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TBQH I have a real dislike for the relativistic thinking that people apply to this. Everyone does struggle, yes. But the degree of struggle, for some, is exponentially more. To just participate in the smallest parts of life... eating, cleaning, emptying one's bowels, is a daily challange. What if you could only afford energy for one outing to the shop? What if taking a shower felt like running a marathon? What if making a meal was prohibiltely exhausting? The everyday small parts of life that most people enjoy are inaccessible to many. The degrees of separation between between an able-bodied person and a disabled person can be so massive.

So, yes, all people struggle, but the struggle of some denies them reaching the threshold of energy required to do even the minimum expected daily activites. That threshold is the crucial separator between isolation and participation. .. not even to mention the socioeconomic effects.

3 comments

The phrasing of the article specifically invites relativistic thinking by starting from a premise that's obviously untrue for some, or even most, readers without long-term medical conditions.

In fact, when I first read it, it half-convinced me that I was sick too. Where were those unlimited spoons when I overslept, decided not to shower, put on a pair of dirty socks and sprayed them with deodorant because there were no clean ones left, got to the office an hour late, failed to complete any major task all day, fell asleep on the train and missed my stop, got home an hour later than I should have, ate half a tub of icecream and some raw carrots instead of cooking dinner, and went to bed leaving two days worth of dishes in the sink and still having no clean socks?

I'm still unsure whether I'm an unusually low-spoon individual, or whether the author thinks nominally healthy people are doing better than they really are, or whether there's actually something wrong with me, or what's going on.

If this is happening to you regularly, you are showing signs of depression and/or burnout. They're closely related. Yes, get help.

If this happens to you rarely, it was just a bad day.

Some people have it even worse - they die.

So again, what is the point? I acknowledge that some (many) people have it worse than myself. Now what?

It is also a common recommendation to meditate on ones inevitable death daily. Maybe thinking about the fate of sick people could have a similar effect.

And of course one can wonder how to improve things for sick people. But that's only useful to some extent. I think it makes mostly sense for people in the social circle of the sick person.

I don't think there is much I can do for the spoon woman, safe for donating some money to Lupus research. And I also can not spend all my waking hours donating to various health research organisations (only so many spoons to go around). So maybe I donate some money to Lupus research, but beyond that, there would not be much benefit to me thinking much more about it.

When you bond with somebody with Lupus or another severe illness or who generally has it worse than yourself you can now better understand how they live their life. Many people don't know how such things affect a person on a daily basis. You just learned something about the human condition. Isn't that something?

You don't have to do something at all.

What makes you assume I learned something I didn't already know? As I said, I know there are people who have it worse than me.

And as I also said, and you confirmed, it makes sense if you have somebody in your circles who has such a condition.

Apart from that - my question was, why do you complain, or get annoyed?

The fact that you complain about somebody who complains about somebody, who thinks it's a good idea to bring up that "everybody feels bad sometimes" in a comment section about a personal report regarding a severe illness, should have told me that you are probably unable to learn in this regard.

I complain about stupid people who think it's necessary to bring up that "everybody struggles some more, some less" in a comment section about a personal report regarding a severe illness.

Let's say your fictional (?) dog dies and you talk about your experience with it. Should I tell you that my wife's dad died in a motorcycle crash? Or that everybody has their struggles? That would be the epitome of human decency, wouldn't it?

I think my comment might have been severely misunderstood. By saying that everybody struggles I did not mean "Stop wining because it's worse for others". What I meant was, we all go thorough periods when our spoons are not enough, and that this is totally okay. Going trough difficulties and thinking you are the only one is harmful and feeling alone in such circumstances is unnecessary because we all find our self there sometimes.

Yeah, nobody should feel alone. The spoon theory helped the author to feel a bit less alone, because her friend who did not understand her, could understand her a little bit more with the spoon theory.

Her friend probably thought, "hey I also sometimes feel a lack of spoons". But the enormous extent the author has to deal with spoon management still surprised her friend. It surprised me too.

I don't think it's ok to have such a lack of spoons. I think some people are indeed very lonely when it comes to their kind of lack of spoons. I don't think thinking that way is harmful. Getting such a severe illness is a severe loss of life quality. You will probably grief for the rest of your life. It's nothing you can fully move on from.

At least I would never hug a person with such a background while saying "I understand you". That is impossible for me. Hugging, of course, yes, but claiming any real knowledge about how such constant lack of spoons must feel is impossible for me.

That's again the classic power games bullshit. "You could never understand me", "It's impossible for me to understand you" and so on. That's overly dramatic and self-aggrandizing. And in the case of the person who is sick, also inducing unnecessary loneliness.

I'm sure if I would tell you about the death of my dog in this thread, you would complain that I bring it up in the context of somebody with a horrible chronic disease.

I just want to understand your motivation, and the motivation of the OP. I guess I have a feeling you like to lord it over other people with the help of victims of diseases. (Similar things tend to happen when somebody dies - there are always people who then order other people around on the basis of "the deceased would want us to do x").

