Thanks for the tag-in, @k00b.

First, a story about me:

When I was in the middle of my PhD I was miserable. I had all these reasons why I was miserable, which were real reasons. And I thought about quitting many times.

But then I thought: the reasons I am miserable are things about me, not about the PhD stuff that sucks right now. So I can quit, and then these PhD things will stop sucking, but something else will start sucking, because that is the nature of complex systems (more on that another time; or see the book club!) but mostly it's the nature of me.

I have issues {x, y, z} and they manifest in {a, b, c}. Quitting the PhD would have been a short-term fix that solved nothing at all. Then {x, y, z} would simply have manifested in {p, q, r}. {x, y, z} is what needs to be dealt with.

Second, I saw this talk by Graham Weaver recently that made a bunch of deep points.

The one that really stuck for me was: you're going to suffer anyway, so if you suffer strategically, you can wind up doing great things. This was quite the suckerpunch, if you view it as the amount of felt suffering coming your way is constant.

I don't want to bear the cost of suffering in a stupid way and get no real upside.

Third, SN is a delicate ecosystem right now. Putting something true and earnest into it is like casting out seeds. So many things will sprout from them! Lurkers you never hear from will be subtly influenced. People who think: oh, this isn't a place for me will read your words and will adjust their beliefs a little bit. This is very real. It might be the realest thing in the world, but it's invisible, so it's easy to lose heart.

Don't lose heart.