Depression, despair, and dread are going around. I’ve lost count of how many places online I’ve seen some version of “I and some/most/all of my family and friends are struggling with depression right now.” My essay about how to cope with suicidal impulses is getting a lot of traffic in the last few days, which is a separate but meaningful metric, as it often gets linked from places on the internet where depressed people gather to commiserate and try to help one another.
It’s everywhere and seemingly affecting everyone, including me. January was a very long slog for me, groping through darkness, but with my therapist’s help, I figured out why I was depressed and worked through it. Now things are better. Today is the best day I’ve had since Christmas.
Consequently, I decided to bring you a brief “share my happiness” post—things that are bringing me hope, excitement, and the kind of energy boost that comes from an interesting, challenging pursuit.
Something I’m Thrilled About Reading
Homeschooling families (or families considering homeschooling) should take special note of this one. This one made my Monday.
For context: history is the arena of human knowledge where I know the least, and I think that’s probably true of a lot of people. I have tried to remedy this in some direct ways, mostly by reading primary sources like the 1828 Webster’s dictionary, which is enlightening every single time I open it. I started a series writing about my effort to learn US history, including that dictionary, last year. (I haven’t given up on it, by the way — I’m working on a way to get back to it. The needed time investment was far more massive than I expected, in part because of the infinite regress of realizing I needed to do more reading for context…and then more reading to understand the context….and so on, to write about it well.)
But I really want to know more about history, because things are so fucked up right now and knowing what has happened before seems like the best way to try to understand both the present and the possible futures.
One of my internet friends, Dan Sawyer, is an author and lay historian. He’s got a depth and breadth of historical knowledge that allows him to bring really excellent context to any discussion of current events. He’s in a Signal chat group that I am also a member of, and I learn something every day when topics of Wokeness, communism, and other threats to Western civilization come up. He contextualizes the current madness effortlessly and is a natural teacher. In the same way that James Lindsay makes the academic history of ideas into an achievable, attainable body of knowledge, so does Dan for history, period.
Today Dan launched a new series on his Substack, Reconnecting to History. The first post, “The Myth of the Myth of the 1950s,” contextualizes the way Americans look at our own recent history and really helped me improve my thinking. I’m very excited about his series in part because he’s not an ideologue and is, as this post shows, entirely comfortable sifting through nuance.
Unlike mathematics, history is extremely difficult to self-educate in a rigorous way. One can start with counting and build up to learn maths, because mathematics is an abstract representation of logic, number, quantity, and space as these things can be found in reality. But history? History is all narratives. It’s so difficult to know when a narrative is true. Many heuristics are more likely to point us in the direction of truth than falsehood (i.e. “always doubt that an ideologue is telling you the whole truth” or “always assume a Communist is lying”) but that’s not knowledge. It’s so tricky — if an ideologue (especially a goddamn Commie) says X, is not-X automatically highly likely to be true? That may be a useful heuristic for times when doubt is called for, but is it the right way to find truth? Sometimes, yeah. When? How can we tell?
Dan’s history series is helping me learn to better think about these things already, and he’s only published the first edition. I hope some of you — especially you homeschooling parents — will check it out, and discuss it with me in the comments as it grows.
Something I’m Thrilled About Experiencing
I got a cortisone shot in my thumb joint last week, to treat serious pain from complications caused by a broken bone two years ago and a bone spur. The shot was the most painful experience I’ve ever had with a needle by many orders of magnitude. I have a high pain tolerance and it made me gasp out loud and disassociate. But it worked!! It was entirely worth the horrible experience of getting the shot. My hand is pain-free now, and I am so grateful.
Some Things I’m Thrilled About Owning
Recently I got a charging station and a Star Trek style power pack. The charging station has eliminated all stress of locating the right power cord for the right device and brought some soothing organization to that part of my life. And twice now the power has gotten out for weather-related reasons and I was able to immediately juice up my phone, which was an amazing anxiety balm. Mostly I use it when I’m writing by hand on my iPad, so I can keep working instead of having to stop when the battery gets low, but knowing that the weather won’t eliminate my ability to use my phone is fantastic.
Here are the Amazon links: charging station, power pack.
Some Good I’m Thrilled to Be Doing in the World
Two recent book reviews I published — one of the Wokest novel I’ve ever read, which literally has pronouns for the characters and instructions from the author not to misgender the characters in reviews; and one of Rob Henderson’s forthcoming memoir — have gotten quite a lot of readers.
The Woke novel review will help make much of the Woke worldview clearer to you. I’ve gotten a dozen emails from people telling me it made a coherent picture out of so many of the Woke buzzwords they see in their kids’ school lessons. And the review of Rob’s book will, I hope, convince you to buy it. Rob is being denied access to bookstore events to promote his book (turns out they only support people overcoming adversity if those people are Woke), and I’m delighted that so many people are telling me they’ve pre-ordered his book after reading my review. I want his book to premiere at #1 as a pair of middle fingers to the Woke gatekeepers of these things.
Some Things I’m Thrilled to Be Working On
Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance doesn’t apply to America in 2024, for two reasons. I wrote about the first reason here and am making good progress on an essay about the second reason. Like part 1, this one will be available for everyone.
And I am now subscribed to an anti-racist activist’s newsletter, and finding it an incredibly enlightening experience to see the world through the eyes of people who are up to their eyeballs in Woke. I’m working on an essay about some of the things that I’ve learned from this. Yes, it will be snarky, but also serious and revelatory (I hope). This one will go behind the paywall.
One Last Word
If you’re struggling, as so many are — hang in there. This, too, shall pass.
I promise.
Really.
About My Substack: I’m a data scientist who would rather be a math teacher but, being unwilling to brainwash kids into Woke nonsense, am presently unqualified to teach in the US. So I bring my “math is fun and anyone can learn it” approach to mathematics here to Substack in my series, “How to Not Suck at Math,” (first five entries not paywalled, links at the top of part 5, here).
I also write about other things. My posts are mostly cultural takes from a broadly anti-Woke perspective—yes, I’m one of those annoying classical liberals who would’ve been considered on the left until ten seconds ago. Lately I’ve regained a childhood love of reading and started publishing book reviews, including of the Wokest novel I’ve ever read and a forthcoming memoir by Rob Henderson. My most widely useful essay may be this one, about how to resist the demon of self-termination.
I used to be poor, so this Substack has a standing policy: if you want a paid subscription but cannot afford one, email me at hollymathnerd at gmail dot com and I’ll give you a freebie.
So delighted to hear that my new series is already helping out! Next installments coming soon--I hope they serve as well :-)
Holly, I just want to tell you that I appreciate you. I ordered Rob's book after reading your review. I also hope it debuts at #1.