I never once said that the spoon women doesn't have it hard, btw. That is your interpretation. I want to know why it annoys you if people are not sufficiently sad about it. I probably live at the other end of the world, so I just wonder why it is so important to you.

Btw there is also a story about Buddha who told one of his suffering disciples to find somebody who doesn't have a hard fate, and they were unable to find somebody. I guess Buddha was a real asshole, according to you (he did exactly the thing you claim is a big no no).

You really don't want to get it.

> I guess I have a feeling you like to lord it over other people with the help of victims of diseases. (Similar things tend to happen when somebody dies - there are always people who then order other people around on the basis of "the deceased would want us to do x").

WTF man. "TBQH I have a real dislike for the relativistic thinking that people apply to this." So lordly!

> I never once said that the spoon women doesn't have it hard, btw. That is your interpretation.

I never interpreted it that way. The author of the report probably also does not want you to feel pity for her. She just told you a story about how life is for her and she came up with a analogy to make it more understandable.

Buddha also says: “Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.”

"lording" was a bit strong, I just couldn't think of better words to describe it.

You clearly seem to want me to do or feel "something". In the other thread you talk about things like "the decent thing to do", "showing empathy", and so on.

My question was, why. What's it to you. As I said, I don't know the woman with the spoons, and I also don't play down her predicament.

So why do you want me to behave in a certain way? That's "lording", for lack of a better word. You want to determine how other people have to behave.

And what exactly is the point of complaining about that?

It's like complaining about people who claim they live under a fascist regime because they have to wear masks in the supermarket. It's making a point about human decency.

Maybe for some people the consequences of lockdowns are more severe than for you. Aren't you all about feeling with people's predicaments?

Also I don't agree with the (common) argument that nobody should be allowed to complain about anything, because there is always somebody who has it worse, somewhere in the world.

Like with solving "first world problems" - yes, it seems frivolous to worry about getting an even better iPhone, while people are starving somewhere else. On the other hand, those people, if they can solve their immediate problems, would perhaps also enjoy having nice iPhones. So it is not inherently bad to worry about the existence of nice iPhones.

Or put differently, it can not be the only purpose of life to help people who have it worse. I mean somebody could adopt that as their philosophy, sure. But it requires people who need help, therefore it can not be a universal philosophy. If suddenly you run out of people who need help, you have lost your purpose in life again.

> Maybe for some people the consequences of lockdowns are more severe than for you. Aren't you all about feeling with people's predicaments?

Bringing up fascism to make your struggle important is never a good idea. I can feel solidarity without being reminded of really dark aspects of humanity.

> Or put differently, it can not be the only purpose of life to help people who have it worse.

I agree.

I only talk about acknowledgement. It's not that hard. Also it's simply unethical to compare first world problems with somebody starving in a concentration camp. You can do that, but it's annoying and stupid. I think it's ok to complain about stupidity of other people.

It's OK to worry about totalitarian control, as there are always groups and politicians working towards that goal. It's actually one of the lessons one should draw from remembering dark times.

Some people may worry more than others. I have read reports from therapists that they have clients from former communist countries who struggle with the lockdowns, because it reminds them or horrific things they experienced.

There are also a lot of people who have built up enourmous hatred and murderous thoughts because of Corona. Where I live, there are writings on the wall that "Covidiots should be burned" and stuff like that. It's not that far fetched to think about totalitarian regimes murdering people in that context.

> It's OK to worry about totalitarian control

I agree.

> Some people may worry more than others. I have read reports from therapists that they have clients from former communist countries who struggle with the lockdowns, because it reminds them or horrific things they experienced.

Those are probably not the people who compare themselves with Sophie Scholl on protests or something like that. They know the difference.

> It's not that far fetched to think about totalitarian regimes murdering people in that context.

Really? I think this only makes sense when you have a rosy idea about how Totalitarism looks like.

"Those are probably not the people who compare themselves with Sophie Scholl on protests or something like that. They know the difference."

Are there many of those? Here in Germany we had one case I am aware of, and while I didn't follow it closely, it seems very likely that she has some kind of mental health issue.

"Really? I think this only makes sense when you have a rosy idea about how totalitarianism looks like."

Nobody claims what we are experiencing right now feels the same as life under fascism. Just that it feels like the prelude to it.

I don't think it is far fetched at all. We've seen major changes of our way of life and people's attitude over a short amount of time, and major divide in society, driven by fear.

The hate is real - people fear for their lives and the lives of their parents, and they are ready to blame whoever comes in handy. And the hate is murderous, especially because people fear about their own lives.

I think if you enter a shop without a mask, you can well except violence from some people.

And it can get worse if people refuse to get vaccinated. Already businesses promise not to do businesses with such people anymore. How can you NOT see analogies? You could say not getting vaccinated is voluntary, being Jewish is not. Nevertheless, there are parallels. Nobody claims the exact same thing is happening.

It seems likely to me that fear for their lives was also what drove people to adopt fascism. The rosy view is to look back and think it was just stupidity or "evilness". I think people also feared for their lives. Here in Germany they had just witnessed an extremely murderous war (at a scale we can not imagine anymore), murderous insurrections, stuff like that.