.
I see this as cultivating positive karma. A mind that is creating is at more peace than one consuming content. A peaceful mind makes future peace easier. A feedback of positivity. Or if you are a Hubberman fan it loads the Reticulating Activation System RAS with a pre condition to positively view any stimulus coming in and process it as joy.
That does explain why working and then being denied any kind of reward for completing it sucks so bad. "Yes, two years of stressful work and overtime, but it's done and it's marv-" - "That's great, here's the next one."
Yes, naturally you start the next one, but you don't stop before the last toe and start on a scarf while someone else patches a finger from a glove onto the almost finished sock. You finish the sock, try it on, admire the pattern for a minute and then move on.
Can confirm this is true. I've been having a hellish time at work this past month but I still hanging in there, have three completed sets of knitted socks, and my feet are super toasty. Two outta three ain't bad.
We're having a small yarn / wool dying shop here in northern Germany, it's the best thing you can get into. We don't even see it as a business, it's a a beautiful, colorful service. The best community, breathtaking customers, awesome materials from happy creatures. Just a wonderful product. People come here, sit down and knit. And you hear many stories how that bit of "doing something" actually helps. There's a simple honesty in it, nothing was ended, no creature gave it's life, just their hair, we put a bit color on it and after quite some years we are regularly stunned what people create from it. It is therapy, definitely. For us too.
That really explains why I've been getting into Paracord work so much recently. Been dealing with a lot of work stress, so making Paracord braids on a monkeys fist and just zoning out to do the work is so satisfying .
I always just think about the butterfly effect and instead of relating it to time travel, I relate it to how even just existing has an effect on others around me. For all I know, just by going to the store today my existence inspired someone who will invent a revolutionary new thing that makes life better for everyone. Most people probably don't even have to get that deep with it and can see how they touch the lives of their family and friends every day; you just need to stop and think about it once in a while instead of just taking things for granted.
Those in the textile arts are creators of entropy. A stitch, in time, saves nine it's true. But time wins in the end. It's fun to impose a little order on the universe for a bit.