HealthyGamerGG - Why Failure is Liberating

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

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I'm smiling because I think you're an absolute failure, and I think that that's perfectly okay. I think that I was a failure too. And failure is not the end of the road. It's the beginning. So now you can really start to live your life because you have burned down potential. You've burned down the idea of I always been able to do things faster than everyone else. All of that expectation and potential. you're actually free of it. It's a burden. And every every ounce of projected failure,

that ounce of projected failure comes from an ounce of expectation. Do you see that? Like, you can't fail if you don't expect. What am I calling you, friend? Zach. Zach. And so apologies, first of all, Zach for our setback on Monday. I had located, I had gone to a slightly different location. that had poor internet. So now I've decided to move back to my underground bunker. But yeah, so I'm really, I'm sorry about that. I hope that was kind of okay for you. Yeah, that was fine.

It actually kind of worked out well. There's some other stuff that happened at that time. Cool. Well, neat. So tell me a little bit, Zach, you know, help me understand a little bit about why you're coming on today and how we can be helpful. Yeah. So right now, and actually for the last three and a half months or so, I've been unemployed and living in my parents' basements and making almost no progress in getting out of that because I spend pretty much every waking hour of the day playing video games and watching anime and stuff.

Video games and anime? Yes. Mostly video games. Okay. Browsing Reddit. the usual the holy trinity yeah of Reddit and May video games the holy trinity of

not getting anywhere yeah yeah so like obviously I'm in this bad situation and I I mean not even a year ago like six months ago was in grad school working towards getting my PhD oh wow yeah and then I had a whole bunch of stressful stuff that happened over a couple months in there

that slowly leads to me dropping out and yeah now I have no idea where to go with my life and I'm kind of stuck here can you tell us a little bit about the stressful stuff it's a bit of story because it was a series of things so for the first year or so of my PhD, I had made very little progress in my research. What were you getting your PhD in? The neuroscience branch

of biomedical engineering. I was at the University of Utah. Okay. So I went there and started working for this professor. He was new and had some projects and one of them interested me. So I was working with him,

after about a year, I didn't really make any progress, which was kind of to be expected because it was chemistry related, and chemistry sometimes you just, nothing works the way you expect it to, and you don't know why, because you can't see the things that you're interacting with. But I didn't really get anywhere in a year, and so he was kind of upset. I was upset that nothing was happening. We weren't getting anywhere. So I had some stress that was building up because of that, because things were. going along as was expected.

And there's not necessarily conflict between us, but it was sort of like passive aggressiveness. And I was just started getting overwhelmed, but all the stuff that I was having to do, and then this was roughly like August or September. What were you having to do? Just lots of

work, I guess. Was that different from before? Kind of. How do I put this? Having to deal with classes and research at the same time rather than just classes was more than I was used to. And then also I would do what I thought was an adequate amount of work for the day, like maybe six to eight hours in the lab. And he was like, you know, such and such isn't done. You need to be here more. which I didn't like the idea of spending what would have had to be 10, 12 plus hours a day and weekends in order to get all of that work. Okay. So when you say overwhelmed, well, help me understand what we're talking about a little bit more precisely. So one is that he's upset with you. One is you're not accomplishing what his expectations are. male male uh p i yes okay p i is principal investigator by the way um so you're so you were in someone's

lab and he was saying you need to be here for like did he did he use those numbers or no but it was so the experiment i was working on um he wanted me to like each section each test i would do he wanted me to do each test in like roughly a day the test though takes about 12 hours to do there's a breaking point in the middle where I'm capable of like pausing it. Okay. And not losing any progress at about six to eight hours. And so I was going up to that point and then doing the other half the next day. Okay. He wanted to do it like all it wants. Go, go, go. Okay. One test a day. And so there was a differential expectation set in terms of what you wanted to do and what he wanted you to do. Yeah. Okay. So just about like any other PhD program. Yes. Again, like kind of to be a

expected in the sense. And so I'm confused about, so what was overwhelming is you had classes on top of that and you weren't doing experiments during the first half of your first year or what? Yeah, so like I was, I mean, obviously like in undergrad, it was just classes. Maybe I had like a job on the side that I do a couple hours every now and then. But like I wasn't really doing 12 hours a day. And I come in and I knew like I was going to have to put in a lot of work, but I didn't really realize exactly what that meant, especially when I was applying to schools and people

from the school were like, yeah, like, all the professors here are really chill. They don't make you work weekends like other professors at other schools. It's like, oh, wow, that sounds like so fit for me, because I don't really like spending so many hours of my life on one thing. Sure. So I went into this, you know, expecting to do like some hard work, but I've, through everything else I've done and through all of undergrad and everything, I've always been able to get things done faster than everyone else. So I was like I'll be able to do the same thing here. And then yeah, then when I sort of sat down and realized I'm going to have to do all my classes, I have to teach a lab course because I have to do TA stuff. And then I have to do all this research in a day. I have to be

talking to other professors trying to get my committee assembled and trying to communicate with people from other areas. And also have to have to. deal with all the stuff in my apartment and paying for rent and everything like that. Sure. Which it was just a lot of stuff. And I'm so used to spending more of my time not doing those things. Sure. I want to just highlight something that you said.

I don't know exactly what the significance of this is. I've always been able to get things done faster than everyone else. Okay. Yeah. I want to just note that. And okay. So then what happened? So it sounds like you didn't want to spend 10 to 10 to 3.000.

12 hours a day in the lab. You had a lot of different things to juggle in terms of life, responsibilities, classes, committee stuff, teaching. It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot. So I was, to an extent, like, I mean, I sort of did my six-hour thing for research and all my other stuff. I was like, yeah, you want me to do this stuff, but it's just not possible. And so I just didn't do those things. And I did that. And then after a year, I didn't make any progress. So now there's, What does not make any progress means? So I guess I'll have to get a little bit into the specifics for that. I was trying, part of my research was to make these special particles, I guess you could say.

And it was supposed to be just like a replication of what someone else had done in another paper. And I actually talked to her in person as well, and she explained to me the process. We were just redoing it with a different set of chemicals. And in theory, it should be possible and pretty easy. and we planned on it only taking like a month to figure it out. And it's 12 months in, no matter how I combine these things and we're buying other stuff online and trying other things, nothing is working.

Could you duplicate exactly what she did with her chemicals? Yes. Okay. And even tried figuring out, okay, you know, controlling for all of the different variables and changing everything, which there was a bit of conflict. And he wanted things to happen fast. So he was like, just change these five variables all at once.

If it doesn't work, then try. these other five variables. And I'm like, we don't know if these variables interact with each other. We need to do them one at a time. And so there was a little bit of conflict there, trying to get that settled. And again, no matter what things I change,

eventually I just had to give in and change five variables at a time. And sure enough, it doesn't work. Sure. Now we don't know why, which one was the faults of that. Sure. And yeah, a year in,

I haven't made these. Don't know why they don't work or what variables are affected. Sometimes I run the same experiment twice and get different results. And it's just, I'm like, I'm completely in the dark. No idea what's going out. Yeah. So, yeah, so that happens for like a year or so.

We're not really getting anywhere and still trying things out. And then around this time point, there was someone reminded me about, I think it's an NIH grant. It's something that like all grad students apply for in like their freshman and sophomore year. Some like big national grants or whatever. Okay. And I was like, oh, I had forgotten about that. And that's coming up soon. And I need to have part of my research done so that I can have something to write about in there.

And I also needs to go get people from back in undergrad to write me letters of recommendation. And I don't even know who to talk to at this point for that. I also have to figure out what I'm going to write about, what the recommendations are, what the requirements are. So now I have another thing on my plate that I have to worry about. And that built up some stress, and there was other stuff going on. Part of it was, you know, I would just ignore that for a little while and then work on the other things I had to do.

And so, of course, it just keeps building, keeps building, because I'm procrastinating things until sort of, The first major break point was there was a meeting amongst grad students for this grant. It was students who had already gotten the grant successfully were teaching those who hadn't how to write our papers. So I went to that meeting and sat down and they started talking about how to write about your achievements and other things that you've done because that's one of the important aspects of it. And the achievements that they listed out and that everyone else in the room talked about were just so much greater than anything that I had done at that point, that I immediately got imposter syndrome. What do you mean by imposter syndrome? Like I felt like I had gotten there by accident that I totally didn't belong.

I had not achieved anything of great worth compared to what these people had done. and that they were all aware of what they were doing and knew how to do go about their research and that I was flying in dark and that I hadn't made any progress

because I didn't know what I was doing and that I was completely lost. Okay. And that it was a fluke that I had ended up in this program because I was big and stupid and didn't know what I was doing. Didn't know what to write about

and all that other stuff. And yeah, I was really overwhelmed because so many people, I swear, like, one of them went to Africa and cured malaria in a tribe or something. Like, this is wild stuff that they were doing. It was like, what have I done with my time? I've gone home and spent my free time playing video games like I've always done. I haven't achieved anything like these people. Yeah.

