but the idea that you “sometimes have to hit rock bottom first” first is UTTER BULLSHIT and really, really detrimental to people who want to get well before destroying their lives. so.
Israfel
I always thought of rock bottom as the personal low that knocks you to your senses. It doesn’t have to be complete destruction of your life. It is just a moment that makes you realize you have to turn it around. Though I don’t think it is necessary to decide to make changes, I do think that it is variable and many people need that sinking aha! moment.
Xerxes93
That’s called “a moment of clarity”, it’s not rock bottom.
TachyonCode
Okay, I know the comment chain is long and full of arguments. I’ve looked over the points made, and this is what I took away from it.
There are two types of “rock bottom”:
Type A is the nadir at which you’ve got nothing left to lose, because you’ve lost everything but your wits and faculties, and because you are even in danger of losing control over these. This means you’ve lost all your material possessions, all social status, and all ability to determine your future for yourself (without risking your life, your sanity, or your freedom). No one we’ve seen in Dumbing of Age has reached this point, so far as I know.
Type B is the point at which you’ve got nothing left that you care about losing – which is different, because no two people care about exactly the same things (and, more importantly, because there’s a difference between what each person doesn’t value at all). It’s a loss of control over your life to a more limited extent, and isn’t as bad as Type A, because reaching this point generally just means you’re replacing a deeply-flawed outlook on some facet of life with something more practical – in this scenario, you’ve achieved a moment of clarity, facilitated by a moment of complete desperation caused by your own hand. Some may disagree that this is really “rock bottom”, but that would seem to be a semantic argument that disregards the idea that a common phrase can (or, ought) be used as a metaphor.
Regardless, with Ruth, we’re looking at a Type B scenario. Billie just recently realized she’s reached a Type B rock bottom herself, and wants to help Ruth pick herself back up (and though she might be looking for a little bit of reciprocation, here, that’s not as selfish as she could be).
Heavensrun
Arguments like this irritate the crap out of me.
There are words and terms that have precise meanings in specific contexts, and establishing definitions can be important there. But sometimes, a phrase or term is so vague and subjective that arguing the definition is at least pointless and at worst, vain.
People, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT “ROCK BOTTOM” ACTUALLY IS. Stop arguing about that. The -point- is that, as this very argument -demonstrates, it’s a subjective term that means something a little different for everyone, so the thing to do isn’t to argue that your definition is the best one, the thing to do is to consider that other people have other definitions in the first place before you use the term to refer to people that aren’t -you-, BECAUSE they probably have different definitions.
Arkadi
Thank you for beating me to writing this and thus saving me the trouble of doing it. *Relief*
fogel
You’re absolutely right about the Platonic reification of “THE Definition”. But despite that SOME use can come from discussing the ideas associated with a term like rock bottom, IF people listen to each other and are interested in learning and considering others views, rather than beat each other down with their own particular idea. That’s one way for useful definitions to emerge, effectively talking about what we want to use the term for, even if people don’t realize that’s what their doing. Admittedly that results in a whole lot of heat and smoke and less light, but I try to stay chill about it. As I said to start, you are right, but I doubt that you’ll ever get most people to understand your point–it’s not that I think people are dumb, but humans — westerners? — seem to be dyed in the wool Platonists.
fogel
when you reach ‘I do not want to live like this any longer, it’s too painful, and I’ll attempt to find my way out’?
zmm
Speaking of someone who has hit “a rock bottom” It’s not destroying your life. it’s a moment of such shittitude that it’s basically knocking your dumb ass out of your own body and you see what crap you are and what you need to fix it.
In this case, Billie needs Ruth , and frankly Ruth needs Billy.
Eukie
To “hit rock bottom” means to hit the lowest point possible. It has nothing to do with epiphanies about realising how to get back up again.
TheOthin
By definition, if you get back up from a given point, it WAS the lowest point for that scenario.
fogel
Taking the metaphor, the thing about ‘rock bottom’ isn’t how low it is, it’s that it REALLY hurts when you hit it. But it’s not even necessarily the bottom. I recently saw a good line about someone who hit rock bottom and started digging. On the other hand, I think you can realize that rock bottom is going to REALLY hurt while you’re still on the way down and act before you hit–I’m hoping.
