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A discussion of community building from a psychological perspective. How to recruit people into your project, external and internal motivations, what people regret, self-fulfilling prophecies, confirmation bias, and more.

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Earlier this year, I gave a presentation at OSCON on both my experiences with and the science of depression. The video of that presentation is above.

This isn’t a video of hope. It’s not a video of “everything is going to be okay”, because there’s no way I can say that. It’s a video discussing what it’s like, and some of the research as to what’s going on in your brain.

It’s a video that says that you are not alone.

I’m currently consuming neuroscience papers like crazy as part of the talk I’m giving at OSCON tomorrow. I’m currently reading an excellent overview on serotonin transporters¹, and in particular looking at knock-out mice that can’t synthesize the serotonin transporter—the molecule which gets serotonin out of the synaptic cleft and back into neurons.

Today is a bad day. I won’t explain why in a public post, and really the reasons don’t matter for what I’m about to say. It’s sufficient for me to mention that my mood is the worst it’s been in a very long time. For those of you not familiar with my history, you might want to start with my open letter here.

I should be sorting accommodation in Seattle this weekend. I should be processing photos. I should be writing talk proposals, and hacking code, and catching up with friends. But right now nothing seems appealing. The least horrible thing feels like going home, laying down, and just trying not to exist for a while. I’m writing this through a fog of psychomotor retardation, and so I’m pretty sure if I wanted to, I could do exactly that.

But I won’t.

Your brain does not exist to do what is “right”. Your brain does not exist to make the world a better place. Your brain does not exist to make your experience meaningful, or pleasant, or pain-free.