Stoic Excercise: The Reverse Marshmellow Test

Imagine if animals made those documentaries about us.

"Here we see, a Homo Sapiens. This one is out hunting for a meal tonight."

(Camera pans to a prime cut of meat)

"The ribeye steak is a delicious temptation"

(Human looks in his wallet) "The human uses his frontal lobe to calculate whether or not he can afford it. The human brain is very overengineered, and takes more than 20.000 factors into consideration at every decision."

(Human closes his wallet) "Hm. Perhaps not in the budget right now. This human is running out of time. The store closes at eight, and if his children are to make it through the night, they need sustainance. Normally, their mothers milk would provide for them, but due to Dolfin-made contaminents, most human-breasts are clogged with microplastics."

(A few shots of human kids looking cute)

In Denmark, we have a popular song which has the line "Man siger efter stormens pisken kommer solen frem, men den hjælper sjældent dem der er blevet våde", which basically means "After the storm the sun comes out, but it rarely helps those who became soaking wet".

When your life stabilises it doesn't mean you should suddenly feel alright. It means you can now BEGIN to heal and dry off.

You don't have to force yourself to bounce back so quickly. I read something recently that said "when you come in from a rainstorm, you don't expect yourself to be dry and warm right away", and it really resonated with me. It's okay to take time to dry off and warm up. Take the time you need to process what happened to you.

On Sisyphus (And why Camus imagines him happy)

The story of Sisyphus is one that hits particularly close to home, and I'm sure I don't need to explain what it's about.

Similarly, Albert Camus' interpritation of the story, the one that ends with "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" has become pretty famous too, albiet more of a meme. There's a lot to unpack here, but I litterally have nothing better to do, so let's find out why Sisyphus is one lucky guy.

Sisyphus attempts to outsmart the gods, and as punishment, he must roll a boulder up a hill, knowing that it will roll back down once he reaches the top. Not only is that pretty funny, it also seems disgustingly similar to how modern life works. Doing laundry, waiting for the weekend, you name it.

It is a common thought that these things are tedious and eat up our limited time on earth, thus making us miserable. With that mindset, you would imagine Sisyphus as the most miserable human on earth. After all, he has been condemned to spending the rest of his life only working a menial task without any reward or meaning with the task at hand.

This was undoubtedly what the gods had in mind when they handed out this punishment, but Camus claims that it isn't all that bad. Personally, the line in "The Myth of Sisyphus" (which is the essay Camus wrote on the matter) that sticks with me the most is: "One always finds [their] burden", which I try to remember before I make a decision that supposedly will make my life easier.

After all, the people wealth large enough to never have to partake in work or laundry or any of these things do not enjoy a perpetual state of bliss and unconcern (unconcern is apperently a word). Their burdens simply lie elsewhere.

What am I getting at with all this? Well, I'm saying that, provided he was given enough time to accept his situation, Sisyphus wouldn't actually be happier if he was one day let back into the world and relieved of his boulder hauling duties. He would probably be happy for a while, but he would eventually find his burden, and go back to hauling a now metaphorical boulder.

So far we've established why Sisyphus would be equally miserable with or without his boulder, but why then is Sisyphus supposed to be happy?

Well, it basically boils down to a misleading segway. See, Sisyphus doesn't have to be miserable when he hauls that shitty boulder. It sounds insane, and Camus even states the absurdity of it. But if Sisyphus wanted to defy the gods one last time, could he? Could he end up happier than before he even got his punishment and end up with the last laugh? Yes, he could, and here's how.

The key is not to recognise the abusrdity of the situation. Instead of thinking about what a waste of time and how meaningless this task is, Sisyphus must instead do the opposite: Attempt to do the task to his absoloute best ability, without yielding to the idea that this task is, inherently, meaningless.

Should he succeed in this fundemental rework of his way of thinking, he will start enjoying the work. See, humans have a deep need to do a good job. When you procrastinate, or cut corners, or whatever, you will feel a tiny hit of misery (probably shame). That's just how we work. But the opposite applies too. If you truly commit to your task, no matter how meaningless or ineffecient it is, you will get a tiny reward.