Cybersnark
Clearly, hitting rock bottom is the new jumping the shark.
fogel
Rock sharks!
JWLM
Rocking the shark’s bottom!
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
@Fogel: Rock Lobsters?
Nyxness
Having hit what I consider to be my rock bottom this past spring, I respectfully disagree. It’s not necessarily that rock bottom is “everything’s as bad as it could possibly ever be,” but that it’s “everything’s as bad as I can let it get before being forced to recognize that something needs to change and I can’t change it alone.” And of course that point varies if it’s ever reached at all, but I do think that in many cases that realization is necessary for recovery. It’s not meant to discourage people who are trying to get help before destroying their lives, but many people simply can’t or won’t do that without the wake-up call that is rock bottom. For me, I knew for a while that I probably SHOULD be getting help, but it took feeling like my life was falling apart around me to acknowledge that I NEEDED help to prevent me from destroying it for good.
fogel
AND found the courage/desperation to seek that help and to accept it if you find it — and my best wishes to you on the path.
As Cassidy tells us in the pages of Preacher, there is no ground floor in Hell. I think there’s only the limits you set for yourself, and maybe it feels like rock bottom because you cannot imagine lowering yourself further.
Like so many arguments on the Internet, it’s just a question of defining terms.
yeah, I hear that. the thing is, it can always get worse. some folks’ “rock bottom” looks WAY HIGHER than someone else’s, but the point is, it doesn’t have to be REALLY REALLY AWFUL to start getting help. best wishes to all in recovery in the comment section.
DO NOT insult slipshine. 50 Shades is not porn; it is what happens when people who are embarassed about porn try to imagine porn.
begbert2
You could say the same about Twilight itself.
Jen Aside
I’ll give it that, at least Twilight wasn’t written in fucking PRESENT TENSE.
ninja_jesus
Fun Fact: 50 Shades of Grey started as a Twilight fanfic.
Catullus
I… wha… who does that?!
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
The Hunger Games did that, and it’s a pretty good series. Well, at least the first book is. The others I’ve heard mixed opinions about and haven’t read.
It’s used to evoke a sense of witnessing the action, though that’s probably why the Hunger Games works better as a movie than it does a book.
Jen Aside
Hunger Games works better as a movie because the book is WAY too much telling and not showing–Katniss spontaneously recalls various bits of exposition rather than even just talking with someone about them. Also, that Donald Sutherland literally wrote himself a larger part by explaining how you can’t “act” a tyrant, because tyranny is most effectively shown through how it affects other people. [citation: extras on Hunger Games DVD/BD]
I’ve read another book [the title of which I’ve long forgotten but it was some sci-fi thing about crossing dimensions in the 2-D/3-D/4-D/etc. sense] in first-person present tense, and I honestly think it and Hunger Games would have been vastly improved by NOT writing them in present tense. It’s stupid and should only exist in scripts, Dick and Jane books, and Choose Your Own Adventure books.
GuruBuckaroo
Bright Lights, Big City was written in second person present tense. Basically someone telling you what you, the main character, are currently doing. Had to read it for highschool. Seriously weird read, never have found another example.
Zababcd
Present tense is pretty standard for the second-person perspective, but the second-person perspective is very unusual. First-person or third-person present tense is also fairly common in thrillers, in my experience.
Earnest
Halting State and Rule 34 by Charles Stross, too. It actually works pretty well there.
Drunken Nordmann
Why would anyone write a book in present tense?
LograyX
I want to write a book in the Future tense.
Clif
I want to have written a best-selling book in the past tense.
xKiv
I want a book written in future plusquamperfectum, because I want perfect future.
Tenn
Why wouldn’t they?
The reason hardly any stories are written in present tense is that we’re weirded out by it. The reason we are weirded out by it is that hardly any stories are written in present tense. It’s a closed cause-and-effect loop. If more stories were written in present tense, we would be less weirded out by it.
