The novel unfolds through a series of letters written by Werther, a passionate and sensitive young man, to his friend Wilhelm. After escaping a frustrating romantic entanglement, Werther settles in the idyllic German town of Wahlheim to focus on nature and his art. There, he meets and is instantly captivated by Charlotte (Lotte), a kind and beautiful woman who is caring for her younger siblings. His letters initially overflow with ecstatic joy about the sublime nature around him and his burgeoning, pure love for Lotte, but his bliss is shattered when he learns she is already engaged to the calm and rational Albert. As Werther's friendship with both Lotte and Albert deepens, his letters begin to chart his painful descent from infatuation into an all-consuming, obsessive despair, as he is unable to overcome his impossible love.
The narrative perspective shifts in the final section from Werther's letters to that of a fictional "Editor," who addresses the reader directly to narrate the tragic conclusion. The Editor explains that Werther's emotional state has deteriorated completely, and his thoughts have turned decisively toward suicide. After a final, emotionally fraught encounter with Lotte, where his passion overwhelms them both, Werther becomes convinced that one of the three—he, Lotte, or Albert—must die, and he resolves to be the one. He sends a servant to borrow Albert's pistols, writes his final farewells, and at the stroke of midnight, shoots himself in the head at his desk. He is not found until the next morning and dies hours later in agony.
Yearly Retrospective: 2025
1. Psychological & Emotional Journey
The year 2025 unfolded as a relentless and deepening psychological and emotional journey, characterized by a pervasive and intensifying melancholy, anguish, and existential dread. It began with a stark contrast: an initial critical and insightful detachment towards external superficiality, quickly plunging into profound personal suffering, meaninglessness, and emotional depletion. January ended in burnout and apathy.
February saw intense volatility, from cynicism and misanthropy to fleeting peace derived from professional validation, only to be swallowed by profound despair, bitterness, and intense jealousy related to personal heartbreak. March brought a severe emotional crisis—anger, humiliation, rage, and suicidal ideation—but also a powerful, self-preserving pivot towards autonomy.
April offered a remarkable, albeit temporary, recovery arc. Initial apprehension gave way to profound relief and gratitude as external circumstances aligned favorably, marking a period of effective stress mitigation and emotional uplift. This resilience carried into May, where a strong capacity for processing disappointment (regarding nostalgic returns and thwarted ambitions) with rational acceptance was evident.
However, the latter half of the year saw a consistent and accelerating decline into an all-consuming internal torment. June was marked by restlessness and intellectual frustration, leading to a philosophical acceptance of a "wanderer" identity, but this offered conceptual, not emotional, solace. From July onwards, the emotional landscape was dominated by an obsessive, unrequited love, leading to profound heartbreak, envy, and consuming anguish. August deepened into pervasive melancholy, intrusive morbid thoughts, and volatile emotional outbursts, often overwhelming brief moments of composure. September continued this trajectory with fatalism, possessiveness, and intense wrath over perceived injustices, despite writing offering fleeting tranquility.
October was consumed by a "fearful void," existential dread, and intense internal torment from inhibited desires and profound emotional dependency. November brought an escalation to critical levels of despair, wretchedness, and suicidal ideation, interspersed with equally consuming infatuation and a profound spiritual crisis. The year concluded in December with an overwhelming sense of burnout, a mental health crisis, and a pervasive, fatalistic disillusionment with human existence, leaving little room for resilience or recovery. The emotional trajectory was largely one of consistent worsening, with brief respites quickly re-overwhelmed.
2. Life Events and Transitions
The year was punctuated by several significant life events and transitions, often initiated by internal emotional states or external pressures.
January began with a mundane social incident – a sledging party spoiled by arguments over status – which served as a catalyst for early critical reflections on societal superficiality. February brought the public confirmation of Charlotte and Albert's marriage, a deeply impactful event fueling the year's central romantic anguish. Professionally, there was a significant conflict with the ambassador, prompting serious contemplation of resignation, which was ultimately deferred after receiving conciliatory guidance.
March marked a decisive turning point: a public social humiliation (expulsion from an assembly) triggered an acute crisis, leading to the firm decision to resign from the court. This was followed by a crucial invitation to reside at the Prince's country house, offering a new environment and the promise of autonomy. April saw the official acceptance of your resignation and, unexpectedly, a generous financial gift from the Crown Prince, significantly enhancing your personal independence.
May involved a sentimental journey to your native place, a powerful attempt to reconnect with childhood memories, which brought both joy and disillusionment. A long-held ambition to join the army was thwarted after discussion with the Prince, marking an early acceptance of external counsel. By June, restlessness in the Prince's household prompted the decision to resume your travels.