If Sisyphus decides to push that boulder with all his might, every day, knowing damn well it will roll down again, he will be happy. He has defied his own misery, and found meaning in the most meaningless of tasks. And when the boulder rolls down, he will breathe a satisfied sigh, and walk back down to start pushing again.

Sounds pretty absurd, huh? One must imagine the people that are free to do menial tasks everyday happy? Well, you are free to imagine anyone any way you like. But I certainly imagine Sisyphus happy, along with any garbage worker and bus driver that find joy in their work.

Because they are sure as shit looking at you.

Eyes of the forest. Aspen trees

This, this is the guy.

I’m gonna be so forreal, seeing your posts makes me feel depressed lol bc I’m just spending most of my time inside and I dont have any friends

My friend let me just say that this world is as equally rich in color and experience when alone as it is in good company. I can count on one hand the amount of people who I believe truly care for me and beyond them I would rather spend my days alone with a guitar or a good book or maybe just a long walk. Also to be quite honest, all of social media including my own is compiled of brief snapshots and highlight reels and rarely do we include any indication of the many hours spent rotting away on a phone or in emotional turmoil. All that to be said I guess my point is life waits for you, both in your mind and outside your door. I hope you find your way into it and in the process meet a few good people to cherish it with.

14 Million (according to the national government of health) saved. 6 dead. I repeat. FOURTEEN MILLION PEOPLE have been estimated to have kept their lives because of the vaccine. "World renowned immunologist" Ais also a Britsh politician, who are notorious for being morally bankrupt, and he himself was part of a far-right populist party, he also opposes efforts made to oppose and slow down climate change. But here's the best part. This guy, scummy as he may be, works IN CREATING VACCINES. He helped FOUND a CANCER VACCINE institute. Anti Vaxxers are genuinely so dumb they can't even do basic research and have to do cherry picking to this degree.

You don't deserve your empathy.

This is a pretty provokative statement. But you don't deserve to feel bad. It is not a privilege you deserve. And the sooner you accept it, the faster you'll be capable of properly take responsibility of yourslef and your life. It may be the case that your parents are fucked up and/or idiots, that you have had to experience and endure some messed up shit, that your health isn't perfect, or that you wish you looked or felt a different way. But nobody promised you that life would be easy. And if they did, then I'm sorry, but they lied. There is only degrees of imperfect lives. Your life is exactly your specific degree of imperfect. Danish poet Dan Turéll said that "it's not easy to be anyone". The only certain part of human existence is misery and death, according to buddhism. That's why you shouldn't view the adversity that will (and it will) be forced upon you in life, and the same goes for hardships and mistakes. That's what life is. If you wanted to have a life without adversity, go play Homescapes. I can feel bad for you, if you perhaps grew up in a home with alcohol abuse and mistreatment, or if you have experiences severe disease or death in your close family at a young age. I am aware that some people get a shitty hand in the great card game of life. And it's never a childs fault, no matter what they are subject to. But that doesn't mean you are going to benefit in any particular way from feeling bad for yourself. At least not for long. Maybe you're capable of taking an objective look at recent events and say "yeah, that was total horseshit", or "yeah, that was millions to one, how unlucky". That you should feel bad for yourself, just like you would for any other person who went through those events. But once you've recognised that, leave it. Because if you keep it around, it'll weaken you up. The road to pitytown is a slippery slope, and once you're there, you let go of your responsibilities.

Somehow, this is the first time i figured out the sigma male community has taken up the stoic name as one of their own.

Good lord above i hope noone thinks ive been preaching sigma male content.

Oi ve.

Yes, yes, yes!

Only thing I can add to this is telling yourself "I will do x", where x is something that is somewhat inconvenient. The point of x is doing it because it sucks and is inconvenient. Doing this wont just build dicipline, it also shows your brain that you're loyal, which builds up trust, and eventually self esteem. X also shouldn't be a large thing, and can be a series of things.

RECLAIMING DISCIPLINE CAN LOOK LIKE:

• keeping small + manageable promises to yourself daily

• healing your attention span (ex: reading books, watching movies without scrolling, letting yourself be bored)

• moving from "I'll try" to "I will"

• reframing pain + difficulty as often where the growth happens

• showing up as the person you want to be

• making mindful & nourishing choices VS choices that result in instant gratification

To the person commenting skibidi on all my posts

it was funny at first but you can stop now