There are stories where the point of view of the narrator is explicitly set after the events, and those stories should be told in past tense. But for other stories, there’s really no reason apart from force of habit. If the narrator can move our field of “vision” anywhere in space and even inside people’s minds, then not being able to witness events as they unfold seems like a completely arbitrary restriction.
ninja_jesus
One thing I like about fanfic writing is that a lot of authors do use present tense. 😀
begbert2
If nothing else it would be a way of avoiding writing in past past tense, as in when a character is reminiscing about events that had happened previously in a story and you need to distinguish between those events and thing that are ‘currently’ happening. Because when you find yourself putting the word “had” twice in every sentence long enough, you find yourself breaking into fleeting moments of present tense (couched as a straight dictation of the character’s thoughts/experiences at the time) just to give yourself a damn break. Or rather you’ll have done that because you had that experience that had made you want a damn break. Dammit.
Yotomoe
I don’t know much about 50 shades of Grey, but I do know that it doesn’t have vampires that have almost none of the features, strengths, or weaknesses of vampires.
That Damn Rat
Always remember Yotomoe, it can always get worse. Always.
Most “published fanfics” end up changing the names of the characters and/or making them humans for the sake of making them “original characters.” Cassandra Clare did it with City of Bones/her Harry Potter fic, fandom threw a fit, E.L. James did it with 50 Shades/her Twilight fic, fandom threw a fit. The problem is that fans have “gone pro” in various forms for pretty much as long as people have been fans of stuff. http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fans_Turned_Pro
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
Much like Dungeons and Dragons was written by Tolkien fans, though I’ll admit that nobody is very apologetic about that.
fogel
Happened in ancient Greece when a bard after Homer did it with the Iliad.
nothri
Yotomoe, you are playing with fire my friend. Saying nothing is as bad as twilight will be taken as a challenge by someone. And if anything is worse than twilight, I don’t want to know about it. Sooner or later we’ll create something so shitty that it bends the fabric of space and time. And then the old ones will awake and Cthulhu eats our faces.
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
Have you ever heard of a book (maybe a series?) known as Left Behind?
TJ Baltimore
I read the first several books in the “Left Behind” series. Then partway through, by untreated mechanisms, I became an atheist. I couldn’t finish it after that. I maintain, however, that the storytelling is compelling if you can ignore the parts where main characters representing of their sinful ways and turn to Jesus. Kind of like the Jefferson Bible, in that respect. (The Jefferson Bible has to have its own Wikipedia page, for those who don’t know about it.)
423 thoughts on “Never”
An Average Loser
Here we go.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
Well, if one needs to hit rock bottom before recovery… I think rock bottom has been achieved.
rachel
so I know that you were making a joke
and that this is a jokey website
but the idea that you “sometimes have to hit rock bottom first” first is UTTER BULLSHIT and really, really detrimental to people who want to get well before destroying their lives. so.
Israfel
I always thought of rock bottom as the personal low that knocks you to your senses. It doesn’t have to be complete destruction of your life. It is just a moment that makes you realize you have to turn it around. Though I don’t think it is necessary to decide to make changes, I do think that it is variable and many people need that sinking aha! moment.
Xerxes93
That’s called “a moment of clarity”, it’s not rock bottom.
TachyonCode
Okay, I know the comment chain is long and full of arguments. I’ve looked over the points made, and this is what I took away from it.
There are two types of “rock bottom”:
Type A is the nadir at which you’ve got nothing left to lose, because you’ve lost everything but your wits and faculties, and because you are even in danger of losing control over these. This means you’ve lost all your material possessions, all social status, and all ability to determine your future for yourself (without risking your life, your sanity, or your freedom). No one we’ve seen in Dumbing of Age has reached this point, so far as I know.
