How to Stay Depressed
There’s nothing wrong with being a little bit depressed. It’s good for you. It makes you work harder, try new things, change your plans, and generally make better stuff. But if you’re not getting anything done, if you’re just brooding about how much you haven’t gotten done, you’re in trouble.
How do you keep the spirits high when your project would take many years to finish and you see no progress going on on a daily basis?
I’m not sure that I believe in the concept of ‘spirit’. I think it’s a way to talk about motivation, but it doesn’t really exist. If you have a spirit, then it’s just another thing you need to feed.
In other words, if you find yourself procrastinating because you’re “bored” or “uninspired”, then stop it. There is no such thing as “having no energy” for something. You’re not tired, you’re not lazy, you’re not unmotivated. You’re bored and you need to get over it. You’re not uninspired, you’re not blocked, you’re not having a bad day.
I’ve never met someone who could sustain interest in something for years on end without some sort of trick or psychological technique. What are some of the things you do to keep your spirits high?
How do you stop being depressed? You tell yourself not to be. You’re never going to be where you think you ought to be. You’re never going to be the next Charlie Kaufman or whatever. So focus on the next thing you need to do and ignore the rest. It’s not that you shouldn’t have goals, but you also shouldn’t allow your goals to make you miserable.
And how do you keep the spirits high when you see no progress going on on a daily basis? You don’t. Because progress isn’t something you can see. It’s something you only realize later.
