June 12, 2011
On Writing, and Myself.
“And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain.” – Montaigne, Essays
I’ve often thought about trying to write about depression. But when you’re depressed, there’s no point in writing about it. Everything, after all, is pointless. Most especially your own meditations on your own pointlessness. And when you’re not depressed, well, you don’t want to write about being depressed. It’s depressing.
So I’m not going to write about being depressed. I’m going to write about not wanting to write. In which I am of course being slightly dishonest. Because if I really didn’t want to write, I wouldn’t be writing at all. (Though actually everything turns on what you take by “really”. And the way you take to – or reject – various putative paradoxes in human psychology and the philosophy of mind. But I’m not going to write about those.)
I used to love writing. It was my hobby. Even before I started blogging,* I used to adore producing vast reams of turgid, tedious, self-involved prose. Most of it was crap, even by the standards of whatever age I was then. But it served a purpose beyond the GCSE/A-Level/Degree study I was officially engaged in. It was in itself therapeutic. Challenging. Entertaining. And quite often actively fun. I used to write for fun. And that made studying all the easier – and guaranteed that deadlines were never a problem for me.
But now I don’t love writing. Now I (almost) hate it. I get anxious before I have to do any. I dislike the process when I’m doing it. I’m dissatisfied with the end products. All of it bores me. And it’s not fun. It’s not exciting. It’s not even a good mental work-out anymore.
What happened? I’m not really sure.
I stopped enjoying writing sometime last March. I know it was around March, because in February I wrote 13,000 words on the interminable bore and 3rd rate moral philosopher, Francis Hutcheson (yes, he of the weird chicken fetish).
I detest Hutcheson’s writings, but regardless I wrote that piece at nobody’s behest and for nobody’s benefit (though what the hell, here’s an upload). The thing is, I still enjoyed writing it. It allowed me to work out a few conceptual moves, and in terms of keeping track of Hutcheson’s “arguments” (I use the term loosely), it was more efficient than a series of notes that, if unearthed in two years, would mean nothing.
Right now the prospect of doing anything like that again fills me with horror. Indeed I thought about writing a review of Jonathan Wolff’s new book Ethics and Public Policy for this blog. It’s quite a good book. Accessible to beginners, but cleverly addressing more interesting philosophical issues as it goes along. But frankly, I can’t face telling you anything more about it. The prospect appalls me.
So OK. I don’t like writing anymore. Boo hoo for me. So what?
Well this is my party, and I’ll gaze at my reflection in the glittering pool if I so choose.
Number one: if I’m going to be an academic, not liking writing is something of a problem. Writing is going to be a big part of my job. Career-satisfaction does not appear to loom. Nasty.
Number two: this apathy and dissatisfaction is worrying. What is wrong with me? Have I permanently changed? Can people even change that dramatically and suddenly? Is this symptomatic of a wider, growing apathy with intellectual pursuits more generally? I don’t know, and I don’t like it. But I don’t really give enough of a fuck to write to you about it.
Number three: bringing together the above considerations, if I don’t write, will I get stupid? All the cleverest people write all the time, even if it’s just in vast piles of unpublished notebooks. When I used to write regularly, I stayed sharp. Literally, a sort of mental workout. Does giving it up mean a one-way ticket to cognitive obesity?
Dear readers, I’d like to explore this further. Except I wouldn’t, because as I said, I can’t be fucked. I started with a quote from Montaigne – prolific writer that he was, the bastard – so I’ll end with one too. “Everyone thinks his own fart smells as sweet as apples”.
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* Some 4 years ago now, though the early efforts have thankfully been dispatched into the abyss.
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Peter said,
June 13, 2011 at 12:41 am
Hope you get over it, I miss your regular blogs.
(I realise that that doesn’t help at all)
Paul Sagar said,
June 13, 2011 at 12:44 am
Peter mate, if I wanted your help I’d ask for your money.
Jed said,
June 13, 2011 at 2:17 am
Shut up and stop pussying out of tennis.
Mercer Finn said,
June 13, 2011 at 2:25 am
Two things, from my own experience keeping up a far less illustrious and intelligent blog than yrs.