Type B is the point at which you’ve got nothing left that you care about losing – which is different, because no two people care about exactly the same things (and, more importantly, because there’s a difference between what each person doesn’t value at all). It’s a loss of control over your life to a more limited extent, and isn’t as bad as Type A, because reaching this point generally just means you’re replacing a deeply-flawed outlook on some facet of life with something more practical – in this scenario, you’ve achieved a moment of clarity, facilitated by a moment of complete desperation caused by your own hand. Some may disagree that this is really “rock bottom”, but that would seem to be a semantic argument that disregards the idea that a common phrase can (or, ought) be used as a metaphor.
Regardless, with Ruth, we’re looking at a Type B scenario. Billie just recently realized she’s reached a Type B rock bottom herself, and wants to help Ruth pick herself back up (and though she might be looking for a little bit of reciprocation, here, that’s not as selfish as she could be).
Heavensrun
Arguments like this irritate the crap out of me.
There are words and terms that have precise meanings in specific contexts, and establishing definitions can be important there. But sometimes, a phrase or term is so vague and subjective that arguing the definition is at least pointless and at worst, vain.
People, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT “ROCK BOTTOM” ACTUALLY IS. Stop arguing about that. The -point- is that, as this very argument -demonstrates, it’s a subjective term that means something a little different for everyone, so the thing to do isn’t to argue that your definition is the best one, the thing to do is to consider that other people have other definitions in the first place before you use the term to refer to people that aren’t -you-, BECAUSE they probably have different definitions.
Arkadi
Thank you for beating me to writing this and thus saving me the trouble of doing it. *Relief*
fogel
You’re absolutely right about the Platonic reification of “THE Definition”. But despite that SOME use can come from discussing the ideas associated with a term like rock bottom, IF people listen to each other and are interested in learning and considering others views, rather than beat each other down with their own particular idea. That’s one way for useful definitions to emerge, effectively talking about what we want to use the term for, even if people don’t realize that’s what their doing. Admittedly that results in a whole lot of heat and smoke and less light, but I try to stay chill about it. As I said to start, you are right, but I doubt that you’ll ever get most people to understand your point–it’s not that I think people are dumb, but humans — westerners? — seem to be dyed in the wool Platonists.
fogel
when you reach ‘I do not want to live like this any longer, it’s too painful, and I’ll attempt to find my way out’?
zmm
Speaking of someone who has hit “a rock bottom” It’s not destroying your life. it’s a moment of such shittitude that it’s basically knocking your dumb ass out of your own body and you see what crap you are and what you need to fix it.
In this case, Billie needs Ruth , and frankly Ruth needs Billy.
Eukie
To “hit rock bottom” means to hit the lowest point possible. It has nothing to do with epiphanies about realising how to get back up again.
TheOthin
By definition, if you get back up from a given point, it WAS the lowest point for that scenario.
fogel
Taking the metaphor, the thing about ‘rock bottom’ isn’t how low it is, it’s that it REALLY hurts when you hit it. But it’s not even necessarily the bottom. I recently saw a good line about someone who hit rock bottom and started digging. On the other hand, I think you can realize that rock bottom is going to REALLY hurt while you’re still on the way down and act before you hit–I’m hoping.
Cybersnark
Clearly, hitting rock bottom is the new jumping the shark.
fogel
Rock sharks!
JWLM
Rocking the shark’s bottom!
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
@Fogel: Rock Lobsters?
Nyxness
Having hit what I consider to be my rock bottom this past spring, I respectfully disagree. It’s not necessarily that rock bottom is “everything’s as bad as it could possibly ever be,” but that it’s “everything’s as bad as I can let it get before being forced to recognize that something needs to change and I can’t change it alone.” And of course that point varies if it’s ever reached at all, but I do think that in many cases that realization is necessary for recovery. It’s not meant to discourage people who are trying to get help before destroying their lives, but many people simply can’t or won’t do that without the wake-up call that is rock bottom. For me, I knew for a while that I probably SHOULD be getting help, but it took feeling like my life was falling apart around me to acknowledge that I NEEDED help to prevent me from destroying it for good.
fogel
AND found the courage/desperation to seek that help and to accept it if you find it — and my best wishes to you on the path.
rachel
good job, friend – there’s more light on the path you’re on than there was before you took this step.