So, yeah, that felt like shit at that moment. And just all the stress of everything building up to that point. And then this, quote, unquote, I guess you could say moments of realization, even though it's not really. reality in the sense. I know that it was imposter syndrome, but at the time, can you tell us about some of those? Again, like, looking at it from this perspective I'm in now, I know that it was just my brain making things up and saying like, you know, like a moment of realizing that I don't belong here. I know now it was imposter syndrome. But at the time, when I really stress out like that, I'm thinking, I'm realizing that I don't belong here. realizing that getting here, I wasn't this crazy smart person getting into this program. I actually don't belong here.

But you've always been able to do things faster than everyone else. Yeah, I know, right? Like, it's this weird conflict that goes on in my head. But so, yeah, at that moment, I sort of, I guess you could say snapped. And I packed up my stuff. I walked out of the meeting early. I got on the train. I curled up in the ball in the seat and then tried to forget everything.

And pretend that it didn't happen. Which didn't work. Not in the slightest. And so then I kept feeling stressed out. And like at some point in there, I went to see a university therapist to try and help me through these things. Good for you. And the next major breaking point that I guess, was sort of the peak and caused the down spiral was when my PI said that I had to,

he came up to me, we had a lab meeting the next day. He said, oh, by the way, the meeting that we had tomorrow, whoever was presenting isn't going to present. It said, you're going to present your outline on this spring. And I hadn't written anything. This was like 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I had to go to another lab across campus to do more research that day and had a homework assignment do that night.

So I sit up until like 3 a.m. working on this presentation once I finally got home. And then I go in, of course it's crap because I'm super tired and I haven't gotten any sleep. And he just beats the crack out of me in this presentation about how bad everything is. What does he say? And it was just, I can't even remember now. This was like six months ago, but it was like, it was like, The topics that I was talking about weren't good. I wasn't communicating the right points.

I wasn't explaining it in, I was explaining it in too much detail. It wasn't simple enough for layman's terms to understand. I was focusing on the wrong points. I didn't, again, like for the achievements that I've done, that's sort of a big portion of this. I didn't have anything and I didn't know what to talk about. and also in my presentation he was even nitpicking things like my graphs were done in Excel and it's not Matt Webb when they should be done to Matt Lab.

I'm like that's unacceptable. And so I had sort of in that looks to the other lab members for like, please for the love of God help me. And none of them did anything. They just agreed with him. They're like, yeah, you should work on those things. I'm like, okay. for support from someone else and they left you out in the cold. Yeah.

And so, again, like, the stress had been constantly building up for the last couple of months to this point. There was already a breaking point. So it just kept building from there. And then this happened. And so I went home that day and I got off the train. And I was walking down the sidewalk to my house. And I don't know why this is so hard to say. I had looked, I had stopped on the sidewalk and turned towards the road and considered walking into traffic.

Sure. And yeah, that was, that was a moment. I didn't. What are you feeling as you try to say that? I don't know. It's funny because, like, thinking about, okay, how am I going to tell the story? I've been through this exact moment several times in my head. I don't really feel anything.

Then that saying it is different. Yep. Very important observation. So what are you feeling as you say it? Are you feeling something good or are you feeling something bad? Bad. Are you getting a piece of what it was like to stand on that sidewalk? A little bit.

What I'm feeling is like the reality of how it's, severe it was. Good. Tell us about that. So, restating, you know, everything that I've experienced, again, saying it feels like it wasn't that big of a deal.

Like, yes, there was a lot of stress and things, but it's all like, I'm listening out, like, things that, I guess you could say normal grad students go through, lots of work things I had to do. And I'm thinking normal grad students. This wasn't anything extreme. but then thinking about that moment there it's like no it was it was a lot worse Zach can you tell us about your reality in that moment

that everything was fucked beautifully put what does that mean I was in a dark place I wasn't what made it dark enjoying what I was doing my outlook on life life and the world was very negative. In what way was it negative?

I didn't really see much of the positives of life, and I viewed everything, I guess, from a very pessimistic viewpoint. So to add in a little bit to that, a lot of the Reddit discussion that I was viewing around this time was about corruption and stuff in the world. And so I was latching onto that, things like global warming and whatnot, which all helped contribute.

to it and then it was like I'm a victim of this. I had lots of views that academia and I actually still kind of agree with these. The academia is very corrupt and isn't what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be about doing research to learn about things that we don't understand. And instead it's about writing papers to get money.

And a lot of papers are just made up crap. just so that they can get funded. And it was like, I went into this to do something nice and great, and instead I'm here in this corrupt situation, being manipulated by the people above me who are just in it to get money. And everything is fucked. How does it feel to be manipulated? How does it feel to be part of the meat that goes into the meat grinder,

that is a PhD program? Feels awful. Like, oh, my God. How do people do that? How do people... I don't know. It's like super depressing. It's...

What's depressing about it? Tell me the thoughts. Zach, what were the thoughts that were going through your head? It's not fair. There we go. Right? Because in your head, you don't think this is super depressing. Yeah. What do you think in your head?

head. Stressed out is not what you think in your head. Overwhelmed is not what you think in your head. Yeah, I'm thinking that I put in a lot of effort to get here. I followed all the rules. I followed the guidelines. There we go. And what? You followed the rules. And what? And what happened? I got to his point where the higher ups are using me and they're taking my labor. They're paying me nothing. They're expecting me to do things that I can't do. Good. What else? I followed the rules and what?

I got let down. I'd say it got let down as an understanding. You got fucked, buddy. Yeah. You're taking my time. Did you feel alone? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.

I can only imagine, right? So sitting there is your professor tears you a new asshole in your lab meeting. And then all of all of the other grad students are kind of like right no one's defending you no one's protecting you and especially when the other lab members are like making progress on their stuff and I'm not and it's very isolating to feel like you're the only one going through it because you are right everyone else is succeeding and what are you doing yeah absolutely nothing you're failing it's like being in a classroom of kids who can read and you can't.

Yeah. Yeah. When we talk about feeling overwhelmed, what were you, what were the thoughts there? Stuff like, again, this is, this is too much. I can't do this. Too many expectations of me. How can I fake it and make it seem like I'm doing the work, but I'm not. How do other people get through it? Okay. Can I I think those are the

I think those make sense I'm going to so I can't do this and how can I fake it I think there's another kind of level to that which is that how can I push off failure I can't do this but I don't want to fail quite yet

is there anything I can do like you know that the failure is coming you feel that the failure is coming and is there anything you can scrape together to prevent going into bankruptcy see like today. Yeah. Like can I push out this failure and push out this failure and push out this failure?

And each time you push out the failure, you try to buy yourself some time to where maybe people won't notice. Maybe you can pull it together. Maybe you can fix it. And the more time that goes on, the failure becomes more and more and more certain. And you push it out and you push it out and you push it out. And you're faking it and you're faking it. everyone's making progress and it's becoming more and more inevitable.

Mm-hmm. Is that how you felt? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. How does that feel? Again, like, I just didn't belong. That I should never have gone to grad school in the first place and that it was a huge fuck-up.

It was a huge fuck-up or you're a huge fuck-up? I guess both. Like, there's a perspective of I'm a huge fuck-up. because I can't do this but also it was a huge fuck up decision to put myself in a situation when I should have known that I couldn't have done this I should have known

like why did I think that I was so capable I've always been able to get things done faster than everyone else yeah and yeah that's a lot Zach yeah so tell us tell us what so you're

walking home you're considering stepping into traffic why didn't you uh i thought that it would hurt what did you decide to do then so it was fear that kept you from stepping into traffic traffic i don't know if it was it was hard to explain if it was really fear because again it was a thought that like this will hurt i don't really like that eh i'll figure it out later so what did you do after that i walked home and i lied down and bed and cried And then what? And I think I took a nap or something. I just, like, fell asleep.

Then I woke up at, like, 8 o'clock or something, and then made dinner. And it played some video games. What did you play? I don't remember. Okay. What are you playing nowadays? RuneScape. Lots and lots and lots of RuneScape.

Okay. And what do your parents think right now? I mean, I don't know exactly what their thoughts are. but my mom has like I say I think I feel like she chides me and like bothers me a lot realistically it's like maybe once every two weeks she'll say hey have you been looking for jobs

and that's about it but it feels annoying to me like yes duh why is it why is it annoying it's because it's like I'm in this situation and you know I've been in this situation because I was calling you while I was going through it all. You know that I feel terrible,

and then I'm trying to put a little effort at I can't into it, and you're still asking me about it. Especially right now during the COVID thing. It's like, what jobs do you want me to get? What is there? You got some, like, you got one. I'll go find one long. Sure.

