u/inspectorpickle

Timestamp for reference

He says something to the effect of “is it bad if someone makes an identity out of being depressed….yes”. I agree with the general sentiment but I’d like to add a bit more nuance to the wording.

I think it can be ok to build your identity around disability or mental illness if the core of that identity is the struggle against that ailment and dealing with the repercussions of an unsympathetic society.

From personal experience dealing with depression and anxiety, I found a lot of solace in thinking of myself as someone who was in a valiant struggle against those things. That was the central plot of my personal narrative. It left space for grace and forgiveness when I “failed” to overcome it, without weighing me down and preventing me from continuing to try anyway. The key is to identify with the experience of striving against your hardships, not simply experiencing them.

Obviously you never want to build your isn’t around a single thing, which is probably an additional problem some of the people in question.

I’m not a disabled person so I’m only speaking about the thought process from a mental health/illness perspective but I thought was it worth bringing up, pedantic as it is.

Taking a second to shill for this animated movie I really like called ARCO (released 2025) which portrays a vision of the future that is kind of demonstrates a lot of what vaush has been talking about recently with climate change and AI, and especially two of his recent videos.

It’s not the theme of the movie at all but more the backdrop. There are two settings—the distant future and a nearer future. The nearer future basically portrays the kind of naive utopia a lot of people imagine, that is actually kind of dystopian.

Here’s the trailer:
https://youtu.be/e4RrOe8IbI8?is=QzRPUutA7j_6zjhF

These are all details about the setting revealed or hinted at in the trailer, and I would recommend the movie even if the actual themes are somewhat unrelated and a bit muddled:

- humanoid robots are everywhere, but some of them replace roles like parents and teachers
- there are futuristic cars and tech but everyone still lives in a suburb
- the neighborhood has these big glass domes that come up to protect the neighborhood during natural disasters like wildfires (which are increasingly common) but they don’t cover the entire neighborhood. They’re essentially technological bandaids for a civilization that would rather do anything but build neighborhoods elsewhere or try to stop climate change
- the distant future imagines a place where these problems have been solved, but it’s so far off and different that it may as well be an alien civilization

Obviously we all understand these things intellectually but sometimes seeing a portrayal of it makes you think more deeply or feel more strongly about it. Thought it was neat and wanted to share!

Vaush Based or Vaush White? Is mayo good? No Swiss neutrality allowed.

In case you missed it:
https://youtu.be/sxajvbDBuls?t=776&is=0yTkGJgSziPJLEJh

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