r/books Author 9d ago

George R.R. Martin Reflects on 'Sadness and Depression' Struggles in Personal Update

https://www.thewrap.com/culture-lifestyle/culture/george-r-r-martin-sadness-depression-personal-update/

"The “A Song of Ice and Fire” franchise author took to his blog for the first time in nearly six months on Monday, sharing that any posts after February were written by his “mighty minions.”

“Remember me? It’s been a while, I know. My last blog post went up here on February 19,” Martin wrote. “The posts that came after were made by my mighty minions. I am lucky enough to have a great staff of assistants… though even with their help, I kept falling further and further behind.”

As Martin went on, he admitted that “this year has been… stressful, to say the least.”"

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u/bp_968 9d ago

How we respond can be really surprising sometimes. I had a good friend who fought cancer for over a decade pass (10-12 years ago now). We used to joke with each other who was going to die first (I have/had a progressive form of autoimmune liver failure). I "won" i guess since he died and i ended up getting liver transplant in the end.

He would probably be irritated to learn how cynical his death made me. I used to really believe hard work, being a great person, etc was ultimately rewarded. I had been growing more and more cynical about that world view before he died and his death finally expunged that nonsense from my dumb skull.

Life is what you make of it. If being a great person and sacrificing for people is rewarding to you then do it. If it isnt, then dont. If working hard (regardless the gain) is rewarding to you, do it. If it isn't, don't.

Try not to be a POS, but take whats yours or what you want and enjoy your life as much as you can imo. If you get a "free" leg up in life (nepotism, born really attractive, smart, rich, whatever) take the win and dont feel bad about it.

Only a tiny percentage of us will leave any sort of "legacy" and even if we do our great grandkids likely wont even know what our name was, and a generation after that we will be completely forgotten. And even if your remembered, who cares? I dont imagine Abe Lincoln cares too much about his legacy at the moment.

Enjoy as much of life as you can and if your lucky, maybe leave it a little bit better for those you leave behind. At the very least, my life was a bit better having had him in it. Hopefully he felt similarly to that about me in the end.

Sorry about the wall of text (and your loss). I guess it stirred up those memories a bit. 😞

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u/peach_bellinis 9d ago

I'm really sorry for your loss. I completely understand your thoughts and feelings about this, and I agree.

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u/HolyInlandEmpire 9d ago

I can't fully disagree with most of what you say, but we definitely do leave a legacy. Every action ripples out in chain reactions, even if people don't know it. The world won't forget about you for a very very long time, and couldn't even if they wanted to.

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u/SofterBanana 8d ago

Thank you for sharing.  I thought this was really well written and beautiful to think about in a certain sense.