Why don't you hand it out to me? If it's so easy to go get one, why don't you tell me where they are? I've applied for so many, and they've all rejected me. It's not that easy. And I don't know if it's just my head, but I feel like they're disappointed. I know my brother, he has autism, and so we as a family have to take care of him. but sometimes because of his patterns and things, he'll end up staying up and super late

and waking up at like 12 o'clock in the afternoon or something, which, I mean, I do too because I play video games really late at night. But my parents will yell at him and be like, why are you staying up so late? Why are you getting up so late? That's not good for you. And they never say it to me, but I can feel it directed at me as well. What's it like for them to never say it to you?

It's a good question. It's like passive aggressiveness in a sense, I guess. It's not the right wording, but... Sure, that's maybe describing what it is. It's not how you feel. Yeah. I don't know. It just feel...

Can I offer something? Yeah. Yeah. Is there a part of you that's like, can you just call me a fuck up and be done with it? Yeah. Can you just call me out on my bullshit? Instead of asking,

in a polite, motherly, loving concern how the job search is going. Can you just call me once in your life and say, why the fuck haven't you found a job yet? What the fuck is wrong with you? Mm-hmm. How would it feel if your mom said that? You still feel pretty shit.

Yep. It would still feel pretty shit. But anything? It would also be, I would know what they're thinking very really. Why don't you know what they're thinking? Because they don't talk about it a whole lot. Sure.

Why don't they talk about it a whole lot? Fuck if I know. Probably because it's hard, but... Who is it hard for? I mean, it's hard for them to talk about it. Because, I mean, I don't talk about these things with them because it's hard for me to talk about it, so it's got to be hard for them too, right?

Sure. Do you think maybe the reason they don't talk about it is because you don't talk about it? Yeah. So I want you to put yourself in their shoes for a moment, Zach. Your son has been in the competitive PhD program, essentially washes out. You see him sleeping till noon every day.

You can tell he's struggling. And so you put on your kid gloves and you handle him like the fragile piece of porcelain he is. Right? They can see you're hurting. They probably don't want to bother. you. They don't want to ask you hard questions because they're afraid of how they're going to make you feel because they love you? Yes? No? Yeah. So what do you think they're trying to do? I mean,

how does someone who loves you respond to a situation where like yours? I have no idea. How are they responding? I mean, again, just trying not to mess with it too much. They're still trying to make sure that I'm hopefully trying, but they're also not trying to interview too much. Sure. They're trying to give you your space. How hard do you think

they think a conversation about this will be for you? Very. I mean, we had a conversation once. Can you tell me about it? While back. I remember when this was exactly a couple months ago, but we went

to there's a bar nearby and we went there. And I knew going there, I'm like, they're going to try to talk about it. That's why they're pulling me out. And yeah, I mean, I don't remember a whole lot because I'm a super lightweight and so one single beer puts me out pretty quickly. But I do remember we talked about that and how I was applying for things, what I was applying for what I wanted to do

about grad school because I haven't technically dropped out I'm in leave of absence so do I want to go back and I'm like not really and it's then bringing up that they eventually want to be empty nesters and so they want to try and help me through this because they can't keep me here forever which I'm again like

no fucking shit how do you feel about yourself Zach? Yeah, I felt like a huge fuck-up. Like, um... How do you feel about yourself today? Like, I've had so much potential and I have dropped down to this huge low. That potential.

Yeah. Potential is a bad drug. Fucking hate it. What do you hate about it? It's like, it's these high expectations that as long as you meet them, everyone praises you, but if you don't meet them, it's just like faces of scorn and like, everyone, nobody talks about it.

Like, I had, like, all my friends were like, oh, yeah, I'm going to tell everyone, like, how dare you talk back to this guy? He's a PhD student, all this crap. And nobody even talks. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I think I'm going to drop out. It was kind of it.

And then my friends ever talked about it again. It's like nobody wants to touch on the subjects that I failed. Nobody wants to, like when you have huge potential, everyone talks about all these like crazy things you're going to do. And then when you fail to meet that, it's just dropped. And everything you do feels like a failure. I stopped showing my game status on Discord because I felt ashamed. Yeah.

Everything you do feels like a failure. How do you feel, Zach? Like, yes. What does that mean? Again, like I'm a failure. Like I have... Are you a failure? If you like it.

I'm sitting in my parents' basement playing video games, so yeah. So here's the crazy thing. I agree with you. I think you are a failure. Here's the difference between me and you, though. Why are you smiling right now? No idea. Why am I smiling?

I also don't know. Okay. So I think you're smiling out of defensiveness because sometimes when we deal with negative, negative terrible things, all we can do is smile. Otherwise, everything comes crashing apart, falling down. I'm smiling because I think you're an absolute failure. And I think that that's perfectly okay. I think that I was a failure too. And failure is not the end of the road. It's the beginning. Right. So now you can really start to live your life because you can, you've, you have, you have, you have, you have burned down potential. You've burned down the idea of I always been able to do things faster than everyone else. All of that expectation and potential, you're actually free of it. It's a burden.

And every ounce of projected failure, that ounce of projected failure comes from an ounce of expectation. Do you see that? Like, you can't fail if you don't expect. I can kind of see that. So like washing out of a PhD program is only an issue if you were expected to be there and be successful. If you felt like you were like everyone else. And if you felt like you could cut it there because you're smarter than everyone and you can't.

Start with the idea that you fucking suck at life. And then like that's where like honestly dude, that's where my life began. It's like where you are now. Like the problem is that we build this house of cards that is potential. And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, but boy, is it fragile. Right? That's the imposter syndrome. It looks like a house. You look at it from outside. It's tall. It has lots of walls and lots of rooms. But a puff of wind and the thing comes fucking crumbling down. And now, like, that's not, I wish for you, I don't wish for you bizarrely that you had succeeded.

Because if you had succeeded, all you would have done is add another layer to the house of cards. Do you see that? Yeah. Every success that you've had has just increased, like you're just stacking the house of cards higher and higher and higher, and it's a bullshit foundation because it's going to come tumbling down. And I think you can actually begin now. I think failure is when you begin because now you have no expectations.

You sort of have expectations still, but we'll try to disabuse you of those very soon. I'm smiling because I think that this is like good for you. I think like this is going to change your life in 10 years from now, you're going to look back on it and you're going to like realize like because that's, I mean, that's what I hope for you. Maybe 10 years from now you'll be nowhere.

You'll be sitting at home playing video games and you'll have accomplished nothing. And then that's kind of shitty. That's possibility. We have to acknowledge that. I don't think that this is going to be easy, but I think that like there's a lot of stuff here that's so important. And I think it has to start with like you accepting that you are a failure. Like you can talk.

talk about victimization as much as you want to, and I think that that's fair, because I think there are a lot of things that make me furious about your experience and the experience of PhD programs in general. And at the top of the list is if a student fails a test, whose fault is it? Students? Incorrect. P.I? Absolutely. Right? There's one person in that relationship who has knowledge and one person who doesn't. It is the responsibility of the teacher to help the student along. The responsibility,

of a P.I. If your experiment isn't fucking working for a year, like, how the fuck do you expect a first-year PhD student to figure out why their experiment isn't working? Like, that's the job of a P.I. Like, if your experiments don't work for a year and you're doing what your P.I. is doing, why on earth are you accepting responsibility? You're a first-year grad student. He's the guy who's running the lab. Like, if he's telling you to change five variables and it doesn't work out, like, whose fault is that? I want to say him, but I also feel like it's me for actually doing the five variable experiment and not say no, but... Yeah, so I understand where you're coming from, but this is where you have to admit that, like, you have to acknowledge that there's a power dynamic, right? Did you tell your PI that you think you guys should do one variable at a time?

Yes. And what did he say? No. So what are you, like, what are your options then? You kind of don't have any, I guess. Exactly. So I think you did what you were supposed to do. You raised your concerns with your PI,

and your PI is young and dumb and a product of his academic environment. And so he decided to abuse you in the same way that he was abused. The cycle of abuse continues. That's like Ph.D. programs and academia, even medicine is like that. It's like these surgeons are like all these medical, students cry when I call them a piece of shit. Like, what the hell is wrong with them? Like, it's like, yeah. And they're like, but I got called a piece of shit. And it's like, yeah, but you don't have to call other people a piece of shit. You can be nicer to them. Just because you were abused doesn't mean that

you need to abuse others. So I mean, do I think that you were victimized by your circumstances? Absolutely. But like, I don't think, in a sense, I don't think that that kind of matters. Like, it pisses me off. And, you know, when I work with students, I try to take the response. Like, I've learned that, like, if they don't learn, that's, like, my fault. Right. And did I really do the best job that I can? I mean, not to say that I'm completely responsible because if I, like, try and try and they, like, go home and don't study and don't do anything that I told them to do, like, then I put the blame on them. But as a teacher, you know, if you're doing what your PI is telling you to do and the experiments are not working out, then it's not your fault.

unless you're being negligent. So if you're being negligent in some way and like half-hassing the experiments, then it is your fault. But that's why I asked you, did you run it the same way as the previous person? Did your results turn out the same? And the answer to that question is yes,

which means that it sounds like you did a good job because you got the same results. A couple of other interesting things there. I'm going to go off on a quick tangent. But, you know, the other thing there is that 70% of like studies are like not reproducible. So I think that's a big issue. shit.