One: it’s not the act of writing, it’s the subject-matter. Writing is a tool that helps me work out problems (intellectual and personal), so I write when I have them. If yr experiencing a “growing apathy with intellectual pursuits”, it’s the apathy that’s the problem. Figuring that one out might mean writing about it…
Two: forcing myself to post, particularly if I feel I’ve got an interested audience out there, often makes me write absolute garbage. Then again forgetting the expectations of my (largely imagined) audience and forcing myself to post can often lift the block. In other words, it’s the expectations that are the problem.
This might not help at all, and I might be way off, but thought I should share. I hope you work it out.
cbdhthekmg said,
June 13, 2011 at 7:21 am
Rather than not writing about being depressed, it sounds as if you are actually depressed.
Go see someone about it. Even mild depression isn’t something that just has to be suffered any more.
Luis Enrique said,
June 13, 2011 at 8:59 am
Tim W may be right. Otherwise, hopefully it will turn out to be a bought of bad weather, that will be blown away one day soon.
As to the writing thing, there’s a lot I sympathise with here. On my part, even if I tell myself I write for my own pleasure, I often feel sick of it, verging on disgusted with my self and the crap I churn out. Boredom with my self, a mix of thinking I really don’t have anything to say interesting enough to be worth writing down, and there’s no point writing stuff people don’t read. And, as a fellow academic, disatisfaction on disenchantment with that too. I find it pretty easy to fall out of love with acdemia and intellectuals.
I think it is possible to waste time writing, so maybe the cure is to take a holiday, and write less generally, hope for something to rekindle your enthusiasm for your work. My phd supervisor was always warning me of the need to take lots of breaks, becuse it’s very easy to burn out, by which he just meant get fed up with it all.
There’s a small chance that this is nature’s way of telling you not to be an academic. In which case you can be pragmatic, give yourself a couple of years to make sure and start thinking about other jobs, meantime. I tend to find that thinking properly about what else I could be doing makes me realise I actually like what I am doing more than I think.
Phil said,
June 13, 2011 at 9:11 am
I’m mildly depressed myself at the moment – I thought it was the effect of applying for five jobs in a row & not getting a single interview, but application #6 got me an interview & I’m still feeling like there’s not much point to anything.
HE is just not a good place to be at the moment. Of course, lots of other professions are similarly under threat, and many of those are places I wouldn’t like to work at the best of times. But in a way that’s the point – this is my dream career, I’ve worked hard at it (after working really hard to get into it), and it’s rewarding me by threatening to spit me out and leave me with nothing. (I should say that, at the time of writing, the threat isn’t immediate or aimed at me personally – but it’s always there.) The point isn’t so much the threat itself as the contradiction between my belief in the job & the job’s evident lack of belief in me – psychic contradictions like that are really hard to live with, and we tend to resolve them by changing what we can change – in this case, by questioning my commitment to the job. (Which I don’t want to question – but pushing back just intensifies the contradiction.)
What makes it all the worse is that this situation was brought into being by the Coalition Agreement, which is itself an emblem of this kind of free-floating but unchallengeable contradiction – Tory voters didn’t vote for the coalition’s HE policies, Lib Dem voters openly and specifically voted against them, and yet here they somehow are. Emotionally these things are wrong – wrong in the deep sense that they shouldn’t be there – but there doesn’t seem to be any alternative to submission.
I think there are a lot of confused, demotivated, apathetic and mildly depressed people in and around HE at the moment, and in the public sector generally.
Paul Sagar said,
June 13, 2011 at 9:23 am
Thanks all* for the kind words (amused that TW’s image perhaps requires him to express kindness anonymously).
I’m actually not depressed at the moment. I was, and often I am, but not at the moment. I’m just perplexed by the lack of writing in my motivation set these days. The post was actually supposed to be sort of funny and self-depracating, so sorry for making it look like a cry for help.
*(except Jed, who is about to be the Roddick to my Murray.)
