Robin Hobb is one of my favorite authors. Her masterwork is a series of series (four trilogies and a quadrology) known as The Realm of the Elderlings.
She published the first trilogy, which begins with Assassin's Apprentice, starting in 1995. I saw the books when they first came out and I assumed from the title and the cover that it would be a cheesy fantasy by the numbers, so I never bought it. But I kept hearing about these books from other people who liked SFF, so I finally picked up the first trilogy.
I was completely wrong. It's not at all by the numbers. While it's not trope-free (nothing is), there are all sorts of interesting ideas, from the political to ecological. As you read the later series, the world opens up quite a bit, and it gets even more interesting. The final trilogy brings so many elements together, and the ending is shatteringly powerful.
While this is epic fantasy, it's _not_ at all grimdark. Bad things definitely happen, but it's more hopeful and humane than something like Malazan or Song of Ice and Fire.
I can't recommend these books highly enough. Even if her writing is slowing down, I hope that she's satisfied with what she's done. This series alone is an enormous accomplishment. To build a world across so many books, across so many years, and have it come together so well in the end is massively impressive.
Aw man, I just started a comment saying how this sounds really promising and was going to ask about it. Turns out I have actually read them. I might have to read them all again. I would recommend them as well.
I'm a big fan of the Malazan series as well. I still think of the hair jacket when I come across someone with a smelly jacket and it never fails to crack me up.
My recommendation for epic fantasy that is a bit different and unexpected: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Some very powerful stories in there. The first book is pretty short so it is a good way to try it out. Though I think it hooks from the very start.
The link isn’t loading for me right now, so I’ll just add to the appreciation for Hobb. I’m currently reading book 13 (4th in the Rain Wild Chronicles). They’re all great!
I picked up The Assassin’s Apprentice while looking for something to fill the Rothfuss void. I was instantly hooked. The tone and the pace was just right for me. I really like that they are so character-driven, deeply exploring the characters’ emotions, history, flaws, etc. And she’s great at having the plot build and build until basically everything is going wrong, and then she delivers a super satisfying ending.
I usually take a short break between each tril, but I might just go straight into her last batch after I finish this book.
> While this is epic fantasy, it's _not_ at all grimdark. Bad things definitely happen, but it's more hopeful and humane than something like Malazan or Song of Ice and Fire.
I will always read anything recommend by a person who uses Malazan as a benchmark.
Can't recommend her enough as well (Currently reading the last book of the third trilogy).
I didn't enjoy the first book too much, less epic scope than I was expecting and I don't like child protagonists very much.
But the writing was excellent and after a year hiatus and a streak of questionably written books (Malazan was one of them...), I picked her up again. Halfway through the second book I realized I was cheering to Kettricken charge to aid Fitz and I was hooked.
Since then each book has been better than the one before.
The way she uses perception, perspective, and cognitive biases are, as you say, shatteringly powerful. Particularly with her stream-of-consciousness writing style, where you so naturally get sucked into the character's mental framework. The final trilogy in particular that brings it all together, but even within the individual trilogies she's constantly doing it.
I started reading her books back when I was still in school, and they had a fundamental impact on my life. It fundamentally altered the way I see things, and the career path I eventually took. I couldn't even articulate exactly how, until I stumbled upon the concept of systems thinking[1] a few years ago and realized that was what she had given me an awareness of. Which then led me to these[2][3], which pretty much describe how I had started seeing and approaching things after reading Robin Hobb's books.
Not sure if it would have been as impactful if I hadn't read them at such an impressionable age, but I'm forever grateful that I did. And for that, Robin Hobb will always reign supreme on my favorite author list.
I'm a fan of Robin Hobb too, getting my start with the Farseer Trilogy in the early 00's.
Her work is quite unique, I think - as you say, it's epic fantasy, but with a slant I haven't seen before. I'll happily second a recommendation for fantasy readers.
I hope she's doing OK, and would be very happy to read more from her, if it comes to her.
" Bad things definitely happen, but it's more hopeful and humane than something like Malazan or Song of Ice and Fire."