And the last thing that I just want to toss your way is like, do you know how people win a Nobel Prize in science? No, actually. So they actually start with a failed experiment. All Nobel Prize, not all, most Nobel Prizes, at least that I've studied. So I've studied 15 or 16 Nobel Prize winning experiments in biology or medicine. And all of them start with a failed. experiment. What do you think about that? Why does someone get a Nobel Prize? Because they made a huge discovery. How do you make a huge discovery? A lot of luck. Sure. But what makes a

discovery huge? What does it mean to be a huge discovery? Either it has a big impact on the world or on the field. Okay, but what a huge discovery and big impact are synonymous. Yeah. Right? So what makes something a big impact? Changes everything. It changes what? Something. Not everything. What does it change? What people thought?

Absolutely. So think about this for a second. In order to change the way that people think, you have to start with a failed experiment. And what I mean by a failed experiment is the people who want to change, Nobel Prizes, they did an experiment, and their results were not what they expected. And this is what separates 99% of scientists from 1% of scientists. Instead of looking at it as a failure, they looked at it as an opportunity. I am expecting this result. And in the process of figuring out why I did not get the result I expected, I'm discovering something huge that changes

the way that we look at science. Do you get that? Like the biggest travesty here is that your PI I lost an opportunity to win a Nobel Prize. What you don't understand is that you don't have a year of failed experiments. You have a year of data that suggests that something about the world is not the way that we have conceived. And if you guys spent the time and energy to figure out what that is, that's how you win a Nobel Prize. Why did you guys fail? Why is it that all of your expectations, think about this? Nobel Prizes come when all of our expectations are wrong.

When we have a thousand expectations for a particular result, and that result does not happen, and then we discover why, then it changes our thousand expectations before. That is a big impact. So the crazy thing here is that all you see is a failed experiment. I don't even see failed experiments. I see data. I see a wonderful opportunity to understand something about how the variables result in compounds in a new and different way. It's exactly why you got into a PhD program for the first place. And I think it's a travesty that you are in a situation.

Call it luck or call it idiocy of your PI or whatever. I mean, I'm being judgmental. I mean, maybe the guy's brilliant and compassionate and we're just getting a biased view. It's very possible. But like, I don't conceive what you did as a failure at all. I think are you a failure? Sure, you can accept that. But deep down, I really don't think so.

Right? I think that in a sense, you are a victim of your circumstances. I think you did the experiments that you were supposed to do. I think the only real mistake. you've made here is that you've got a big ego and you have unrealistic expectations. Yeah. There are a couple of other things. Like, this is the other thing is when you're smart, like you're going to rise until you

equilibrate, right? Like, if I take an object of a certain density and I put it into a fluid of a certain density, what is the object going to do? Either sink or float. Depending on the density of both of them in relation to each other. Exactly. So if I have a gradient of densities, a gradient of liquids of different densities

they're going to equilibrate and then if I put an object of a different density where is it going to end up? Whichever one is equal to a sense of it. Exactly. So welcome to academia, my friend. So where you rise, you got accepted to the PhD program because you were hot shit in undergrad.

And you're going to equilibrate to like where you normally belong. And so the higher up you go, like the more average you become. Like everyone thinks that's such hot shit that Dr. K is from Harvard. Like, in Harvard, I am subpar. I'm really like, no one even knows who I am.

And like, I worked with people like, you guys think I'm brilliant. You guys have no fucking idea. I'm really not that smart. I think I'm really one of y'all. I don't think I'm really any different from you guys. And you guys are so confused by that. And it's like, I don't think you guys have been at Harvard. It's like, you guys want to see smart people.

You should go there. And, and, I mean, really, I mean, I met people that just blew my mind with just how much knowledge they were able to absorb and hold in their head. I was like, holy shit. And so the one thing to understand is that the better you do, the more you're going to feel, in a sense, like a failure until you abandon this whole complex. Right?

Because you're going to keep rising and then you're not going to be. I've always been able to get things faster than everyone else. That thought is the problem. Like if I had to diagnose one thing that I could surgically remove from your brain, it is that thought. there's comparison in there there's ego in there there's an expectation of ease in there

right there's so many things there that are just like so wrong there potential like that's the other thing potential is such a curse such a curse it's such a burden because you can't win

with potential either you meet expectations in which no one is surprised or you're below expectations in which everyone is disappointed yeah it's like average or failure Like when you sign up for potential, you sign up to be average at best or meet expectations.

Get a C, a D, or an F. Can't get an A if your potential, if you have very high potential. You just can't, you know, maybe you can win a Nobel Prize. That's the only thing that would be impressive to anyone. Yeah, that's a very good way of putting it that I hadn't talked about before is it's, you're signing up for average. Yep. At best. At best.

Now, I don't really know, I kind of got on. my soapbox. So I'm going to just pause first. By the way, do you know anything about IRB applications? No. I'm looking for someone to do IRB stuff. Yeah, institutional review board. So we're trying to study Healthy Gamer. So we're doing like research and we're looking for researchers. So let's just kind of go back to a couple things. So first of all, all right, so any thoughts or question so far, Zach? Nothing comes to minds now. Okay.

So we've got two options. One is you can tell us the rest of the story because you actually haven't told us everything yet, which I would love to hear if you're emotionally up for it. And the second question is like, I think there's a question of like, what do we do? Right? Or I guess the other question that I would ask you is like, how can I help you or how can myself and Twitch chat? How can we help you?

And so what do you think? Should we tell the rest of the story? Let's ask Twitter chat. Can you see chat? Yeah, I can pull up. Okay, good. It's good that you're reading it, but I'm going to tell us. What does Twitter want to do?

Do we want to hear the story or do we want to get to, you know, figuring out how to help you? What does chat say? I seem pretty split from what I can tell. Yeah, see, this is what I fucking hate about Twitter chat. Like, I always ask them for things. and it's like they don't help me. Both white people happy. Yeah, like, like, both, like, they just never, they're never satisfied.

You think having a PI is bad? These guys, they're never satisfied. They want everything all the time. More, more, more. Okay, so let's finish the story, okay? Okay. Cry if you need to. Are you hoping for emotional catharsis, by the way?

If that's what it comes to you, I guess. I don't really know. Because I can ask you, you know, leading, probing questions about your emotions, but I'm not feeling that we're going to get there if that's okay with you. Yeah, that's fine. So tell us the rest of the story. So you went home, you wept, you slept, you woke up, you ate dinner, and then what happened? Yeah, so woke up, ate dinner, played video games, went to bed.

Next day, go back to doing research and stuff. obviously feeling very down, not able to get very much done, not getting any progress. And I believe it was either the day after or two days after that when I was on the train home, browsing Reddit again,

that I came across a thread in our League of Legends about a former pro player who had attempted suicide. He didn't succeed, but they had posted a link to his blog where he left his last note and I read the whole thing probably not a good decision at the time why do you say that um I mean of course everyone's like if you are in a situation like this please don't read this and after reading it I just it just

affirmed everything what why does everyone why does everyone can can you pull it up I have to go archive it. Maybe I can. So tell me, why is it not a good idea to read that note? I'm confused. Because, again, it's a person who was on the verge of suicide and his thoughts that he was laying out. And I related with a lot of it.

And it's sort of, like, it was a confirmation, I guess. of everything that I was going through. And it was like you're justified in thinking the way you are and other people went through with it. So it's okay to go through with it. I see. Okay. That's okay.

You don't have to find it. I was just kind of curious. So, I mean, it sounds to me like you feel like reading it would make you more likely to try to hurt yourself? Yes. Okay.

Okay. I mean, there is data that suggests that suicide happens in clusters. so maybe it is dangerous but and what about what you read resonated with you? Um, loneliness, the feeling that the world is fucked up and it's not there to help you.

Just off my brain. Lots of negative things. Sure. Feeling, oh yeah, feeling comfort in games and I would say fantasy as a whole games, anime, movies, books, all that stuff. Other worlds, I guess,

feeling like you belong more in those worlds than you do the real world and so thus diving more into them and being attached to them. And he had said that he preferred to be a third party observer of things rather than be in the mix of them. And so that was like his motivation for wanting to kill himself. I didn't fully agree with that, but like I could see where he was coming from

and it's like sort of related to other aspects, I guess. What did and did not resonate with you about that? Oddly specific thing to remember. Yeah. I guess I can give an example in that for some games that I play, there's a big speed run scene and I like to observe the meta of the speed running and understand why they do it. But I don't really participate so much in this speed running itself. What does being an observer do?

