Depression Indicator

September 2nd, 2026

I'm On Line. It was in a bad way before, but it's in a good way today. I'm making the active choice to look at cool websites linked from other cool websites rather than be fed content from Youtube of Instagram. I made an effort to do this by blocking Youtube on my computer but keeping it on my phone and uninstalling Instagram from my phone but allowing myself to use it on my computer. This takes my brain's preferred method of consuming this content away thereby adding friction thereby making me less likely to consume it. Very bold of me to say it works after one (1) day of doing it, but I'm making an effort and that's what matters.

"But Johm," you scream at the top of your lungs at your computer screen, "why are you making a post about this? And what's up with the title?" Well, it feels to me that this group of activities starts to come about when I get more depressed. So while I did have a good time just browsing today, and I do feel like I want to bring my website to a point where someone would want to link to me, I feel like the reason for it is a desire to isolate. These mental states come and go, but it doesn't feel good to be here. And it doesn't feel good that my brain is loosely tying this hobby to depression. I do update my website when I'm doing well mentally, but a few things happened to me recently (one of them being the fact that it was August) and my brain didn't take it well. There are some things to unpack about this.

I have a problem where I try to intellectualize my feelings so I can understand them better so I can address them more effectively. Feelings don't work like that. I also have a problem where I try and search out bad things for me to focus on when things are actually good. I have this strong drive to constantly improve, and then I don't stop to appreciate the improvements I've already made. So I'm always reaching for something in this pile of habits. I think this time it's a combination. Something happened that made me sad, so I'm trying to figure out how to feel that effectively. Even stopping and being like "whoa I'm trying to intellectualize this" is intellectualizing it and is preventing the feelings from being felt how they need to be felt. I'm also trying to seek out the bad, this case it is my Youtube addition specifically, and blame stuff on it while trying to address it. But I think I'm ultimately just experiencing some loneliness that is being exacerbated by looking at my phone and not having a notification.

I've been rereading Opening the Hand of Thought by Kosho Uchiyama, and every time I do that I feel it in a new and deeper way. There was something I read earlier today that stuck out to me about this:

Our ideas about a mind to be trained or a body to be made healthy are expressions of the view of existence, which presupposes that there are things that can be accumulated. The wish to train and discipline our minds and bodies is nothing but our own egoistic desire. (page 109)

This made me realize just how much of my life is focused on fulfilling my desires. I fold to my desires every time I go to the vending machine at work. But it's also my desires that want to constantly improve every aspect of my mind and behaviors. Both of these are taking me away from life as it is and as it exists in front of me. The goal is to live life as it is. The goal is not to be the best individual self possible. But I'm so far detached from that that it feels impossible to truly accomplish.

I've really gotten lost in this post here. I always do when I type one of these up. The point is to ramble about whatever I want without feeling guilty about it. Today it's a ramble about being attached and sad. What I want is to be detached and content, but is that its own attachment? I think the true way of doing it is to set out to live life as it is. And I can at least try to do that.

Idk dude idk what I'm saying anymore. I'm gonna add a "Spirituality" tag to my blog and then toss this up onto online and never read it again. Seeya!