So in this post, Tim mentions that he has seen a therapist "for the first time ever" because he was possibly doomed to life long pessimism, yet he implies that he is manic depressive, which may well be true, but then he wraps up his post with some 'tips' on how to manage, and if they work for him, great... or maybe not.<p>I don't feel so good about him throwing about this manic depressive stuff, especially in the coffee table self help circle-jerk industry. Bipolar disorder is a serious goddamn illness and it ruins peoples lives.<p>The average age people are diagnosed with bipolar is around 30, and that's a lot of life to live flipping from left to right listening to whimsy advise like this. This is really dangerous.<p>You can't give a list of '10 things to do' to someone with bipolar and expect them to sort themselves out. If Tim is truly suffering from biploar, that 'list of things that work' changes from week to week, possibly even day to day and hour to hour. The drive he feels is from his hypomania (that leads to a post like this and incredulous books like the 4 hour body) that inevitably leads to an exhausted crash and period of debilitating depression. Hell, he might even have a mixed episode and in a manic 'clarity' moment of the depression he decided to hang himself. This isn't simple conjecture, these are the kinds of things that happen.<p>For what it's worth, if you want to see what the many sides of bipolar are like you should watch "The life of a Manic Depressive" with Steven Fry. He interviews many famous people and regular civilians regarding their illness, and you'll find that the sample there are mostly not living 'inspired lives' like Tim, and his advise isn't going to help them in the long run I fear, if anything I fear it'll cause more people suffering to delay that first visit to a psychiatrist to seek help.<p>EDIT: I'd like to point out that if Tim's writings are a product of his hypomania/mania you can't blame him for it. But whatever.