The More You Try, The Worse You Feel | On Mood Swings

Mood swings are portrayed as a predictable consequence of impermanence colliding with human desire—so the emotional whiplash isn’t just “bad luck,” it’s often built into how people relate to circumstances. The core claim is that moods rise and fall because external events are unstable, but the real driver is internal attachment and mental stance: when happiness depends on what can change, emotional stability collapses.

Stoicism frames the world as governed by Lady Fortuna—capricious chance that can deliver poverty, death, violence, and sudden reversals. Even elaborate security can’t block misfortune. Yet Stoics draw a crucial distinction: circumstances don’t automatically determine feelings; attitudes toward those circumstances do. The mechanism is desire and aversion. Wanting outcomes and resisting unwanted ones makes mood track fortune—good conditions produce happiness, bad conditions produce despair—creating the very swings people suffer. The result is a kind of slavery to circumstance, where happiness becomes hostage to fate.

Buddhism reaches a similar psychological root through attachment. Because everything is transient (anicca/impermanence), clinging to people, money, and possessions guarantees pain when loss arrives—or even when the mind anticipates loss. Mood swings also intensify through “monkey mind” rumination, worry, and anxiety, and through the five mental hindrances: desire, anger, stagnation, restlessness & worry, and doubt. The “good news” is that problematic emotions are impermanent too; they come and pass. But the transcript emphasizes a double trap: clinging to a good mood can worsen the next decline, and dissatisfaction with the decline adds a second arrow of suffering.

Existentialism adds a different pressure point: mood swings intensify when people confront meaninglessness and the absurdity of existence. When the desire for overarching meaning meets an indifferent universe, despair follows. People then seek distraction—work, romance, religion, or numbing substances—yet the confrontation with meaninglessness tends to return.

Epicureanism shifts the focus to desire management. Happiness (ataraxia) depends on avoiding irrational fears and unnecessary, unnatural desires—especially those tied to fragile goals like extreme wealth and fame. Chasing “more” ensures emotional instability because reputation and status inevitably erode.

Finally, the transcript complicates the philosophy-first picture by bringing in biology and mental health. Genetics, sleep deprivation, and disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder can trigger extreme emotional shifts “seemingly for no reason.” The Stoics are said to acknowledge this through involuntary, below-threshold “pre-emotions” and involuntary physiological responses. Still, the transcript draws a line: true emotions (passions) are consequences of reasoning, while some intense reactions may fall into mental illness rather than rational emotion.

Across traditions, the practical takeaway is consistent: mood swings are complex, but inner peace improves when people reduce entanglement with what can’t be controlled, train attention and acceptance, and adopt systems—philosophical or psychological—that help regulate desire, aversion, attachment, and rumination. The closing note broadens the point: mood swings aren’t modern; emperors, composers, monarchs, writers, and even mythic figures have been portrayed as vulnerable to turbulent emotion.