I almost don’t feel like the same person I was just 5 years ago. Granted, this is my first 5 years of working full-time, outside of schooling, so I’m no longer actively studying and practicing my mathematical skills.
But beyond that, I just feel like I don’t have free will? My health is degrading because I have unhealthy eating habits, and I really want to stop, and I don’t even really enjoy eating unhealthy food anymore, but I think I might actually be chemically dependent on the refined sugar, carbs, and fat. I work 10 hour days and then I’m too exhausted to eat healthy. If I meal prep healthy food, I sometimes just waste it because I’d rather order a couple burgers. I used to be vegan, and I still think vegans are basically correct, but I no longer have self-discipline.
It feels impossible to fix this shit. Reading what I’ve laid out, I think, “what you need is therapy”. And yeah, maybe, but I’ve had like 7 different therapists and somehow I feel like it usually just becomes a space for me to go and be all introspective and sharing everything about myself to this quiet professional who isn’t really leading the conversation, isn’t contributing much, isn’t giving me an idea of what therapy is supposed to be. There’s just long awkward silences while I think of things to say? And I’m paying $90/hour? So far the only utility to me has been a place to vent. But now I’m doing that here instead because it’s free.
Is this a useful thing to be telling this struggling person? Fixating on optimal brain performance is an ageist, over extended Darwinian way of punishing yourself and others. It’s part of a domination ideology and is inherently anti-human. We will all age, but this idea that once we have different processing power or memory we have less to contribute or are in some way diminished is very unhealthy. Marx was 49 when Vol 1 of Capital was published.
I gather it is not useful to you, but it is exactly the sort of thing I would want to hear, specifically: I would want a link to some data before any random opinion/advice. I could guess and say “lots of us feel the same way”, but I don’t know if that is true – my feeling is not data, and when people try to console me in that manner, it sounds like BS because I recognize they are offering empty platitudes without actually considering my situation. If instead someone can show me they took the time to think about my issue, and have actual information for me, then I am reassured that their opinion isn’t a flippant and unconsidered reflex.
Okie dokie. Thanks for the data champ.