Ok, I agree on the positive outlook in her books in general (and I have not read the other books you mentioned), but I remember, that some books ended in a very dark way, leaving also me in a very dark mood. I felt a lot with poor young Fitz and the books affected me a lot in my teenage years.
But I never finished them, the last I read was Fools Fate quite some time ago ...
"The final trilogy brings so many elements together, and the ending is shatteringly powerful."
So this sounds very interesting and after a short research, this means I have to continue with Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons, Blood of Dragons, Fool's Assassin, Fool's Quest and then finally Assassin's Fate.
Well, if I treat my own animal not too bad and my baby animals give me some rest - I might one day finish them, too.
I read the Assassin's Apprentice series through, but it didn't really satisfy, and I haven't read anything else by the author. I like the Malazan ones, and ASoIF, a lot more - partly the grimdark, but more so the overall complexity of the plot. While Hobb's work was pleasant it just didn't really engage me.
> more hopeful and humane than something like Malazan
Am I missing something here? It's been a while since I read the Malazan series but hope seems to be one of the primary themes of the series, even if things are utterly bleak at times.
70? My animal is only 33 and is very tired. Writing this as it lays in bed, 3 in the afternoon, because even a standard chair sounds more exhausting to it.
It seems to have no motivation or energy to do much besides lay here.
If I force it, it will get stuff done but at a huge cost. It will yearn the entire time to just lay back down.
It's interest in things seems to be fading quickly. What desire it used to have to work hard and succeed, has slipped away. It seems these days it has only enough energy to lay in bed and scroll through the internet. Not sure what is wrong with my animal, but this is no way for it to live.
I was hard on the animal in its early 20s, but no harder than the average animal. The past 7 years or so have actually been pretty calm, good food, semi regular exercise, stable job, etc.
It's scary to imagine how the animal would feel at 70 if this is how it feels at 33. Maybe the pandemic was a straw to its back, and the isolation has worn it down more than anything else possibly could.
In life satisfaction surveys, your 30’s are the most miserable stressful part of life. Highest amount of responsibilities, lowest amount of consistent reward, and it keeps getting worse until your 40’s
Apparently it gets better again in your late 40’s and early 50’s. By 60 you’re as happy as you were at 20.
How much do you sleep? And do you track it or just estimate?
The single biggest improvement to my energy and happiness came from getting a sleep tracking device, and then making sure I slept around eight hours. (As opposed to being in bed for eight hours). I wake with no alarm, and have also started going to bed earlier since tracking this.
This may not be your issue, I see your diet and weight appear good. Could be some mental health issue or some other physical issue not currently diagnosed.
But, if you’re sleeping less than eight hours or are not actually tracking so you know you’re sleeping enough, it could be a big improvement to try doing both.
I have an apple watch and autosleep if anyone is curious about the combo.
I think Covid made life a lot less interesting. Or, put a bit differently, I think that we quit doing a bunch of the things that made life interesting. And I think that is mentally wearing.
I don't know if, in your case, that's the whole answer. You might find it worth while to seek medical advice...
Lately this has been on my mind. I do everything, diet, exercise, social interaction, etc. But I am still just tired sometimes, nothing seems to kick. Maybe my mind is telling me that this way of life is down trodden? Find a new path? Working alot has no value, and maybe I am missing out. Or I am just tired, and there is no where to go
Does anyone in your family suffer from hypothyroidism? That, combined with depression (it's a spectrum) is what was getting to me. I've since changed some habits, I'm taking 1 small thyroid pill each morning and going to therapy once per week. I still feel tired and lacking in energy from time to time but I have improved.
Apart from great comments already posted, please read about "long covid". I'm not sure if it's officially recognized yet but it's a strange illness lately and a large number of people suffer from it. One of most important symptoms is chronic fatigue. I'm fighting it since last year and one thing I can say is that the fatigue is different from anything I experienced in my 43 year life. It's crippling and even getting up requires effort. Caffeine in large doses helps somewhat but only to an extent.