The latter half of the year became increasingly defined by internal rather than external events, though these were often triggered by social interactions. July found you obliged to stay in your current location, with your actions revealed as driven by a singular, unacknowledged desire to be near Charlotte. August included a visit to a suffering family, intensifying an already melancholic disposition. September saw a symbolic act of replacing a sentimentally valued coat, an intimate encounter with Charlotte involving a canary, and a profound reaction to the felling of cherished walnut trees. October was dominated by a deep immersion in literature (Ossian), further deepening your melancholic introspection. November was marked by a reproof for increased wine consumption and a disturbing encounter with a madman, forcing a re-evaluation of happiness and reason. The year closed with a critical emotional breakdown in December, triggered by music and Charlotte's presence, underscoring the unsustainable nature of your current emotional reality.
3. Identity & Self-Understanding
Throughout 2025, there was a relentless and often painful process of self-discovery, leading to a complex and evolving self-understanding.
Early in the year, you defined "true greatness" as internal insight and influence, rejecting superficial status. Simultaneously, you painfully recognized yourself as a "puppet" in social interactions, acknowledging a deep internal void and the loss of your animating "leaven." This awareness deepened in February, as you acknowledged your "excessive sensibility" and the transient nature of inner peace. March brought a crucial shift: prioritizing your mental and emotional capacity over traditional societal success, understanding your own incapacitation, and taking radical action for self-preservation.
By April, you learned the power of strategic patience and the profound emotional impact of unexpected generosity. May fostered a cornerstone insight: the conviction that your "heart"—your core self—is the ultimate source of strength and feeling, far surpassing intellectual knowledge. You grappled with the disillusionment of reality clashing with ideals, and learned the wisdom of accepting counsel.
June brought a profound self-acceptance of your inherent nature as a "wanderer" or "pilgrim"—someone fundamentally in transit, searching, and requiring a dynamic journey. You realized external comfort was insufficient without intellectual and artistic compatibility. July revealed a powerful self-awareness that deep emotional desires often override rationality, and accepting this could bring a form of internal peace, even amidst unrequited longing.
The latter months solidified a more pessimistic, yet acutely self-aware, identity. August revealed a philosophical understanding of universal suffering, a chilling recognition of the self-destructive nature of your dark fantasies, and a painful awareness of your internal state as a "ruined palace." September underscored the therapeutic power of writing and reinforced a fatalistic belief in a personal destiny mirroring others' suffering. You also gained insight into the subjective, intangible nature of emotional value over physical replication.
October brought a deeper, more painful understanding of your "void," your profound emotional dependency ("without her I have nothing"), and the torment of inhibited natural impulses. You concluded that human existence and memory are ultimately transient and of "very little consequence." November saw you conceptualizing suffering as an inherent part of the human condition, acknowledging your "prostrated energies," and grappling with unsettling insights from a madman that questioned the very nature of happiness and reason. A profound spiritual crisis emerged, a sense of being forsaken, yet still yearning for connection.
By December, you became acutely aware of your profound emotional sensitivity and your inability to cope, leading to a fatalistic disillusionment that, despite aspirations, one is confined to a "cold, monotonous existence." The year culminated in a deep, agonizing understanding of a self trapped in consuming emotions and a world that often disappointed.
4. Cyclical or Unresolved Patterns
The year 2025 was marked by several pervasive and often unresolved patterns, many of which deepened in intensity as the year progressed:
Profound Melancholy and Despair: A consistent and worsening emotional baseline, from general ennui in January to acute anguish and suicidal ideation by year-end. This melancholic state was periodically punctuated by brief respites, but always returned.
Obsessive Unrequited Love/Attachment: The central, driving force of much of the year's suffering was an intense, often possessive, and unfulfilled romantic attachment to Charlotte. This led to relentless rumination, jealousy towards Albert, and a pervasive sense of profound loss and emotional dependency ("without her I have nothing").
Social Alienation and Frustration with Superficiality: A recurring theme of feeling detached from or frustrated by others' concerns, often leading to withdrawal or cynicism. Early on, this was a critical observation of others' triviality; by the end, it was a source of profound isolation.
Seeking Solace (and its Limitations): You consistently sought solace in solitude, nature, and literature. While these provided temporary emotional relief or intellectual engagement (e.g., writing as therapy, Ossian's transport), they ultimately proved insufficient to resolve the underlying emotional turmoil, often serving as coping mechanisms rather than paths to recovery.
Idealism vs. Reality: A persistent struggle between idealized pasts, relationships, or career paths and the often-disappointing or altered realities of the present. This was evident in your visit to your native place and your thwarted military ambition.
