the snail shell


More Mental Mental Models

I keep trying to figure out my depression.1

The right mental model seems important. For example, one mental model is “grade school science fair”: you get rewarded for how hard you try. So if you’re feeling depressed, try harder! (This is not a very good mental model.)

One model I was trying out is Fill Up All The Tanks: I need to make sure all my tanks are full of the right gas, oil, transmission fluid, whatever, then I’ll feel good.

Unfortunately, it’s not enough. Last week I was hit with an intense spat of depression out of almost nowhere. So I’m amending the mental model to also include The Weather: sometimes you just get hit with a storm for no reason.2

Also: The Uphill Climb. Harder life is harder! Here this is not normative, I’m not saying I should/shouldn’t take on this or that challenge, but I should recognize that in the more difficult parts of life, I’m going to be depressed more often.

Some mental models that do not seem to fit me:

Mental models that I’m not sure if they fit me:

So, Fill All The Tanks, The Weather, and the Uphill Climb. It’s rather a lot of words to say “I still don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  1. some would say this is futile, or like trying to nail jello to the wall. I get what you mean, and I’m not trying to hole up with some Nietzsche or Sartre until I Figure It Out. We’ve all got to “live in a way that doesn’t feel quite so bad”, right? So if you’re inclined to say “stop thinking and just vibe, man”, then please assume I’m “trying to learn to live in a way that doesn’t feel quite so bad” or “learning to vibe” or whatever doesn’t trip up your word filters ↩︎

  2. Of course, not actually “no reason”, but it’s so complicated you might as well say no reason. ↩︎

  3. I know depression is not just “low levels of serotonin”, don’t @ me ↩︎



Quick Thoughts About Parenting That Have Come To Me Recently

there are whole new colors of feelings

There are feelings in parenting that are really hard to describe unless you’ve had them. I don’t think this is necessarily unique to parenting; I’m sure there are unique feelings in mountain climbing or novel writing too. But it’s definitely true about parenting.

These feelings differ in magnitude and character from anything else. Magnitude: for me at least, it’s really opened up at least one or two orders of magnitude. (reminder about log scales of pleasure and pain1) Character: well, they’re different.2 Hard to describe how! But some candidates:

It is telling to me that the examples I suggested are all work, and all negative. I understand there are order-of-magnitude and very-very-different positive experiences too. I’m getting there.

But as I’m writing this, I feel the need to reassure you, dear reader, that this is not the typical “dan gripes about parenting” post; there are new deep thoughts and feelings here! let me get to them…

a mom’s love is like the sun

it’s: incredibly powerful, constant, and present without trying. A dad’s love is like a 10^17x nuclear reactor: able to get to the same order of magnitude, but it’s much more unsteady and you have to build it up. But nevermind that. It’s pretty incredible to even witness a mom’s love for her kid! Sometimes as the dad, that’s part of your role.

maybe it’s time to be initiated

I struggled phrasing this section, because I want to leave all the “shoulds” out of it; they have been painful for me. But I’m getting the signal that my growth path now is like passing through an initiation. In a sense I already have (am already dad) but I’ve been kind of “reluctant dad” and maybe it’s time to accept the role of “enthusiastic dad."3

As with most initiations, it’s a choice, but one you rather want to take. The young men in the tribe could just skip the coming-of-age ritual but that usually leads to shame and dishonor or worse. I think the fact that I’m feeling like I’m being presented with this means the decision has already been made.

How does this look externally? Probably gradual. There’s a line between “being an enthusiastic dad” and “looking like the epitome of enthusiastic dad” and I don’t think I’ll ever be the latter. But I am still figuring out what that’s like.

it’s a good thing I’m not spinning

If you have not enough energy for your life’s demands, that sucks, obviously. But if you have too much energy for your life’s demands, or rather, too few demands for your energy, I think that can lead to problems too. (see as example, maybe, the stereotypical trust-fund kid?) You need demands, and they need to be worthy demands.