There's always been a "post viral fatigue syndrome" with many other viruses and it is a known phenomenon, maybe it's just a similar thing with Covid. Only it affects much more people I think. And most importantly you can get it after asymptomatic Covid, so you don't even know you had it.
If you keep forcing it every day then eventually it gets easier. Listen to the audio book "Can't Hurt Me" by David Goggins. It will change your perspective on what your animal can take.
You sound like a machine built for a different set of circumstances. Wartime, or famine, or slavery; or most likely, a heavily religious society.
I would guess you’re mostly nonreligious. But you have a lot of mechanisms left over in your personal acculturation from when religion was important for your ancestors. You took out the formal religion, because that’s not needed so much these days, but still have a lot of underlying mechanisms, like a conviction that there is such a thing as an ultimate answer, which made sense when the accepted ultimate answer was God.
I would guess that you enjoy learning and regularly investigate new things, but one of the mechanisms that generates your motivation is actually an old outdated attempt to find God, which you are no longer trying to do. Rationally, you search for the limits of the set of ideas you’re currently investigating, find them, and move on, in accordance with modern liberal arts thinking. But there’s a twinge of disappointment because you were being driven partly by leftover religious mechanisms that were hoping for Ultimate Truth. The repeated disappointment of the old mechanism leads to tiredness, and a feeling that real meaning keeps not being there no matter how much you keep reading interesting things on the Internet. There may also be a buildup of resentment that your trust has been repeatedly betrayed.
Just a thought this morning. I recognize a lot of what you’re saying. My parents were missionaries and it has proven impossible to escape all of those influences.
The key is to keep moving forward. Marion Countess Dönhoff had a great line about aging in an interview when she was in her 80s: "every day a little more self-discipline."
Dönhoff was an East Prussian who became an influential journalist and later newspaper publisher in W. Germany after the war. In her family, the attitude to life was basically shut up, deal with it, and keep going. She was an aristocrat in the best sense of the word.
You've probably heard it before, but exercise will help. It does so much good for mental and physical health, it's basically mandatory.
After that, removing dopamine feedback loops (browsing the internet, social media, etc.) will help tremendously with motivation.
After reading a number of books on psychology and behavior it has become clear that the adaptability of humans works for and against us. If you browse the internet you adapt to that type of mental effort, where fast, shallow patterns of thought and action are rewarded. Alternatively, reading books, exercising, working on hobby projects, etc, all train you to subdue the desire for immediate gratification, in favor of future gratification, which is more healthy and rewarding.
Do you have money? Quit your job, go travel, go entrepreneurial pursuing something that moves you.
Living in some San Francisco apartment, building a career at tech companies making 6 figures a year is, once you have some money, a pretty crappy wheel-spinning way to live life, by some opinions.
This might be an unwelcome suggestion, but tell your doctor. This sounds very like depression, which is quite treatable.
You need to know that there are at least six different illnesses all called depression. The only way known to figure out which you have is to try each treatment, in turn, to see which helps. Usually they start with one with few side effects, or that works fastest. Some people have more than one variety, or one plus anxiety, or attention disorder, or all three. (These might all be caused by industrial chemicals we are all exposed to nowadays, stuff our ancestors never encountered.)
If the drugs work, but have side effects, know too that the side effects will tend to pass, with time.
Better food, more exercise, more relaxation... but I also wonder if it would have made any difference.
Yes. I'm only half OP's age but working out and eating well (well for me means much more) has made all the little aches I started to have in my 20s go away and made me much calmer, I can also sleep pretty much anywhere and at any time.
More interestingly though,
Me, and the animal I live inside.
there is no animal you live inside, this is not a meat vehicle for something else, your body is you, it's not some machine you merely inhabit. Its/your gut will affect your mood, its limitations are your limitations, being physically strong will make you feel strong and keep anxieties at bay.
But at the same time our minds are something sort of built on top of our monkey brains.
So-called "feral children" - people who didn't receive the appropriate attention in their early years to develop, among other things, language, are frighteningly less intelligent than their peers.
We're animals, but we're also something more, held up only through an unbroken chain of socialization.
