I get sad a lot. Sadness comes consistently, but unexpectedly, though I've grown to handle it better with time. Depression feels like an unpleasant childhood friend who comes to visit every now and then, who has some important thing to tell me, but phrases things so terribly.

Hi @zach I'm sorry that you experience this. I know it too. You express that beautifully.

One method that's helped with my depression is magical thinking. Like the thought that Time exists in more ways than the one we comprehend. And in some fashion, the future me already exists, and has already moved past this sad spell. If I believe that, then maybe the past me also still exists, and is hoping for some better future. And so, in the moments when I feel the most aware, and alive, and happypowerful, I try to send back encouragement to my past self, urging him closer to where I am right now. That way, In the moments when I feel fully under a black cloud, I can seek support from my future self and ask for encouragement — an intuitive direction towards that happier future.

This is a great technique. I will try this as well. Thank you.

If I were to describe the mood of the web today (or at least the people I know within it), it would be depression. Everything gives off a feeling of melancholy, anxiety, and a persistent guilt over not getting enough done. Today, the best metaphor for being online is the feeling of being depressed in bed, trying to find the desire to face the day.

Oh god yes. That is exactly how I feel on the days when I log into twitter. Helpless despair. More often than not I stare in horror for 20 minutes or more then log out, mute, unable to engage.

I don't get this from purposeful web searches with a browser fortified with ad blockers, comment blockers, gif blockers, tracker blockers and a few other custom rules. I don't get it when I read posts on forums dedicated to niche interests. I don't get it when I use email - again, with heavy server side filtering - to communicate with friends.

All of which points at the directions I want SSB to continue.

And so, I'd ask: What is the future you are building for that provides encouragement to your today? How do you see the traces of that future in our community and technology, and how would you describe it to the broader online world, to give it the encouragement to at least stand up and take a shower?

I don't have a beautiful vision and definitely nothing that can compete with @elavoie and @nanomonkey but I want to help build a world where no young person has to grow up feeling isolated or ashamed because they are different, where no one feels second-class or less worthy because they are not a member of the dominant gender, ethnic group or sexual orientation, where ignorance evaporates under the glare of freely shared information, where we aim to help each other up rather than pull each other down, where we listen as much as we talk, where we share freely in the knowledge that by giving we enrich ourselves and each other, where people do not seek to profit from weakness, where advertising is seen by default as a form of pollution, where externalities must be priced into everything we do rather than made somebody else's problem, where no one has to struggle to meet their basic needs of shelter, food, clothing, medical care and so everyone is free to work together or alone pursuing what excites them.

I want a world where we recognise how fragile life is and respect the planet on which we arose and all other life forms on this planet. I want us to see one another as family and to seek to reach out to the stars in peace and without sacrificing our brief lives here or the lives of others in order to do so.

Okay maybe I do have a vision after all. Thank you for the invitation to discover it in expressing it.

For now, I'd happily settle for a platform that offers the welcome of a safe space and the serendipity of a good second-hand bookshop, the intimacy of friendship, the companionship of common purpose - and one where relationships are not commodified and communication not turned into a game for tokens or points but enjoyed for its own intrinsic purpose.

I'm so glad you are doing this Zach. Thank you. To use one of your favourite expressions back at you - you're great.