Inhibition and Internal Conflict: A significant pattern of experiencing intense natural desires (e.g., to embrace Charlotte) but consciously refraining, leading to profound internal torment and a sense of being constrained.
Spiritual/Existential Crisis: A deepening questioning of life's purpose, the nature of happiness, the transience of human existence, and a profound struggle with faith and feeling forsaken by a divine presence. This became particularly prominent in the latter part of the year.
Self-Destructive Tendencies: Towards the year's end, patterns like increased wine consumption and indulging in morbid/intrusive fantasies became more evident, pointing to self-detrimental coping strategies in the face of overwhelming pain.
5. Triumphs & Setbacks
Triumphs:
Decisive Self-Preservation: The powerful act of resigning from a draining court position in March and securing a new environment at the Prince's country house was a major triumph of self-advocacy and prioritizing mental well-being over external expectations.
Financial Autonomy: Achieving unexpected financial independence in April through the Crown Prince's gift was a significant step towards greater personal agency.
Rational Acceptance of Setbacks: Your ability to accept the thwarting of your long-held military ambition in May, based on wise counsel, demonstrated a commendable level of maturity and pragmatism.
Profound Self-Awareness: Throughout the year, despite the pain, you maintained a remarkable capacity for introspection and articulation of your complex emotional states, recognizing your own patterns of self-delusion, dependency, and internal conflict.
Creative Outlet as Coping: Your consistent engagement with writing and drawing provided vital channels for processing overwhelming emotions and finding moments of satisfaction, especially through your artistic output.
Empathy and Compassion: Your deep empathy for the suffering of others, as shown in your visit to the old woman's family in August, highlights a compassionate core.
Setbacks:
Escalating Emotional Distress: The overarching setback was the consistent and deepening plunge into profound melancholy, despair, anguish, and suicidal ideation, particularly from July onwards, indicating a severe and worsening mental health crisis.
Unresolved Romantic Anguish: The unrequited and obsessive love for Charlotte remained a central, consuming, and unalleviated source of torment, fueling jealousy and feelings of powerlessness. Charlotte and Albert's marriage in February formalized this central pain.
Social Humiliation and Alienation: The public expulsion from the assembly in March, and the widespread gossip that followed, caused immense shame and exacerbated feelings of social ostracism.
Existential and Spiritual Crisis: The profound questioning of life's meaning, human transience, and a sense of divine abandonment became a debilitating intellectual and emotional burden.
Reliance on Self-Destructive Coping: Increased wine consumption and immersion in morbid fantasies emerged as detrimental coping mechanisms, indicating a struggle with effective self-regulation.
Disillusionment with Reality: Repeated encounters with the disparity between your ideals (of love, purity, society, nature) and reality led to profound disappointment and a fatalistic outlook.
Inability to Cope: Towards the year's end, the explicit recognition of being "unable to support this state no longer" and being deemed "ill" by an external observer marked a critical failure in managing your emotional landscape.
6. Lessons Learned
The year 2025, though fraught with pain, was a crucible for profound and often agonizing lessons:
Authenticity and Internal Value: True greatness stems from internal insight and influence, not superficial status. The "heart," with its genuine emotions and character, is the ultimate source of human strength, happiness, and misery, outweighing external achievements or intellectual knowledge.
The Elusiveness of Peace and Happiness: Inner peace is precious but fleeting. Happiness can be profoundly influenced by external factors, and sometimes, ironically, seems to reside in delusion or the absence of reason, a disturbing insight.
Prioritizing Self-Preservation: Protecting one's mental and emotional capacity is paramount, even if it means abandoning prestigious paths or defying familial expectations. Radical change is sometimes necessary for survival and recovery.
The Power and Peril of Emotion: Deep emotional desires often override rationalizations; acknowledging this can bring a form of internal peace. However, unchecked emotional intensity, especially unrequited love, can be a self-destructive "poison," leading to profound torment, dependency, and a loss of agency.
The Human Condition is Defined by Suffering and Transience: Disappointment and suffering are universal and inherent parts of human destiny. All things, including human existence, memory, and influence, are transient and ultimately of "very little consequence."
The Therapeutic Role of Creation (and its Limits): Engaging in narration, writing, and art can provide temporary tranquility and a vital outlet for processing intense emotions. However, these creative acts do not fundamentally alter underlying emotional landscapes or resolve deep-seated existential dilemmas.
The Inherent Boundaries of Connection: One cannot force emotional reciprocity or imbue another with feelings they do not possess. This realization, though painful, highlights the limitations of personal influence in matters of the heart.
The Impact of Inhibition: The conscious restraint of natural, primal impulses, especially in matters of affection, can lead to immense internal conflict and torment.