It removes a lot of the stress of the situation. For me, it allows me to experience the joy of having solved it, quote-unquote, or like solve the problem, understanding something, learn something new, without any risk. Yeah. So interesting. What do you think about that? It's a good question.

I mean, I don't like risk in general. I feel like that's kind of a normal thing for people, but... We're asking you questions that are going to have very, very plain and simple answers. Okay. So it doesn't have to be a complicated answer. Yeah.

It's kind of funny because the questions that you ask, I always know that you ask things that are kind of out of the blue and unexpected, and I'm hit with them. I'm like, I don't know what I think. Good. That's why you're here. You're not here to share with us the answers that you already have. Zach?

Yeah. You're here to learn the things that you don't know. So what do you think about being an observer? You say, and I think it may sound simple, but I think it's very good. I'm glad that you're laying down basic assumptions because that's important. I don't like risk. Fair. So what else?

I do like to work through problems of things. Without risk. Yeah, yeah, without risk. So, like, yeah, I like to work the problems of things, but if I can minimize or remove risk, then I like to do so. If it's something that requires a lot of effort, I like to give it a shot and put in that effort, but I don't want to have the effort be wasted. Okay. And so having it be on something that's almost hobby-like in a sense means that even if I don't figure out either someone else, well, and then I can look at their answer. Or it's like, yeah, whatever, I'll just go do this with something else.

And it doesn't feel like I wasted any time. Again, low risk. Are you an observer for your life? Sometimes. Okay. There are times that I have that perspective where I observe my own life. And what happens to you in those times? I sort of just become de-attached from a lot of the emotional aspects of it.

Do you still feel the emotions? Yeah. I still feel them, but not quite to the same degree. I don't know how to explain it. Sure. We don't have good words for that in English, by the way. Yeah. So what do you think?

I mean, is it a pleasant or unpleasant experience to be an observer in one's life? Kind of just neutral. Okay. What is it like to not be an observer in one's life? Uh, my life was kind of shit. So it feels pretty bad. Yeah. What about when things are good?

I mean, it feels good in the good situations. Does it feel better to be an observer or better to feel good in the good situations? I mean, specifically in the good situation, which feels good is to be in them and not observing them. I think that's an experiment that you should run. I'd love to hear your answer after you actually use your scientific training to develop a hypothesis and systematically collect data. So what we're talking about is exactly what Buddha talked about. So when you said, when I kind of asked, what is it like to not be an observer?

And you were like, well, most of the life is shit. So Buddha said that we're all human being, the fundamental state of life is dukkah or suffering. And that the way to get free of dukkah and suffering is to become an observer. That consciousness and mind are separate things. and that even as you, that emotion exists within the mind, but consciousness is separate of the mind. And that's hard for us to really understand. But it's kind of like what you said. It's hard to describe.

You still feel the emotions. It's just there's distance between you and the emotions. It's like the difference between being in a cage with a lion, or maybe I've just been watching too much Tiger King, or being outside of a cage. Right? The lion is still there and it hasn't changed. But your position with respect to the lion drastically changes. what you're able to appreciate or not appreciate about the line. Does that make sense?

Mm-hmm. And so how much of an observer have you been throughout this whole saga with grad school? I didn't really start doing so until at some point in the therapy. That was one of the things that they talked about was trying to not be in the storm, but be aware of the storm being there. You can't make it go away, but look at it, don't be in it, in a sense. Yeah. Which I could only pull off a handful of times at best because it's so hard to do.

Absolutely, right? So this is why we train. Like, we don't start, we don't dump people into the ocean to teach and how to swim, right? We start in calm waters. And that's why, like, meditation is normally done. Like, we start by observing our breath and we separate our mind from, we sort of develop a sense of consciousness outside of mind with something like breath that has like nothing no value attached to it and the more valuable things become the harder it is to be detached and in your case it's it's hard

this is what I think is really unfortunate you know we teach this stuff as treatment and therapists do it instead of teaching it as a basic skill that everyone learns in school which is really where I think it should be taught like it's kind of like okay like a therapist is sort of like someone who teaches you to swim, but people don't seek out therapists until they're drowning in the ocean. It's like kind of really bass-acwards. Yeah. And so that's part of, I mean, that's part of why we do this, right? So I'm part of our goal here is to help people understand some of these skills and start to develop them and hopefully be prepared for when, when stuff like what happens to you happen. But let's kind of go back to your story. So what happened the next day?

I think next day I went to therapy and I told her all about it and then she was like, you should go home today or well it was more like if like I think that you should you should decide for yourself but if you think that you should then you should go home today. And so that was on like a Friday or something and so I took that day off.

I just emailed by PI. I was like I can't do today above the blah. I didn't even like really read much of whatever I just sent it. And then that day and that entire weekend I spent playing Path of Exile nonstop for like 18 hours a day, just trying to not experience anything. Path of Exile is very good at that. Oh, yes. Oh, God.

Then I had to go back to work on Monday. I don't remember a whole lot. At some point in there, I just, I don't want to say like forcefully, but like convinced my PI, like, I can't write this paper. It's not going to happen. And also was like, I'm in a pretty shit place right now. I'm thinking about either taking leave of absence or dropping down to the master's program or something like that. I've been talking with a therapist about this.

He was kind of hesitant. Eventually at some point I had to, or as I brought up with her, she was like, dude, I'm going to write you a letter to your PI. so he understands how serious the situation is because he's not taking it seriously. Eventually we decided to, we decided to drop down to the master's program instead of the PhD because I was almost done with my credits and I was like, well, cool, I'll finish my credits, and then I'll just graduate, take my degree, and go do something else. And then I found out that I had to write a thesis still. And they were like, yeah, you got like, since you haven't gotten anywhere in your research,

that's like at least another six months before you're done with that. I can't take this for six more months. And then that's when I took the loop of absence. Okay. Yeah, then moved out, came back here, and spent three and a half months playing video games and not talking about it. How does it feel to talk about it today?

It's nice to address it. It's like it's been there and it's been kind of eating away very slow, because I try not to focus on it, but it's been sitting there. And, you know, I mean, I've been watching a lot of streams and trying to, of your streams and trying to, like, address it myself, but there's kind of only so far I can get stuck in my own head. Yeah, it's nice to address it and talk about it and get it out, I guess.

Do you want to move forward? I guess define that a little bit better? because I don't like I want to get out of feeling shit all the time but I also just don't really have any I don't like I don't want to go back to what I was experiencing before of this like super high effort thing just so done good good I don't think I need to define it I think you understood the nuance of my question and you gave me a very good answer right so there's a presumption that progress is completing your prior goal. But it sounds like you don't want to,

you want to do more than what you're doing right now, but you don't necessarily want to, quote, unquote, succeed. Yeah. Which is interesting, right? Because that's not usually how we think. You think that if I fail a test, what's my goal? Pass the next one. Yeah, there's a presumption that you keep going.

Right? But it's good. I'm glad I think it's actually a huge step forward that you realize that you may not want to do that. So now we're going to get to, so how do you think we can help you, Zach? What would be helpful? I guess how to like solve these sort of emotional attachments I still have to that. Because like you say, there's this feeling that I have to live up to certain expectations even still,

even though like I failed and there is, I would hope eventually a release from that, I still feel attached to those expectations. Sure. It's the burden of potential and all that. Yep. Absolutely. So I think some of this is going to be propagated by you and some of it is an echo. So you've got a choice.

You just, what was your reaction there? Like, what do you echo? It's confusion. Okay. So what I mean by that is like, so the burden of potential is something that has been fed. You've been feeding it every day growing up, being the kid who's always been able to get things done faster than everyone else. Every time you have that thought, every time you make that observation, you feed the sort of beast of potential. Now you failed.

I don't think that you think very often that I've always been able to do. do things faster than everyone else. Right? So you've stopped feeding that echo of... You've stopped feeding that beast of potential, but an echo remains. It's not the original sound. It's just the after effects or the shadow of that potential,

which is going to still be bouncing around in your head for a while. The main issue is whether you continue to feed it or not. If you don't feed it, it's going to die down on its own. like you'll start to accept that like you know you should i mean hopefully what you'll do is start to accept that like you shouldn't plan your life based on what you think you should do or what you're capable of but you'll start to devote yourself towards like doing things that you care about and not really like worrying about whether you do a good enough job you know i think if you have a love for science you should pursue science but you shouldn't get bogged down and getting a PhD

does that mean you will get a PhD yeah sure why not But it doesn't mean that getting a PhD is the goal. Like, the PhD is just because otherwise, like, it's going to be hard to do science. If it's, like, kind of this rigorous rat race kind of stuff, you're going to, like, learn whatever skills you want to or learn science. And then you can go work in industry or you can be an academic. Like, whatever. It doesn't matter. But, like, if your goal is a love for science, then that's what you should pursue and don't worry about potential.

