Agree with what you say about the Spanish identifying as being from specific places and people from a specific area. In Puerto Rico we do the same and I've seen it also from other cultures, mostly Hispanic. But my father had a saying that I also agre with "You are from where you live", which aligns with the question of 'Where have you lived the longest?'. He would say that if you were born in Puerto Rico "but you live, eat, shit, pay taxes, and go to the hospital in Vietnam, then you are from Vietnam."
I’m aware that this view is controversial but I’ve never believed that depression exists independently of something in the world or oneself that one is apprehending which furnishes the understandable reason why one would respond to that thing with the mood we call depression. I don’t think the idea of depression is even sensible if that relationship is not present, even if the usual notion of depression is that one does not know what one is depressed about. That just means one does not know, not that one's state of mind has no articulate content.
I also think that the idea of depression is incoherent without any moral idea behind it (in the sense of morale, not morality). Some sense of hopeless pessimism (a synonym for depression) must obtain, which again must refer to the world or oneself, for depression to be a meaningful concept.
I picked this up somewhere, apropos of what people are depressed about:
“Freud defined depression as anger turned inwards. There’s some truth to this for sure, but I think the great existential psychologist Rollo May defined it more accurately: ‘Depression is the inability to construct a future.’”
Freud and May are surely both right. I’d add, apropos of your conversation with Lloyd, that depression can also be the inability to believe in one’s past, that one’s life was lived well. As Jung observed, "The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself. And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live."
This issue also shows up occasionally in literature. Tolstoy wrote in The Death of Ivan Ilyich: "It occurred to him that what had formerly appeared completely impossible to him, that he had not lived his life as he should have, might be true. It occurred to him that those barely noticeable impulses he had felt to fight against what highly placed people considered good, barely noticeable impulses which he had immediately driven away - that they might have been the real thing, and all the rest might have been not right. His work, and his living conditions, and his family, and these social and professional interests - all might have been not right. He tried to defend it all to himself. And he suddenly felt all the weakness of what he was defending. And there was nothing to defend."
I suspect that the belief that one has missed out on one’s own existence is one of life's most persistently harrowing and underappreciated contemplations. It is not generally known to those who do not have it unless they imagine it, but I surmise it is suffered by a not insignificant majority who, for good and bad reasons, compromised too dearly, in a way they would not have chosen had their eyes been more open, or had they been more timely mentally or spiritually alert or informed, with the society in which they lived.
And yet, the task of worthy differentiation of oneself from society can be more difficult than might be imagined. Emerson: "We sink as easily as we rise, through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their sympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation all too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their demerits,—by their love of gossip, or sheer tolerance and animal good-nature. They untune and dissipate the brave aspirant."
Is this outcome an inevitable byproduct of human beings in society? I don't know, but I do believe that it is an issue which should be given a lot more attention.
Thanks for these very thoughtful comments, with which I largely agree. I do think there is such a thing as endogenous depression though, which seems to have a significant genetic component -- as demonstrated in the usual studies showing higher incidence of depression in adopted kids whose biological parents suffered from it, twin studies, and so on.
Having said that, I agree with you that most of what we call "depression" is probably more relational with the circumstances of one's life than a purely hormonal issue. In addition to the conflicts and frustrations you cite, I'd add the lack of meaning in modern life (Ernest Becker's work) and the chronic stress from which most of us suffer, as opposed to occasional bouts of acute stress (Sapolsky). Rats in cages, safe from predators, are far more stressed than rats in their natural environments -- predators and all.
Agree with what you say about the Spanish identifying as being from specific places and people from a specific area. In Puerto Rico we do the same and I've seen it also from other cultures, mostly Hispanic. But my father had a saying that I also agre with "You are from where you live", which aligns with the question of 'Where have you lived the longest?'. He would say that if you were born in Puerto Rico "but you live, eat, shit, pay taxes, and go to the hospital in Vietnam, then you are from Vietnam."
A true elder. Conversations with him (even vicariously) seem to put things into perspective.
Any time I see Lloyd’s name pop up- I am here for it.
Lloyd is an inspiration. Take heed, younger men, to the wisdom of living life in wonder and amazement.
I just read on Twitter that Hegseth is going to restore all the medals won by the soldiers who 'fought' at Wounded Knee.
But *Shhh* don't call them Fascists! Or you'll hurt their feelings --and turn even more fascist...
Epstein distraction. Every day.
At this point I'm just waiting for them to show us the pickled aliens and the TV stage of the Moon landing just to keep us distracted from that.
I’m aware that this view is controversial but I’ve never believed that depression exists independently of something in the world or oneself that one is apprehending which furnishes the understandable reason why one would respond to that thing with the mood we call depression. I don’t think the idea of depression is even sensible if that relationship is not present, even if the usual notion of depression is that one does not know what one is depressed about. That just means one does not know, not that one's state of mind has no articulate content.
I also think that the idea of depression is incoherent without any moral idea behind it (in the sense of morale, not morality). Some sense of hopeless pessimism (a synonym for depression) must obtain, which again must refer to the world or oneself, for depression to be a meaningful concept.
I picked this up somewhere, apropos of what people are depressed about:
“Freud defined depression as anger turned inwards. There’s some truth to this for sure, but I think the great existential psychologist Rollo May defined it more accurately: ‘Depression is the inability to construct a future.’”
Freud and May are surely both right. I’d add, apropos of your conversation with Lloyd, that depression can also be the inability to believe in one’s past, that one’s life was lived well. As Jung observed, "The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself. And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live."
This issue also shows up occasionally in literature. Tolstoy wrote in The Death of Ivan Ilyich: "It occurred to him that what had formerly appeared completely impossible to him, that he had not lived his life as he should have, might be true. It occurred to him that those barely noticeable impulses he had felt to fight against what highly placed people considered good, barely noticeable impulses which he had immediately driven away - that they might have been the real thing, and all the rest might have been not right. His work, and his living conditions, and his family, and these social and professional interests - all might have been not right. He tried to defend it all to himself. And he suddenly felt all the weakness of what he was defending. And there was nothing to defend."
I suspect that the belief that one has missed out on one’s own existence is one of life's most persistently harrowing and underappreciated contemplations. It is not generally known to those who do not have it unless they imagine it, but I surmise it is suffered by a not insignificant majority who, for good and bad reasons, compromised too dearly, in a way they would not have chosen had their eyes been more open, or had they been more timely mentally or spiritually alert or informed, with the society in which they lived.
And yet, the task of worthy differentiation of oneself from society can be more difficult than might be imagined. Emerson: "We sink as easily as we rise, through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their sympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation all too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their demerits,—by their love of gossip, or sheer tolerance and animal good-nature. They untune and dissipate the brave aspirant."
Is this outcome an inevitable byproduct of human beings in society? I don't know, but I do believe that it is an issue which should be given a lot more attention.
Thanks for these very thoughtful comments, with which I largely agree. I do think there is such a thing as endogenous depression though, which seems to have a significant genetic component -- as demonstrated in the usual studies showing higher incidence of depression in adopted kids whose biological parents suffered from it, twin studies, and so on.
Having said that, I agree with you that most of what we call "depression" is probably more relational with the circumstances of one's life than a purely hormonal issue. In addition to the conflicts and frustrations you cite, I'd add the lack of meaning in modern life (Ernest Becker's work) and the chronic stress from which most of us suffer, as opposed to occasional bouts of acute stress (Sapolsky). Rats in cages, safe from predators, are far more stressed than rats in their natural environments -- predators and all.