Pernath
The fact with “rock bottom” is that some continue to dig, some just find an equilibrium on this slight rope, some come to an epiphany.
From the last some manage to improve, at least temporarily.
Each case is quite unique. Meh, humans…
Jenny Creed
As Cassidy tells us in the pages of Preacher, there is no ground floor in Hell. I think there’s only the limits you set for yourself, and maybe it feels like rock bottom because you cannot imagine lowering yourself further.
Like so many arguments on the Internet, it’s just a question of defining terms.
fogel
No “just” about it! 🙂
rachel
yeah, I hear that. the thing is, it can always get worse. some folks’ “rock bottom” looks WAY HIGHER than someone else’s, but the point is, it doesn’t have to be REALLY REALLY AWFUL to start getting help. best wishes to all in recovery in the comment section.
Camachri
Take me down to the paradise city, where the grass is green and the girls are… pretty messed up.
An Average Loser
OH WON’T YOU PLEASE TAKE ME HOOOOOME!
Giant Speck
I KNOW WHO I WANT TO TAKE ME HOM–wait, wrong song.
Dean
HOME, HOME ON THE RANGE- no, wait, that isn’t right…
Jen Aside
I wish I was… HO-OMEWARD Bou–wait
Skellig
AAAAAAARRREEEE YOU GONNA TAKE ME HOME TONI– gosh dangit!
fogel
Voulez vous …
LittleMountain
COUNTRY ROOOADS, TAKE ME HO- nope, still not the right one
Kaoy
HOME IS WHERE THE HEA- Shit, that’s not even a song.
Knightsky
MAMA, I’M COMING HOM- ah, hell.
Rachel Roth
Home, home on the — Okay, I KNOW that isn’t it.
Rachel Roth
Rats still, not a dina! Also, sorry for mispelling my email address. Hard to post on phone.
Icalasari
Home-dor?
JWLM
I see what you did there…and it’s awesome.
Well played.
Anderhail
Thank you for making my evening
elysecat
I’M COMING HOME, COMIN- wait, shit.
Doctor_Who
Still a less messed up relationship than Twilight.
Jen Aside
Although Billie DID watch Ruth sleep, huh
Doctor_Who
Yeah, but she had the good sense to just snap a picture so she could enjoy it at her leisure. Edward apparently needed a live show every night.
L33tmaster
So its about the same huh
Just with out the sparkels
Raptorman
Trust me, Skye and Ward from Agents of Shield are a far less messed up relationship than Twilight.
Yotomoe
Everything’s better compared to Twighlight.
Graq
Have I got a little series to tell you about called “50 Shades of Grey”.
Doctor_Who
No, that IS Twilight. It’s just what happens when Twilight starts working for Slipshine.
rachel
nearly ruined my work computer reading your comment, warn me before I take a sip next time???? JEEZ, COURTESY, PEOPLE
/jkjkjk
Shadlyn
DO NOT insult slipshine. 50 Shades is not porn; it is what happens when people who are embarassed about porn try to imagine porn.
begbert2
You could say the same about Twilight itself.
Jen Aside
I’ll give it that, at least Twilight wasn’t written in fucking PRESENT TENSE.
ninja_jesus
Fun Fact: 50 Shades of Grey started as a Twilight fanfic.
Catullus
I… wha… who does that?!
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
The Hunger Games did that, and it’s a pretty good series. Well, at least the first book is. The others I’ve heard mixed opinions about and haven’t read.
It’s used to evoke a sense of witnessing the action, though that’s probably why the Hunger Games works better as a movie than it does a book.