Now, the interesting thing is that you're also feeding another beast, which is sort of the beast of, like, lack of solace. worth. And this is the thing that sort of says that because I fail, I am a bad person. Like, there's a difference between failing. Like, it, this beast is the one that confuses failing at a task with being a failure. Okay. So for you to be able to take a step back and realize that, like, once again, if you didn't do well in a PhD program and you were doing exactly what your PI told you to do, like, how on earth is that your fault? sure if you're like a fifth year grad student and you've got autonomy to design your own experiments like if you're working in experimental design and then the experiment doesn't work that's different

but it sounds like you didn't do anything in experimental design you were given you were like hey monkey go ahead and perform this dance for me and then do it again every day for 10 hours a day and you were dancing the way they told you to and it didn't work out so i don't really think that that's your fault but you don't see that you don't see that. that, right? And this is where I think that there's a lot here where, like, you kept on using phrases like stressed out and overwhelmed, but that's not really, those are indicators of amplitude. They're not like indicators of like direction or quality. Does that make sense? Like, overwhelmed is quantity. It's not quality. So what is the quality of what you are feeling? Are you dealing with

shame, probably. Are you dealing with fear? Are you dealing with anger? Right? So shame, I'm sure we can all accept. Like that we've seen pretty clearly. Yeah. That you are a failure. But are you afraid? I mean, I was, I was mostly angry that, like, my PI wasn't taking anything that I was saying seriously. And it was like I wasn't in control of the situation. My input and why I was taken there wasn't valued. And I was mad about that. And I was mad that things were going the way they were. Are you still mad about that?

I wasn't able to do anything. Yes. How mad are you? Yeah. Not like crazy super mad, but like, it's like a frustrated. Like, er, stupid. Okay, good. Now, so now the question becomes, how mad are you and how suppressed is your anger?

It's a good question. I don't feel like it's that surprise. I don't know. Okay. Okay. Well, we'll trust you. Right? So it's good that you notice the question.

It sounds like you actually did some exploration. There's so good for you. Are you afraid? Afraid of what? You tell me. See, everyone thinks that I make, I help people, but I don't help people. I just make your lives fucking hard. Dr. K

Everyone wants to come on and be on stream. I don't think you guys realize how shitty this is for Zach. This is definitely different than I was expecting. It's different being in the hot seat, isn't it? It's really different. Even when you're sitting there, you're like, oh, how would I react if he asked me these questions? Like you'd really come up with something.

Then you sit in the seat, you're like, dude, I got nothing. Yeah, so are you afraid, Zach? I'm afraid that if I try to branch out of my comfort zone, I can't run it down, if I try to, like I've spent my whole life in science and engineering and chemistry, and like, these are the things that I've always been good at. And I'm afraid that if I try to go outside of that, that it won't end well. I'm afraid that, I mean, again, living up to expectations, I'm afraid that I'll, I won't meet anyone's expectations. or what I think will be good, won't be good to anyone else

and that that will affect me. I'm afraid that I won't be able to break out of the cycle that I'm in right now. Yeah, I'm afraid that whatever I end up doing is going to fail. There it is. Right? So now let's just think about that for a second. So first of all, as you say those things,

do you feel fear? Yes. Are you an observer? Kind of? Right answer. Right? So I think you feel the fear, but I think your acknowledgement of them. So when you're feeling the fear fully and it takes over your mind, you can't articulate it.

Does that make sense? Your capacity to articulate only comes with distance. Right? So I asked you a question, are you afraid? and then you didn't know how to answer it. And then a few seconds late, then we talked for a moment about how hard it is to answer questions.

And then you went off and you gave like half a dozen specific fears that you have. That's progress. That's what you're here for. So now you know that these are things that you carry with you. These are the different debuffs. And you've got to think a little bit

about each of these debuffs and how you want to gear in response to those debuffs. So it sounds, like you've thought, and we haven't really talked about this, but I'm sure other people have subconsciously pieced this together, that he's thought about a career outside of science. He's thought about maybe doing something else, right? Because he's shared with us that he has a fear that he's not going to be successful elsewhere. That's a specific fear. So that's

kind of like, okay, and so then like if you have a, like, if you have a debuff that increases your vulnerability to fire, you have to like gear up with like, fire resistance gear, right? And so as you move in, as you explore other career options, just be aware that you're going to feel less confident than you do in science, which is going to be bizarre in a second because you don't feel confidence in science anyway. But that's an additional fear that you have to account for. Now, that fear is not reality. Like, in general, I think you're going to be fine outside of science. I don't think people have a talent for chemistry. Like, I think what you're good at is probably some amount of hard

work, analytical capability, experimental design. Like all that shit, I mean, you could be a strategic consultant and all that stuff is going to apply. You could go into finance if you cared about it and like analyze financial models, like and run experiments. I saw a really cool video from three blue, one brown. You guys should check it out about simulating pandemics. It's like a YouTube channel. That's very cool. So he does like statistical analyses. And he just like simulates like so he has one about simulating pandemics and different kinds of interventions and stuff like that. I think that the things that make you good at science are going to apply to a bunch of fields. You could even go into like marketing and branding if you want to and just be heavily metric

and analytic focus. Like that's fine. I think what makes you good at being you is like not content specific. So I'm good at being a psychiatrist. I'm also good at like corporate consulting. but my take on corporate consulting is I tend to be like an observer of human behavior, an observer of people. And I try to teach people about themselves. So I'm a pretty good teacher. I'm a pretty good psychiatrist. I'm a pretty good meditation teacher.

And I'm also a pretty good consultant. But it's like that's because I don't define myself by a particular profession. I define myself by like a particular kind of skill set or interest. And in your case, I think you'll do fine outside of science, provided that you get to do that which you really enjoy, which is like learning about things and figuring things out. Right? So like in strategic consulting, for example, you know, there will be a company that will go to like McKinsey or Bain or whatever.

And they'll say like, hey, we're thinking about opening up a power plant in Southeast Asia. Which country should we open it in? And so what they do is like they just take a bunch of information, try to analyze it, and then try to give someone a recommendation. We think you should open it in Thailand. Here are reasons A, B, C, and D. If you want to open it in Cambodia, here are the things that are different,

and this is why we think you should do Thailand instead of Cambodia. Something tells me, Zach, that you would be good at a lot of different stuff besides science and chemistry. What do you think? I mean, yeah, I can agree. I do run into the situation of when I look at various jobs and, like, you know, maybe I can apply my skill set to this, then I don't meet the stupid requirements and they can't

apply anyways. Sure. Right? So I wouldn't let not meeting the requirements prevent you from applying. So not to say that you should apply for a bunch of jobs where you don't meet the requirements, but if there's something you're genuinely interested, I think you should write a good cover letter and send it off. I have a master's, like a master's in chemistry is pretty respectable, like no matter where you end up. I think you should get your masters, by the way, because that's just, that'll be something. But anyway, maybe not. But the first thing is to understand that you have different fears and that as you think about how to move forward, just acknowledge those fears because those fears are part of what's keeping you at home playing Roomscape. Does that make sense? What else is

keeping you at home? Virus. Sure. I would say that there's probably another fear, which is that whatever I do, it'll end up the same way. That was one of the things I was conflicted with when I was thinking about what to do, or did it drop out or not. Because I was like, I mean, I just had like a severe depressive episode and I haven't fully recovered with it. And if I keep going, I'm worried that I'll just fall right back in again. Are you still in mental health treatment? not right now no okay

so I'd consider getting back into mental health treatment but I think that that too now you have a sumscar

have you familiar with some scars yeah I heard the word a thousand times and I still don't remember what it means

so what it is is sort of like a ball of undigested emotion that kind of lingers with you and like

colors your vision about the future so you can also think about it like an unprocessed trauma so this entire experience has been

traumatic for you and so as you move forward as long as that trauma is there. Like, you know, if you have, if you get married to someone and you have an abusive husband or wife and they beat you, even after you, like, leave them, you're going to have the fear that the next person is going to turn out that way. And even the more sicker thing about the human mind is you may select for those kinds of people, which is sort of like, because sometimes our mind prefers, and this is sort of, this

goes back to our conversation with your mom. and your parents where like it would sometimes almost be easier if they just called you a fuck up to your face because at least that makes sense to you. If they have faith and hope in who you are in your possibility of success, how does that make you feel? It's like it's just a why? Yeah, right? So like, like, oddly enough, so like now this is, now we can understand why people who have

been abused seek out abusive partners. because when someone treats them genuinely, they're like, what the fuck? This is a lie. And then someone treats them like shit, and they're like, ah, this is a game I know how to play. And so bizarrely, our mind prefers that which we know to that which is good for us.

And you've got to be really, really careful because you're not a fuck up. Have you failed? Sure. But like you failed because of a combination of circumstance and an experience. It's not you aren't a failure, but have you failed? Absolutely. And that's okay. And so going forward, you've got to be really careful about that.