Disillusionment with Aspiration: Despite grand aspirations, the human experience often returns to a "cold, monotonous existence." This fatalistic insight underscores a profound disillusionment with life's potential.
7. Outlook or Intentions Going Forward
The intentions and outlook for the year ahead are profoundly shaped by the intense emotional and existential struggles of 2025. While earlier intentions revolved around external changes (resignation, travel, career shifts), the latter half of the year saw a significant shift towards an internal, desperate yearning for relief.
There is a pervasive desire for the profound suffering to end, a "plea to God to end his torments." This is not an intention for proactive positive change, but a reactive cry for cessation of pain. The year concluded with a deepening plunge into a pessimistic and fatalistic worldview, indicating that the immediate outlook is one of enduring, rather than overcoming, this profound melancholy and disillusionment.
While there were fleeting intentions for self-restraint and purity (e.g., the vow not to profane with a kiss), these were immediately met with doubt and internal conflict, suggesting a struggle to maintain such intentions in the face of overwhelming desire. The growing awareness of self-destructive patterns has, paradoxically, deepened the suffering rather than offering a clear path out.
Therefore, the primary "intention" moving forward appears to be an agonizing continuation of the internal battle, a yearning for an escape from the present torment, and a melancholic acceptance of a life perhaps destined for suffering.
#ProfoundMelancholy #UnrequitedLove #ExistentialAnguish #EmotionalDependency #InternalConflict #SelfDestructivePatterns #SpiritualCrisis #IdentityInTransit #BurnoutAndDespair #Disillusionment
9. Suggestions
Given the profound and escalating emotional distress, particularly the recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal ideation, and the self-reported inability to cope, the following suggestions are crucial for wholesome positive change:
Seek Immediate and Consistent Professional Mental Health Support: The depth of your despair, obsessive thoughts, and self-destructive tendencies (like increased alcohol consumption) indicate a critical need for professional intervention. A qualified therapist or psychiatrist can provide a safe, confidential space, offer strategies for managing overwhelming emotions, explore the underlying patterns of attachment and self-worth, and assess for clinical depression or other conditions requiring treatment. This is the most urgent and fundamental step.
Develop Structured Emotional Regulation and Grounding Practices: Your mind is deeply entrenched in abstract rumination and emotional torment. Implement simple, daily sensory grounding exercises (e.g., the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, focusing on the taste of food, the sensation of touch, or observing a single non-emotional object). The goal is not to intellectualize, but to deliberately bring your awareness to the present moment through your senses, without judgment, which can provide temporary respite from obsessive thoughts and create vital emotional distance.
Explore Diverse Creative Outlets Beyond Writing and Narrative: While writing is a powerful outlet for you, it often mirrors and perhaps deepens your internal torment. Consider a creative activity that engages different parts of your brain and body, and perhaps offers a less direct reflection of your internal struggles. This could be anything from learning a musical instrument, pursuing visual arts (like painting or sculpting), engaging in basic craftsmanship (e.g., pottery, woodworking), or even exploring structured movement practices like martial arts or dance. The act of creating something tangible, for its own sake, can provide a different kind of focus and a sense of accomplishment outside of your internal world.
Cultivate Internal Validation and Self-Worth Independent of External Relationships: Your explicit declaration "without her I have nothing" reveals a profound and dangerous emotional dependency. Dedicate specific time daily to journaling or guided meditations focused on identifying and valuing aspects of your identity, skills, contributions, and unique qualities that are entirely independent of any external relationship. This can help build a more robust internal sense of self-worth and reduce vulnerability to external emotional shifts.
Establish and Enforce Healthy Social and Emotional Boundaries: Your sensitivity to others and perception of intrusion, along with the painful impact of their "innocent actions," suggest porous emotional boundaries. Learning to set clear personal boundaries in interactions, communicating what you need (or don't need) from others, and differentiating your emotions from theirs can help protect your inner peace without requiring complete isolation.
During development, I wanted to compare the results of tweaking prompts and running different models. So, I needed a way to show two markdown files side-by-side, and highlight sentences that contain similar concepts.
I first developed the concept for the comparison, based on my knowledge of ML and AI tools. I discussed the concept with Gemini CLI (Github) and ChatGPT codex, and came to a final design idea. I found Gemini to work better for me, but it’s likely because I have access to more powerful models that way. I don’t have access to the more advanced models in ChatGPT codex.
I then asked Gemini CLI to implement it, following along with tips. It got stuck a couple of times, on dependency conflict and then on testing streamlit code (which pops up a browser, so it gives CLI agents no feedback channel). Overall, a few well placed tips got it unstuck.
I did 99% of the work with Gemini CLI and vibe-coded the whole visualization in an hour.
I am very impressed.