I did the best I could with my body except now that I am 63 I have one regret: I wish I had more sex when I was able. I mean, I had sex but I could have had a lot more. It's seems dumb now to deny this basic pleasure for "reasons"
As luck would have it, today is my birthday. I am now officially 72 years old. My approach to the inevitable is, while getting older is certainly no picnic at the park, it definitely beats the hell out of the alternative. So far at least...
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I wish Robin Hobb all the years she desires and thank her deeply for gifting us with her stories so this animal could retreat to them when it needed a vacation from reality.
The animal separation part is confusing to me. Not because of any "mind versus matter" dilemmas but because of desires.
The author says that the animal wants to relax and lie down. But where is the distinction here? If you drink coffee when you feel the urge - that's on you, but if you relax when you feel like it - then it's the animal? Can it be that all those desires for working hard and having coffee and alcohol was part of the animal instinct?
I don't see how to decouple those, even thou I am sympathetic to the animal / inside animal distinction.
Oh, I was close (guessed the animal), but I was kind of expecting an article about being tired of learning new Javascript frameworks (not making that up, I honestly was expecting that).
I felt just as good at 30 as I did at 20. I used to hike up and down mount Washington (6300 ft) in a day and feel fine the day after. I think I was 33 when I did 30 miles of hiking in the white mountains in one day.
I felt like my body took a corner somewhere in my mid 30’s though. (Right about when my kids were born). Now it feels amazing to sit down. My hair is finally falling out too. My feet hurt when I put weight on them in the morning. I put on 20 pounds that I just can’t seem to get rid of.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Robin Hobb is amazing, her books which begin with Assassin's Apprentice really helped me through extremely stressful periods of life being able from time to time to escape from reality and into another world and then return.
I'm 35 and I don't feel any of the ravages of age that some people describe. I do exercise and eat reasonably well, but I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary. I have a desk job (programming). Am I unusually lucky? or just part of a silent majority that has nothing to complain about? Is doom just around the corner?
This hits home, I'm pushing 40 and I can hardly walk at the moment, probably because I was barefoot at home, on a hard floor, doing about 2500 steps a day (to the coffee machine and back). Before lock down I easily did 12000 on shoes... Then one day lock down ends and I go boxing, boom, over-strained feet. Now everything starts to ache because I haven't been able to move normally for months now. The animal requires maintenance, love, attention. So different from 20 years ago when it was always there when I needed it, always with 0 issues even if I skipped a night and went to work a full day after. I regret not caring for it better.
Regarding the feet: They think I wore down my fat pads, but only after I recently got x-rays and ultrasound investigations. Before that I was treated (treated is a big word for a bit of stretching and pain killers) as if I had plantar fasciosis.
It's a pretty harrowing thought that given my age (barely still a teen) I may not live another 50 years. Between the mass pollution tainting our world, impending global warming and increased civil unrest, I figure the odds that my animal reaches 70 are not very high.
> It slept only when I no longer needed its labor at the end of a long day. Day after day of steady work, night sleep sacrificed for more work; It didn't seem to mind
No problem, we can still extract a little more shareholder value. Simply turn them to to glue [1]
[+] [-] autarch|4 years ago|reply
She published the first trilogy, which begins with Assassin's Apprentice, starting in 1995. I saw the books when they first came out and I assumed from the title and the cover that it would be a cheesy fantasy by the numbers, so I never bought it. But I kept hearing about these books from other people who liked SFF, so I finally picked up the first trilogy.
I was completely wrong. It's not at all by the numbers. While it's not trope-free (nothing is), there are all sorts of interesting ideas, from the political to ecological. As you read the later series, the world opens up quite a bit, and it gets even more interesting. The final trilogy brings so many elements together, and the ending is shatteringly powerful.
While this is epic fantasy, it's _not_ at all grimdark. Bad things definitely happen, but it's more hopeful and humane than something like Malazan or Song of Ice and Fire.
I can't recommend these books highly enough. Even if her writing is slowing down, I hope that she's satisfied with what she's done. This series alone is an enormous accomplishment. To build a world across so many books, across so many years, and have it come together so well in the end is massively impressive.