Franlydie said,
June 13, 2011 at 9:32 am
(1) if you are writing for pleasure then you must only write WHEN/ IF it gives you pleasure; otherwise just go and so something else, which will give you pleasure (like READ a book – possibly until you find other people’s writing makes you want to write again) (and write better than them).
(2) if you are going to be writing for a living, then who said anything you would get paid to do was going to be enjoyable as well? The vast majority of people in employment at the moment dislike some, or all, of what they have to do, but they have no alternative but get on with it. Other writers get fed up; it’s called writers’ block.
(3) It must have occurred to you that your writing gave others something they enjoyed. There is a possibility your ability to write well entails a form of duty to do it as an act of generosity.
(4) Speak to someone about depression. Even if you “know” it won’t make any difference. If you don’t do anything about it, then nothing will change, that is the one certainty.
Novak said,
June 13, 2011 at 11:13 am
Paul I’d be more worried about your limp forehand
Torquil Macneil said,
June 13, 2011 at 12:20 pm
“I’m actually not depressed at the moment. I was, and often I am, but not at the moment.”
Paul, depressives are notoriously bad at self-diagnosis, often experiencing depression as revelation, waking up to how things really are. You probably know this but it may not help if you can’t feel it, and depression would get in the way of that. A suddenly developed inability to enjoy something such as this is a huge indicator of depression. In other words, whatever you think, go and get some professional advice. This is the aberration and it will get better, but you may need help. Don’t let it develop. Don’t adjust your outlook to normalise the condition, that is a classic depressive spiral, part iof the seductiveness of the condition that makes it so deadly.
Good luck.
Barnaby Walker said,
June 13, 2011 at 2:07 pm
I wouldn’t normally comment, but I have had (and still have) similar problems with work. Once or twice a year I have a period of a month or so where I pretty much lose interest in reading/thinking about/writing philosophy. (I’d a philosophy PhD student, btw.) I used to get really worried about this – “I’m not cut out to be a philosopher”, “I’ll never be interested in any of this stuff again” – but I’ve learned, over time, that my normal levels of curiosity and motivation return. The key thing is to know how to manage yourself when your “motivational set”, as you put it, goes wrong. Sometimes a loss of motivation indicates that you actually need, and deserve, a break. In my own case, a loss of motivation often stems from the fact that I put too much pressure on myself. Having unrealistically high standards undermines my motivation because when, as is inevitable, I fail to meet those standards, I think that I’m stupid – and if I’m stupid anyway, what’s the point in trying?
Not sure if either of things apply to you, but given how much work you do it wouldn’t surprise me if (to put it crudely) your mind is simply telling you that it needs some time off. Given your obvious commitment to all things academic I have no doubt that your desire to write will return again soon.
Agog said,
June 13, 2011 at 4:12 pm
I think this a necessary by-product of self-awareness. After a while we get more reflexive about what we’re doing, and it doesn’t feel the same any more. But I find the dislocation/ennui/whatever tends to wear off after a while as I find other things to worry about. I developed a really negative mindset during my doctoral work, and writing my thesis was torture. But then other pressures and annoyances came along: collaborations, supervision etc etc.
I guess you could try giving up on self-awareness. Plenty seem to manage without it….
David Owen said,
June 13, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Sometimes it just goes like that and nearly all academics have such spells, it counterbalnces all those times when writing lifts you up like (almost) nothing else and time flows by as if barely touch you at all.
Accept it – and go work on the forehand.
Phil said,
June 13, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Does anyone here not play tennis with Paul?
David Owen said,
June 14, 2011 at 8:51 am
I don’t play tennis with Paul – although happy to do so – just looking for a physicla activity to get him away from work
Thalia said,
June 15, 2011 at 10:06 am
Hi there –
This isn’t in direct response to any one post but something about your writing really reminds me of a couple of people. If you haven’t read them, I think you might enjoy these two books:
Out of Sheer Rage – Geoff Dyer (his bit on Oxford dons is particuarly brilliant)
Reality Hunger, A Manifesto – David Shields
This seems entirely random and you’ve probably got a reading list as long as your leg, but I always like book recommendations and these two are, to my mind, prett special.
Thalia