Jen Aside
Hunger Games works better as a movie because the book is WAY too much telling and not showing–Katniss spontaneously recalls various bits of exposition rather than even just talking with someone about them. Also, that Donald Sutherland literally wrote himself a larger part by explaining how you can’t “act” a tyrant, because tyranny is most effectively shown through how it affects other people. [citation: extras on Hunger Games DVD/BD]
I’ve read another book [the title of which I’ve long forgotten but it was some sci-fi thing about crossing dimensions in the 2-D/3-D/4-D/etc. sense] in first-person present tense, and I honestly think it and Hunger Games would have been vastly improved by NOT writing them in present tense. It’s stupid and should only exist in scripts, Dick and Jane books, and Choose Your Own Adventure books.
GuruBuckaroo
Bright Lights, Big City was written in second person present tense. Basically someone telling you what you, the main character, are currently doing. Had to read it for highschool. Seriously weird read, never have found another example.
Zababcd
Present tense is pretty standard for the second-person perspective, but the second-person perspective is very unusual. First-person or third-person present tense is also fairly common in thrillers, in my experience.
Earnest
Halting State and Rule 34 by Charles Stross, too. It actually works pretty well there.
Drunken Nordmann
Why would anyone write a book in present tense?
LograyX
I want to write a book in the Future tense.
Clif
I want to have written a best-selling book in the past tense.
xKiv
I want a book written in future plusquamperfectum, because I want perfect future.
Tenn
Why wouldn’t they?
The reason hardly any stories are written in present tense is that we’re weirded out by it. The reason we are weirded out by it is that hardly any stories are written in present tense. It’s a closed cause-and-effect loop. If more stories were written in present tense, we would be less weirded out by it.
There are stories where the point of view of the narrator is explicitly set after the events, and those stories should be told in past tense. But for other stories, there’s really no reason apart from force of habit. If the narrator can move our field of “vision” anywhere in space and even inside people’s minds, then not being able to witness events as they unfold seems like a completely arbitrary restriction.
ninja_jesus
One thing I like about fanfic writing is that a lot of authors do use present tense. 😀
begbert2
If nothing else it would be a way of avoiding writing in past past tense, as in when a character is reminiscing about events that had happened previously in a story and you need to distinguish between those events and thing that are ‘currently’ happening. Because when you find yourself putting the word “had” twice in every sentence long enough, you find yourself breaking into fleeting moments of present tense (couched as a straight dictation of the character’s thoughts/experiences at the time) just to give yourself a damn break. Or rather you’ll have done that because you had that experience that had made you want a damn break. Dammit.
Yotomoe
I don’t know much about 50 shades of Grey, but I do know that it doesn’t have vampires that have almost none of the features, strengths, or weaknesses of vampires.
That Damn Rat
Always remember Yotomoe, it can always get worse. Always.
rachel
when it comes to fancanon, we all pay the price
xKiv
They could also not have the … name?
Betty Anne
Most “published fanfics” end up changing the names of the characters and/or making them humans for the sake of making them “original characters.” Cassandra Clare did it with City of Bones/her Harry Potter fic, fandom threw a fit, E.L. James did it with 50 Shades/her Twilight fic, fandom threw a fit. The problem is that fans have “gone pro” in various forms for pretty much as long as people have been fans of stuff. http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fans_Turned_Pro
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
Much like Dungeons and Dragons was written by Tolkien fans, though I’ll admit that nobody is very apologetic about that.
fogel
Happened in ancient Greece when a bard after Homer did it with the Iliad.
nothri
Yotomoe, you are playing with fire my friend. Saying nothing is as bad as twilight will be taken as a challenge by someone. And if anything is worse than twilight, I don’t want to know about it. Sooner or later we’ll create something so shitty that it bends the fabric of space and time. And then the old ones will awake and Cthulhu eats our faces.
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
Have you ever heard of a book (maybe a series?) known as Left Behind?
TJ Baltimore
I read the first several books in the “Left Behind” series. Then partway through, by untreated mechanisms, I became an atheist. I couldn’t finish it after that. I maintain, however, that the storytelling is compelling if you can ignore the parts where main characters representing of their sinful ways and turn to Jesus. Kind of like the Jefferson Bible, in that respect. (The Jefferson Bible has to have its own Wikipedia page, for those who don’t know about it.)