[+] [-] climb_stealth|4 years ago|reply
I'm a big fan of the Malazan series as well. I still think of the hair jacket when I come across someone with a smelly jacket and it never fails to crack me up.
My recommendation for epic fantasy that is a bit different and unexpected: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Some very powerful stories in there. The first book is pretty short so it is a good way to try it out. Though I think it hooks from the very start.
[+] [-] marklubi|4 years ago|reply
Out of curiosity, and because of my praise for the series, my dad decided to give it a try...
I've never in my life seen him read anything for pleasure.
He's now >5000 pages in, just finished Fool's Fate, and is about to start The Rain Wild Chronicles (10th book in the series).
[+] [-] ryantgtg|4 years ago|reply
I picked up The Assassin’s Apprentice while looking for something to fill the Rothfuss void. I was instantly hooked. The tone and the pace was just right for me. I really like that they are so character-driven, deeply exploring the characters’ emotions, history, flaws, etc. And she’s great at having the plot build and build until basically everything is going wrong, and then she delivers a super satisfying ending.
I usually take a short break between each tril, but I might just go straight into her last batch after I finish this book.
[+] [-] dilippkumar|4 years ago|reply
I will always read anything recommend by a person who uses Malazan as a benchmark.
Purchasing this book right now.
[+] [-] gpderetta|4 years ago|reply
I didn't enjoy the first book too much, less epic scope than I was expecting and I don't like child protagonists very much.
But the writing was excellent and after a year hiatus and a streak of questionably written books (Malazan was one of them...), I picked her up again. Halfway through the second book I realized I was cheering to Kettricken charge to aid Fitz and I was hooked.
Since then each book has been better than the one before.
[+] [-] cosmie|4 years ago|reply
The way she uses perception, perspective, and cognitive biases are, as you say, shatteringly powerful. Particularly with her stream-of-consciousness writing style, where you so naturally get sucked into the character's mental framework. The final trilogy in particular that brings it all together, but even within the individual trilogies she's constantly doing it.
I started reading her books back when I was still in school, and they had a fundamental impact on my life. It fundamentally altered the way I see things, and the career path I eventually took. I couldn't even articulate exactly how, until I stumbled upon the concept of systems thinking[1] a few years ago and realized that was what she had given me an awareness of. Which then led me to these[2][3], which pretty much describe how I had started seeing and approaching things after reading Robin Hobb's books.
Not sure if it would have been as impactful if I hadn't read them at such an impressionable age, but I'm forever grateful that I did. And for that, Robin Hobb will always reign supreme on my favorite author list.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory#Systems_thinkin...
[2] http://donellameadows.org/archives/dancing-with-systems/
[3] http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to...
[+] [-] lta|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GordonS|4 years ago|reply
Her work is quite unique, I think - as you say, it's epic fantasy, but with a slant I haven't seen before. I'll happily second a recommendation for fantasy readers.
I hope she's doing OK, and would be very happy to read more from her, if it comes to her.
[+] [-] hutzlibu|4 years ago|reply
Ok, I agree on the positive outlook in her books in general (and I have not read the other books you mentioned), but I remember, that some books ended in a very dark way, leaving also me in a very dark mood. I felt a lot with poor young Fitz and the books affected me a lot in my teenage years.
But I never finished them, the last I read was Fools Fate quite some time ago ...
"The final trilogy brings so many elements together, and the ending is shatteringly powerful."
So this sounds very interesting and after a short research, this means I have to continue with Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons, Blood of Dragons, Fool's Assassin, Fool's Quest and then finally Assassin's Fate.
Well, if I treat my own animal not too bad and my baby animals give me some rest - I might one day finish them, too.
[+] [-] elyobo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Benjamin_Dobell|4 years ago|reply
Sadly, in the last 10 years, I've barely read anything. However, when The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy came out, you can bet I made time to read it!
[+] [-] iamacyborg|4 years ago|reply
Am I missing something here? It's been a while since I read the Malazan series but hope seems to be one of the primary themes of the series, even if things are utterly bleak at times.
