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This reminds me of the trend I saw of "Men would rather X than goto therapy". Although trying to dig it up now only shows people mocking it, by inserting the stories of great men throughout history and fiction into the format. But I thought I recollected women making earnest posts complaining about the men in their lives deciding to record a shitty album, or taking up intense study of trivial subjects, instead of going to therapy.
Presuming it was ever an earnest meme, and I wasn't just missing the joke...I was utterly agog that these people who never, ever, graduate from therapy would mock men for self actualizing. I can personally attest that whenever I feel any sort of transient depression creeping in, giving myself any sort of self actualizing goal and getting busy is the best and most immediate cure.
I'm actually reminded of the time I posted this funny bit by Denis Leary about therapy to a discord, and some crazy lady in therapy took it so personally they thought I was literally telling them to kill themselves.
And a lot cheaper than going to therapy. Even classically "useless" male coping mechanisms like chopping wood or fantasy football are cheaper, while potentially disproving negative thoughts like "I can never do anything right!" that people often experience when depressed.
Today, I passed a forest path that I cleared for a summer job as a teenager, when I was very depressed and almost crippled with social anxieties. Working on that path wasn't the whole story of how I got better, but it was one of the early moves in the right direction. Of course my work was sporadic, ill-organised, slow, and so on, but it was something where I made progress every day, received some positive feedback, and achieved something that looked impressive at the end.
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I don't know anything about Denis Leary, but reading his name reminded me of this article I read when I was in my undergrad, which talks about a clip of Leary appearing on a talk show with Greg Giraldo.
My favourite therapy sketch:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jvujypVVBAY
This actually works very well in my experience, if you have the motivation to use it. And it costs much less than talk therapy.
That was great.
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Yeah, Denis Leary is... Denis Leary. He often revealed himself to be thin skinned. He allegedly cribbed his entire stage persona from Bill Hicks, to say nothing of lifting many jokes nearly word for word.
All the same, his No Cure for Cancer special is among the greatest comedy specials ever recorded. I can appreciate Bill Hicks material more, but I laugh far, far harder at a (probably coked up) Leary screaming and sweating on stage belting out the material at 3x the pace with less meandering.
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