As fluffy as this quote sounds, I always find it relevant. From taking on a difficult task at work, to getting past ladder anxiety in a video game. If you’ve ever executed on something so well that afterwards you felt like it was a waste of time, it might be. You didn’t get an opportunity to learn. Which reminds me of another relevant quote, “Losing is fun!”
LSD connects parts of your brain that you haven’t used or haven’t been connected together since childhood.
Now while this doesn’t always lead to good experiences it cured my severe depression for around 12 months. I woke up feeling generally happy for the first time in a decade.
Luckily these chemicals are gradually being legalized for study and should lead to some amazing therapeutic applications.
I’d advise against suggesting that people should take psychedelics honestly. I know some people who have had their depression cured with psychedelics, and others who have come away from trips traumatized and scarred by false realities that their brains made up. It’s a strange thing.
I’ll just mention my own experience. I struggled with depression and/or anxiety for basically my entire life from as early as I can remember and I definitely didn’t have the kinds of joyful childhood experiences you describe. However now that I’m older and my anxiety is being properly treated (medication) I’ve definitely had more / stronger feelings of joy with simple experiences. All this is to say that I think it might be a depression thing, not a age thing.
Formalwear for when it is hot outside. Like a summer wedding or something. It’s always fuckin miserable going to those kind of events sweating the whole time
I really try to go through my stuff and delete things I no longer need - more usually documents rather than media… I always worry I might remove something I realise I need later! So you are probably more sensible!
I also have like 200-300gb of Linux and Windows ISOs for archival reasons. There have been several times where I’ve had to load an older OS that had proper Ethernet drivers and upgrade.
Normalise Roman style tunics. The whole thing is just a rectangle with a slit (for the neck) and sewing (for the sides), with two optional sleeves, and fastened to the waist with a belt, it doesn’t get simpler than that.
Also undyed clothes becoming a thing. What’s wrong with raw colours?
I had come to the same conclusion, that I could never feel again like I did when I was a kid, that adult life was just inherently drab and lacking in feeling. But meditation did help, so I wouldn’t rule that out if you could work it into your routine for a while.
What kind of meditation did you try? I found the simple kind most helpful: just to sit and pay attention to breathing and whatever comes along, and don’t pursue thoughts once I notice them. It helped me with what you describe. I had basically decided that life turned grey when you became an adult, and all the thrill of experience was left behind in my youth. Through meditation I discovered I could still experience like I did when I was a kid, if I could experience without immediately going off into thinking about it. But I did meditate for a while before this started emerging. I never found the guided meditations or envisioning meditations to be particularly helpful, just sitting attending to ordinary experience.
I can’t speak to whether you’re clinically depressed and need some other help, but it might be worth continuing with the meditation alongside whatever else you try. I had given up on antidepressants too but eventually found a kind that worked. Now I continue the meditation but also take antidepressants when things take a real downturn. I hope you find something that helps.
On top of what everyone else said (I especially super agree with experiencing new things), I can recommend art, either experiencing it, or making it. Art is basically all about trying to capture or recapture a specific feeling, by heightening it.
Maybe the smell of roses doesn't move you much after all these years, but a well crafted poem, music, movie, or some video games (I guess Flower comes to mind for this particular example) can reignite some of that lost wonder. And if experiencing them isn't enough, you can always go after those feelings yourself, and make your own art, trying to bring back the sensations you miss the most. Heck, learning to cook an old dish a relative or friend used to make can evoke long forgotten feelings, "art" is a vague term.
I'm both getting older and suffering from really bad depression, and this sort of thing has been helping me cope with this loss of feelings.
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