[+] [-] codeduck|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubicon33|4 years ago|reply
It seems to have no motivation or energy to do much besides lay here.
If I force it, it will get stuff done but at a huge cost. It will yearn the entire time to just lay back down.
It's interest in things seems to be fading quickly. What desire it used to have to work hard and succeed, has slipped away. It seems these days it has only enough energy to lay in bed and scroll through the internet. Not sure what is wrong with my animal, but this is no way for it to live.
I was hard on the animal in its early 20s, but no harder than the average animal. The past 7 years or so have actually been pretty calm, good food, semi regular exercise, stable job, etc.
It's scary to imagine how the animal would feel at 70 if this is how it feels at 33. Maybe the pandemic was a straw to its back, and the isolation has worn it down more than anything else possibly could.
[+] [-] Swizec|4 years ago|reply
In life satisfaction surveys, your 30’s are the most miserable stressful part of life. Highest amount of responsibilities, lowest amount of consistent reward, and it keeps getting worse until your 40’s
Apparently it gets better again in your late 40’s and early 50’s. By 60 you’re as happy as you were at 20.
https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/scientists-just-discovered-mi...
(am 33 and also just ... tired)
[+] [-] DougN7|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graeme|4 years ago|reply
The single biggest improvement to my energy and happiness came from getting a sleep tracking device, and then making sure I slept around eight hours. (As opposed to being in bed for eight hours). I wake with no alarm, and have also started going to bed earlier since tracking this.
This may not be your issue, I see your diet and weight appear good. Could be some mental health issue or some other physical issue not currently diagnosed.
But, if you’re sleeping less than eight hours or are not actually tracking so you know you’re sleeping enough, it could be a big improvement to try doing both.
I have an apple watch and autosleep if anyone is curious about the combo.
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|4 years ago|reply
I don't know if, in your case, that's the whole answer. You might find it worth while to seek medical advice...
[+] [-] logicslave|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otikik|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahD5zae7|4 years ago|reply
There's always been a "post viral fatigue syndrome" with many other viruses and it is a known phenomenon, maybe it's just a similar thing with Covid. Only it affects much more people I think. And most importantly you can get it after asymptomatic Covid, so you don't even know you had it.
[+] [-] nradov|4 years ago|reply
https://davidgoggins.com/book/
[+] [-] kadonoishi|4 years ago|reply
You sound like a machine built for a different set of circumstances. Wartime, or famine, or slavery; or most likely, a heavily religious society.
I would guess you’re mostly nonreligious. But you have a lot of mechanisms left over in your personal acculturation from when religion was important for your ancestors. You took out the formal religion, because that’s not needed so much these days, but still have a lot of underlying mechanisms, like a conviction that there is such a thing as an ultimate answer, which made sense when the accepted ultimate answer was God.
I would guess that you enjoy learning and regularly investigate new things, but one of the mechanisms that generates your motivation is actually an old outdated attempt to find God, which you are no longer trying to do. Rationally, you search for the limits of the set of ideas you’re currently investigating, find them, and move on, in accordance with modern liberal arts thinking. But there’s a twinge of disappointment because you were being driven partly by leftover religious mechanisms that were hoping for Ultimate Truth. The repeated disappointment of the old mechanism leads to tiredness, and a feeling that real meaning keeps not being there no matter how much you keep reading interesting things on the Internet. There may also be a buildup of resentment that your trust has been repeatedly betrayed.
Just a thought this morning. I recognize a lot of what you’re saying. My parents were missionaries and it has proven impossible to escape all of those influences.
[+] [-] hodgesrm|4 years ago|reply
Dönhoff was an East Prussian who became an influential journalist and later newspaper publisher in W. Germany after the war. In her family, the attitude to life was basically shut up, deal with it, and keep going. She was an aristocrat in the best sense of the word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_D%C3%B6nhoff
Edit: typo
[+] [-] bun_at_work|4 years ago|reply
After that, removing dopamine feedback loops (browsing the internet, social media, etc.) will help tremendously with motivation.
