The Dostoevsky Protocol: Optimizing Your Despair for Peak Performance

The morning begins, as it always does, with the crushing weight of existence pressing down upon you before you even rise from your bed. But fear not, my dear reader, for I shall provide you with a protocol, a series of mechanistic actions to address this abyss we call life. You see, science has decreed that one can indeed hack his way to enlightenment, to happiness, and—should the fates allow—to a life free from the oppressive fog of uncertainty.

Step One: Face the Sun and Wrestle with Your Futility

Upon awakening, you must throw open the curtains. Not violently, but with the kind of quiet resignation that comes from knowing the day has already begun, with or without your consent. The light spills in—not to save you, not to grant you some newfound hope—but simply because it must. The sun, like life, rises indifferent to your struggles, yet offers its warmth all the same.

They say this sunlight will sync your circadian rhythms, bring you clarity. Perhaps. But perhaps, more importantly, it is a moment to stand still before the day overtakes you, to acknowledge that your life continues, even as the world turns with serene indifference. You are not in control—but in that lack of control, there is a strange freedom. Stand there, and breathe.

Step Two: Cold Immersion or Simulated Siberian Exile

Ah, yes—now for the cold plunge. Descend into the icy bath, as though you were a prisoner exiled to Siberia. The temperature should be no more than the bitter wind on a St. Petersburg night. Why, you ask? Is it to awaken the body, to cleanse the spirit? No, my dear reader—it is to remind you that suffering is eternal. They say this will boost your dopamine levels, but do not mistake this fleeting joy for actual meaning. It is a trick, a farce.

Remain submerged until you feel nothing, for it is only in this numbness that you will understand the true nature of our condition. Then, and only then, may you emerge, dripping with both water and disillusionment.

Step Three: Consume Bitter Coffee as One Consumes Life’s Sorrows

Next, the ritual of coffee—a black, bitter concoction that you must imbibe as though it were the liquid embodiment of life’s disappointments. There are those who will tell you to add butter or coconut oil, as though the richness of fat could somehow soften the blow of existence. Ignore them. Let the bitterness scald your throat, for this is where the clarity of purpose resides. This, they say, is for brain optimization. But we know better, don’t we? The truth is that the caffeine will give you a temporary rush, a brief respite from the crushing monotony, before it leaves you even more desolate than before.

Step Four: Journal

Now, they suggest that you must journal—write down your thoughts, your goals, your desires. But what are these goals? What is desire but a fruitless attempt to fill the unfillable void? I implore you to write, not for clarity, but to confront the chaos within. Every morning, fill the page with your musings, your inescapable thoughts. Look upon them and know that they are your true self. Productivity, they say, comes from this practice, but you know in your soul that this is a mere distraction.

Your words are not meant to change the world but to reflect your place within it. Write without expectation. Let the pen flow as it will, for it is in the act of writing that you may find—if not clarity, then at least honesty. And is that not enough?

Step Five: Move Your Body

Move your body. It is essential to release the endorphins and stave off the weight of your melancholy. But as you lift the weight, as you run, or stretch, or contort yourself into unnatural postures, remember that your body is both a temple and a prison—a temple of flesh and bone, yes, but also of despair. Each movement reminds you that no matter how strong you become, you will never escape the shackles of mortality.

Do not, however, take joy in this exercise. It is not for joy but for survival. Let the burn in your muscles remind you that life, too, is a series of small pains. You are not escaping life’s shackles but living within them, finding freedom in the very act of acknowledging your constraints.

Step Six: Supplements

And now, we arrive at the supplements—a peculiar modern phenomenon. These small, tasteless capsules, imbued with promises of heightened intellect, boundless energy, and eternal youth. We swallow them, as if in each pill lies a fragment of the solution to our human misery, as though the essence of life’s meaning could somehow be encapsulated in chemical form. But let us not deceive ourselves, my dear reader. These supplements are the very embodiment of the hollow optimism that so pervades our time, the belief that the body, the mind, the soul, can be fine-tuned like the mechanisms of a clock.

Take them if you must, but know that each pill is a tacit admission of our unwillingness to face the truth.

And so, my dear reader, you are ready to follow the protocol—not to hack life or optimize it into submission, but to participate in it.

Drink your water, if only because your body needs it. And perhaps, in this simple act, there is a kind of meaning.