And this too, I think your answer is going to be to a certain degree in observation. So you have to notice that there's going to be a part of your mind that's going to tell you that I'm going to fail at everything I've done. But by the way, did you finish second grade? Second grade? Yeah. Like elementary school's second grade? Yes. I succeeded at it. I got through it. What about third grade?

Yes. Fourth grade? Yep. Fifth grade? You're saying like got through it and succeeded, right? Yeah. Yes. Oh, so you have succeeded at stuff. You graduated from high school? Yes. You graduated from college? Yep. But I thought you were going to fail at everything you do.

Do you like, okay, yeah. What do you feel? No, tell me. well like it's let me know if you need help yeah yeah I need help so those don't count though right yeah

is that what you're thinking like it doesn't count yeah it's it was stuff that happened earlier it was easier it just doesn't it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count right is that how you feel yes yeah so let's just think about that for a second

Your mind is coming up with all kinds of reasons why it doesn't count. It's fucking second grade. Who fails second grade? Sometimes people do. It doesn't count. So just now see what kind of, look at what rigged-ass game your brain is playing with you. It's funny because you say that and like, yeah, my brain's rigged. My brain's like, no, not rigged.

What are you talking about? I'm like, it's like, ugh. So tell me, how is the game rigged? Very good. Now you're growing inside. What am I saying? I'm saying the game's rigged. I'm taking one single event and I'm fixating on it. I don't know.

Yeah. And what are you doing to all of the other data points? Ignoring them? Absolutely. Right? I'm going to run an experiment, Zach. And I'm going to say that feeding a plant with beer is better than feeding it with water. and I'm going to take a dozen plants and I'm going to give them 11 of them water and I'm going to give

one of them beer and after two months I have 11 healthy plants and I have one kind of stunted plant and what I'm essentially doing is taking my 11 healthy plants I'm saying fuck this I'm going to dump them in the trash and there's my beer plant see I was right all along

it's the only one that's growing the game is rigged because you're discarding data all the time this is how a cognitive bias works And this all comes from your emotion, because that's like it's irrational. So it's coming from your emotion. Fine. You can't convince it otherwise.

And when I point it out to you rationally, even your ration mind is like, yeah, the game is rigged. But then the other part of you that's, eh, what is that part saying? That part is like, of course it's not rigged. This is like everything else doesn't count. This is, you know, this is what happens. This sucks and this is the way it is. Yeah, right? So just see that about yourself, right?

And let's like laugh at it. It's like, that's kind of fucked up. Yeah. Yeah, right? But that's how it is. So when we, our emotions aren't rational, so we can't expect them to be rational. Understand that there's a part of yourself that is hurt. And there's a part of yourself that has lost confidence.

Now, the real challenge is in your struggle with that part. I wouldn't say you should try to fight it or overcome it. Because that doesn't really work too well. What I'd say is you should take it with you. Just take it with you. right like everything that you do take this failure with you and say there's a decent chance

like this part of me is saying like there's a logical part of my mind that says that actually I'm not really a failure and this part of is like no fuck you you are a failure nothing you can do is right and then you're like okay treat it like a

you know like a eccentric uncle who comes to all of your family gatherings and you can't get rid of him like 11 people are dressed normally and he's wearing you know underwear over his pants because he feels like he's a superhero

and like he's just going to be who he's going to be like the part of you that feels that you're a failure is going to feel like it's a failure and it's going to take time for you to comfort and reassure that part and for him to kind of calm down it's like a dog that has gotten like riled up and is afraid that like someone's an intruder

you just have to spend you can't kick the dog out the dog is going to be with you your failure is going to be with you so carry it with you So carry it with you, let it be with you, and then also don't let it control you. Does that make sense? Yeah, easier said than done, but... Absolutely. So how do we make it easier to do?

What do you think? I got nothing. It's what I've been trying to come up with. So I think this is where, as you deal with each of the deep... As we identify things, they become easier to deal with. That's number one. So if you're saying, I'm stressed and I'm overwhelmed, you can't do anything with that. People don't just wake up one day and say, I'm unoverwhelmed now.

Done! right so if we think about like you know something like therapy what happens is we help people identify the reasons that they're overwhelmed and then it's like we've i've used this analogy before it's like detection in a game right like you have invisible things that are attacking you and that's overwhelmed because remember it's not like quality you don't know what it is all you know is you're taking a shitload of damage every round like i can't see it i don't know i'm overwhelmed just the dps is through the roof and then once you identify it then you you can start to actually do something. Like, oh, there's like this, like, mob that's here that's

attacking me. Let me, like, move over this way. And then, like, it's effect on you lesson. So identification is the first thing. Noticing is the second thing. And this is where we come back to the observer. So the more that you can act from the observer, the less powerful all of this stuff becomes. And so this is where if you can develop a meditative practice, go for it. I think you should consider getting back into mental health treatment if it's an option. That'll help you for it. And then also give yourself some time. I think three months of playing like runescape is not that bad. I mean, not to say that, you know, it's good or that it's unacceptable. I'm sure there are people who have been playing groupscape for seven years and haven't accomplished anything.

You know, comparison and stuff is bad. But I'm just saying like, give yourself some time and cut yourself some slack. It's April. COVID is going on anyway. Like you're not going to finish your semester. I'd say take some time to take care of yourself and work on yourself. Like your goal is to like repair damage between now and the fall of next year. If you need to apply for something, consider applying for something. But basically, take care of yourself, get rid of the depression, you know, or handle that. Try to grow the observer. Try to notice your fears. And then try to, you know, get yourself ready by like August. If you want to, I mean, I'm tempted to, I'm actually tempted to start writing letters to people

as a psychiatrist to let them just play video games for like a month at home. Like, just give them just like a, you know, burnout leave. Thoughts, questions? I guess, I mean, I'm still feeling like I don't want to go back. It's fine. So I'm sort of in a state of like, okay, what do I do about that? I got to. So you don't do anything about that right now.

Okay. Right? So you don't have to make that decision today and you don't even have to make it a month from now. Like you make it and if it's too late and you miss the deadline, then you miss the deadline. Whatever. What I'm saying is that like you're, it's going to, to be really hard for you to make. So like do you acknowledge that your mind is irrational right now?

So do you want to be making decisions with this mind? No. There you go. That's why I'm saying like for a couple months, just focus on yourself and like try to heal and try to get into a better place. And then the answer is about what you do with your career and stuff like that. Like this is the big problem that people have. Like they say like, okay, should I go back to school? Should I switch careers? Like forget all that. All that shit is unimportant actually right now. The important thing is that your instrument is miscalibrated. You're a scientist. And if you don't like tear your scale at the beginning, like, how are all of your experiments going to be? Pretty shit. Exactly. So the first thing that you should do is just tear your scale. Right? Tear is T-A-R-E, by the way. It needs to calibrate.

So you've got to calibrate first. And we don't think about it this way. We don't give ourselves time to heal. We don't give ourselves. We just say like, oh, I'm a failure. Like, yeah. So like, Deal with your emotional, you know, aftermath first and give yourself some time to heal. Play some Roomscape, man. Go for it. You know, but like don't just do Roonscape for 18 hours a day. Like, find a therapist, spend some time meditating. You know, it sounds like you watch some march streams and stuff. So continue doing that.

I'd consider reading, in your case, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Have you ever read it? Do you like to read? Yes. So read Meditations by Markis. Caracus Aurelius. Write that down. It's like a 99-cent thing

you can get on Amazon. I like to read hard copies of stuff. It's free because it was written like 5,000 years ago or something or like 1,000 or 2,000 years ago. So it's in the public domain. But, you know, read a little bit

and learn a little bit and grow a little bit. And give yourself time to like heal from the damage and understand that your instrument is not calibrated or healthy right now. So any of the decision, this is where people like, this is the problem

is they get into the self-fulfilling prophecy of you try to move forward and you fuck it up because you're just not ready to move. You've got two broken legs and you try to get up and you fall down again. And then it reinforces the idea that you're a failure. And then you try to get up again. And then you still fall down

because your legs are broken. And then you try again and you try again. And the more you try, the more it becomes true that you are a failure. And then you wind up stuck. Because at this point, instead of one incident, you have a dozen instruments. you have a dozen data points.

And then your mind, which believes that wants to discard good data, now it's one thing for you to be able to see, okay, I have 12 years of successes in one year of failure. But once you have 12 years of successes and 12 years of failure, that becomes a way harder battle to win even rationally. So give yourself time to heal first, because otherwise you're going to convince yourself, and you're going to be true, you're going to be right,

that you are a failure. thoughts questions before we wrap up that makes sense yeah that that makes perfect sense i'm sorry i couldn't transform your life but that doesn't really happen it makes sense um okay well good luck man yeah thank you you have any seriously any close i don't mean to end things abruptly but that's sort of my spiel uh no i mean we touched everything that i want to touch on um it's yeah it's helpful it's oh let's meditate actually oh yeah yeah so Sorry, go ahead. That's the thing that we do here, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah, it's good to talk about it again. Yeah. Last thing, last concrete thing that you should do is have a conversation with your parents. That's going to be emotionally hard. Right? But you need to ask them. I would ask them because I think the reason you don't have the conversation is because you're afraid of what they're going to say.