After reading a number of books on psychology and behavior it has become clear that the adaptability of humans works for and against us. If you browse the internet you adapt to that type of mental effort, where fast, shallow patterns of thought and action are rewarded. Alternatively, reading books, exercising, working on hobby projects, etc, all train you to subdue the desire for immediate gratification, in favor of future gratification, which is more healthy and rewarding.
[+] [-] practicalpants|4 years ago|reply
Living in some San Francisco apartment, building a career at tech companies making 6 figures a year is, once you have some money, a pretty crappy wheel-spinning way to live life, by some opinions.
[+] [-] ncmncm|4 years ago|reply
You need to know that there are at least six different illnesses all called depression. The only way known to figure out which you have is to try each treatment, in turn, to see which helps. Usually they start with one with few side effects, or that works fastest. Some people have more than one variety, or one plus anxiety, or attention disorder, or all three. (These might all be caused by industrial chemicals we are all exposed to nowadays, stuff our ancestors never encountered.)
If the drugs work, but have side effects, know too that the side effects will tend to pass, with time.
[+] [-] blfr|4 years ago|reply
Yes. I'm only half OP's age but working out and eating well (well for me means much more) has made all the little aches I started to have in my 20s go away and made me much calmer, I can also sleep pretty much anywhere and at any time.
More interestingly though,
Me, and the animal I live inside.
there is no animal you live inside, this is not a meat vehicle for something else, your body is you, it's not some machine you merely inhabit. Its/your gut will affect your mood, its limitations are your limitations, being physically strong will make you feel strong and keep anxieties at bay.
[+] [-] Ensorceled|4 years ago|reply
It always drives me crazy when people take the work of a poet or author literally and then pedantically hound any joy or meaning out of the words.
The point is that humans are animals, treat your animal well.
[+] [-] Tade0|4 years ago|reply
So-called "feral children" - people who didn't receive the appropriate attention in their early years to develop, among other things, language, are frighteningly less intelligent than their peers.
We're animals, but we're also something more, held up only through an unbroken chain of socialization.
[+] [-] polishdude20|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sneak|4 years ago|reply
I wonder how history will view such statements once we manage the ability to uncouple our humanity from our meat prisons.
[+] [-] okareaman|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] every|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edoceo|4 years ago|reply
Use responsive design people! You'll need it someday!!
[+] [-] WarOnPrivacy|4 years ago|reply
-- Redd Foxx
[+] [-] awinter-py|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uglygoblin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kkoncevicius|4 years ago|reply
The author says that the animal wants to relax and lie down. But where is the distinction here? If you drink coffee when you feel the urge - that's on you, but if you relax when you feel like it - then it's the animal? Can it be that all those desires for working hard and having coffee and alcohol was part of the animal instinct?
I don't see how to decouple those, even thou I am sympathetic to the animal / inside animal distinction.
[+] [-] nocman|4 years ago|reply
:-D
[+] [-] fallingfrog|4 years ago|reply
I felt like my body took a corner somewhere in my mid 30’s though. (Right about when my kids were born). Now it feels amazing to sit down. My hair is finally falling out too. My feet hurt when I put weight on them in the morning. I put on 20 pounds that I just can’t seem to get rid of.
[+] [-] TrispusAttucks|4 years ago|reply
O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing‐masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_to_Byzantium
[+] [-] huxflux|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcell|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teekert|4 years ago|reply
Regarding the feet: They think I wore down my fat pads, but only after I recently got x-rays and ultrasound investigations. Before that I was treated (treated is a big word for a bit of stretching and pain killers) as if I had plantar fasciosis.
[+] [-] smoldesu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 40four|4 years ago|reply
This definitely makes me want to read more of her stuff though. Kudos!
[+] [-] terminalserver|4 years ago|reply
It’s started at about 51 years old. Going to bed early, feeling so tired at the end of the day, seeing 9pm as “late”.
Not having the energy of earlier days.
I’m otherwise healthy but so damn tired all the time.
[+] [-] maerF0x0|4 years ago|reply
No problem, we can still extract a little more shareholder value. Simply turn them to to glue [1]
[1]: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm/section9/