Pre-kid, I didn’t have Big Purpose. I didn’t dedicate my life to curing cancer or ending racism or saving the environment. And I may have been in danger of “too few demands for my energy.”

Well, that’s not the case anymore! Now my scales have tipped the other direction. But at least I have more demands, and they are worthy!

  1. I realize I’ve failed the “dan write something without linking to log scales of pleasure and pain challenge (literally impossible)” ↩︎

  2. I guess it would be surprising if they weren’t: “your kid bonking his head is like opening a soda to find that it’s flat, but times 50” ↩︎

  3. Really something like “between accepting and enthusiastic”. “Enthusiastic” is a lot of pressure. But I’ll say “enthusiastic” for the sake of this post. ↩︎



Why Do I Care to Measure Depression

Strawman Steve: People want to be happy, but they don’t just want to be grinning like idiots all the time. what does happiness meannnnn, idk dude, we just can’t measure it. everyone’s life is basically the same.

me: No! This is wrong!

Steve: Well, some people’s are worse if they’re in war or poverty or abuse but otherwise basically the same.

me: What if you’re depressed?

Steve: Well, I guess that’s bad, but everyone’s got some problems, idk

me: What if you’re suicidal?

Steve: Yeah ok then I guess your life is bad, even if it looks ok on the outside.

me: so there’s “ok” (most people) and “suicidally depressed”, is there anything in between?

Steve: idk man, you just can’t measure happiness, like what do you want to do, sex drugs and rock and roll?

me: sigh

You can indeed measure life-goodness

Hmm I already posted this in Levels of Depression and Fast Forward Time, but to recap: at the end of a day, imagine you could decide to re-experience the day. (either you have your memory wiped, or you have another day that is different but just as good as the first day.) It’s free, you don’t age. Would you do it? How about at the end of the year, would you re-experience the whole year? If so, your day/year was good. If not, it wasn’t.

Dialing it up a bit: would you pay extra to re-live a day? Like, let’s say you could re-live today, but you’d have to sacrifice two days of your life. You go to bed Monday night, the next day you experience Monday2, then you wake up and it’s Thursday. If so, we could call that a +2 day. Or would you pay extra to avoid re-living a day? Like, you can either have Monday2 and then Tuesday, or not have Monday2 and wake up on Wednesday. If a day was that bad, that you’d sacrifice 2 days of your life not to re-live it, we could call that a -2 day. If you’re completely indifferent on whether you relive a day or not, call that a 0-day.

At time scales of a day, that doesn’t really reflect on your whole life. But if a year goes by and you had 100 -2-days, 260 0-days, and 5 +1-days, that’s a pretty miserable year. Or we could just look at the year: was it overall a +1, +2, -1, 0 year?

Why do I care?

T asked me this very good question: why am I going on about this?

It’s because life has been hard for no good reason and I’m embarrassed.1

We have one (1) baby right now, he’s healthy and happy and nice and sleeps pretty well now and I’ve been going on for a year and a half like I’m in one of the middle rings of Dante’s inferno. I should definitely be in the “it’s so magical” boat, at least by now.

On the one hand, dads get postpartum depression and maybe I did. And I think I’m a little autistic or something, or maybe a Highly Sensitive Person.

But man, I should be better at this! Autism/nerdiness? Even Scott Alexander (with twins!) is full of love. And I kinda don’t even think “Highly sensitive person” is a thing. Check out this Barnum test. Starts to feel like Internet mental health speak.

(While I was writing this, another another technology brother piped into my RSS reader to agree “it’s so magical." I just keep finding this stuff.)

Anyway, I know that I’m doing all right, but I think there’s a program or programs running in the background of my brain saying “If I could say I have Level 12 Depression, then everyone would agree that, yep, that’s unusually hard and that I am a mensch for even surviving.”

  1. I might be ashamed. I can’t always tell the difference. Nah, I think embarrassed. I haven’t done anything morally wrong, I just feel kind of weak. ↩︎