There's a part of you that knows that until you talked, though you believe that they think you're a piece of shit, there's a part of you that's holding on to hope that they're going to say something hopeful, and there's a part of you that I don't know how else to describe this, but it's so hard to hear their positivity towards you right now. Yeah, that's almost exactly what I was going to say. It's like there's the part that doesn't want to hear the hope. Yeah, but you've got to do that. Right? So like it can be a simple conversation. I wouldn't have a drink while you're doing it, but you can just say, you know, what do you guys think about this last year?

I'd love to get your thoughts. And then you can share with them like, this is how this last year is gone for me. And then they're going to always look forward. Don't worry about looking forward or have you found a job or you applying for a job. Just ask them what they think about your situation. You'll be surprised.

If you can get the ball rolling, it's going to like the conversation's going to go on its own. Getting it started is really the hardest part. And that too is like it's hard to do. So just think about that a little bit. But I think right now you're trying to make decisions and move forward when you've got all this shit like you're encumbered. So you've got on burden and all that. And then it becomes way easier.

You'll be back to where you were, Zach. Okay. Okay. Meditation. Let's think. Have you seen triphasic breathing? No. Okay.

So let's do that. So I'm going to teach you how to breathe. So I want you to sit up straight. Okay. And, okay, so I want you to first observe the breath in your chest, and now I want you to focus on your stomach. And as you breathe in, I want you to push your stomach out, like expand your stomach and suck the air down into your abdomen. And notice that as you breathe out, huh? Sorry, losing focus of being stupid in my head. Be stupid in your head. Go for it. Let the focus go. Let the focus go. And then as you breathe out, notice that your stomach contracts, pulls in. So you can just focus on the sensation of belly moving out and belly moving in. Or you can visualize your belly button or navel moving away from your spine during inhalation.

And then pulling towards your spine during exhalation. You can really push it all the way out kind of drastically. and pull it all the way in, like suck in your spine to where you can sort of where people would be able to see your rib cages. And now what I want you to do is as you belly breathe, try to keep your chest somewhat still. So there may be an inclination to expand everything when you breathe in, belly and chest. Try to focus the expansion on your belly. During inhalation and exhalation, let your chest remain still. So this is the first phase of breathing, focusing on the abdomen.

And now we're going to add the second phase. As you breathe in and with a full belly of air, then I want you to forcibly expand your chest or sort of intentionally expand your chest afterward and breathe in just a little bit more. So phase one is abdomen. And phase two, breathe in with a full chest of air and then out.

abdominal breathing, chest breathing, and out. Abdomin, chest, and out. And do one more breath, and now we'll add phase three. So abdomen, chest, and then raise your shoulders a little bit. Spike up your shoulders, raise your clavicles, and breathe just a little bit more, and then out. It's not going to be very much in that last phase, just 5%. In with the belly, and with the chest,

and then up with the shoulders, and out. In with the belly, expand the chest, raise the shoulders, and out. Now do three breaths just like that. Let them flow together,

let your breath be slow. If you begin to feel dizziness or lightheaded, let your breath pause. after the exhalation, just sit and then as your respiratory drive awakens, breathe again. Practice for about another minute. Now go ahead and finish the breath that you're on.

Let your eyes remain closed. Just feel the person that you are. You may have a feeling of failure. You may have fear, anger, shame. Notice that those are just pieces of you. that either underneath that all or even encompassing all those feelings is the real you, that all of the fluctuations of the mind and the self happen within the space of you. And now sort of feel the outline of your physical form.

Feel your head, your shoulders, your arms, almost like a tracing. And notice that the fear and the shame and the... the anger, the failure. They exist somewhere within your belly, somewhere within your chest, somewhere within your throat, possibly your head, but they mostly live in the torso or the abdomen. Now notice for a moment that that is not the whole view. That you have arms, you have shoulders, you have feet, you have legs, but there's no fear or shame there. There's no anger or failure. That you are not those things. and sit with that sensation.

And the world may victimize you, may take advantage of you. Circumstances could change. Your job applications could be rejected. You may have a grade on your transcript. But that none of those things can take you away from this. All those things may be true, but they are not this. and that this is your work right to be in this place

and that this is who you are and you carry this person with you all the time it's not about finding it's about returning now let yourself come back April 1st world is falling apart

and how do you feel today Zach do you don't anything just kind of chill good kind of chill do you feel like playing RuneScape tell you

So notice that too, right? Notice that desire, that impulse. Don't become attached to it quite yet. But notice it's there too. Not just the negativity. Anyway, any thoughts or questions for you, wrap up for the day, man? No.

Awesome, do you? I feel better now. Listen, man, good luck. I really wish you all the best. Take care, man. Thank you. All righty. Oh, we forgot to ask him about his, um, yeah, fun. Go ahead. Play Roonscape.

We're going to have to wrap up. So we're at our time for today. I know people are asking questions and stuff. Ah, how do you get rid of the potential burden? So that's why, like, that's a whole, like, that's a whole hour about how to deal with potential and how to understand. So how do you deal with major life setbacks? I think, so let's, let's answer that question. Okay. So how do you deal with major life setbacks? So you recognize that. that it's a setback. You recognize it's a failure. That's okay. It's not the end of the world. You survive failure and you also notice the damage of the failure. So you've got to figure out like where did you take damage and whether they be emotions, whether they be, you know, the house of cards coming down, senses of failure, being able to, unable to move forward. You start

by identifying all of the ways in which you've taken damage. And then you recognize that like all of those problems that you face or all that damage that you've taken is going to make it so that your mind does not function properly. And so then you, like, even if you try to move forward, this is the hard thing, is that people who face setbacks, they try so hard to rebuild their lives that, like, you guys know this, right? You guys actually try really hard. You struggle very, very hard to, like, not play roomscape. It's not that you're not trying. It's just that you're not succeeding. And you don't, no one sees the effort, but you feel the effort. Like, Like in moments you feel the effort so intensely, so intensely.

And so the problem is not one of lack of trying. It's not that you guys are actually lazy. It's just that you guys are using an instrument that, like, is not functioning properly. So the way to deal with a setback is not like positive thinking, you can do it, buddy. No. It's to recognize, okay, what within me is broken. What within me is busted. what have I learned from this experience?

Like, am I scared of ever trying? So be it. Recognize that. See that. Be like, okay, how do I deal with that? Like, let me just see that thing and let me carry it with me. When you go to the job application, when you like go up for a job interview, for example, and you feel like you're not going to get it, you don't like suppress that part. You don't say like, oh, like there's no use in going. Because if you suppress it, that's what happens.

It actually takes control. It takes control through suppression. and exerts its influence in the subconscious and then prevents you from acting. So you've got to bring it to the conscious. Notice it and then like say fuck you to it. Right? You say, okay, fine. You don't say, you can say, you say, okay, you're a dog that has been really,

really frustrated with my whole situation. Fine. You think we're going to be a failure? Maybe you're right. Maybe you're wrong. I'm going to let you be where you are. And I'm going to go ahead and go to the job interview anyway. And I'm going to do the best job that I can.

decent chance you're going to be right, we're not going to get it. Let it be with you. Accept it. And move forward. Don't let it control you. And you say like, oh, just don't let it control me. Like, how do you not let it control you? You let it not control you by accepting it.

Because so far you haven't accepted it and it controls you all the time. Acceptance leads to freedom. So Alcoholics Anonymous is the best evidence-based treatment to, get rid of alcoholism. There's a great meta-analysis about this recently, I think from the Cochran collaboration. And the first law, I mean, I don't agree with everything around Alcoholics Anonymous.

I think I don't really, I do a different kind of thing, and I tend to be pretty effective. But their first thing is that they acknowledge that they're powerless in the face of alcohol. It's like, how on earth does that work? Like, even if you don't agree with Alcoholics Anonymous, or you think there are different ways to do it,

their first step is to acknowledge that they're powerless in the face of this. So they seed control and thereby get success. Which is really weird. But there's like actually scientific data that suggests that that psychological principle, which by the way is what Buddha has been teaching or taught a couple thousand years ago. Buddha started teaching it a couple thousand years ago, even before Buddha.

So like Buddha's teachers were essentially yogis. Right. So if you call that Hinduism or not. that's up to you. I think Hinduism is sort of a Western construct. But people have been saying that like in India and China for thousands of years. And along comes AA, and even Christianity says that. And AA sort of encapsulates that concept. And then people take like this neurobiological addiction to alcohol.

And they're somehow able to overcome it through that concept. So acceptance of the thing actually leads to liberation. outcome absolutely