A grasp on what depression is and why it’s a thing
This is going to be something mostly different from what I usually write on here, as it's not really about politics but about philosophy and maybe a bit of psychology (although please take into account that this is all personal thought and none of it is based on actual scientific research on the human mind). However, politics and philosophy are deeply related topics and they both have one objective in common: to figure out how to live better. While politics sees this from a point of view based on the masses and how individuals interact and form a society with each other, with common benefit as the goal, philosophy makes points about individual thought and how can one interact best with themselves. This topic also relates these two schools of thought behind an even bigger premise: people are unhappy. You can't deny this. Depression, anxiety, sadness, these are all things that are reported by people now more than ever before. People now, more than ever, are willing to admit that they hate themselves. And this is where I have a strong sense of what's wrong in our way of organization as a society, of how we view ourselves as individuals and how we view others.
I have strong motives to believe that depression, angst, anxiety, and general sadness are all caused by a common factor: the unability of most individuals to come into terms with their own demons. Let me clarify: everyone has problems. No matter how much money you have or how much faith you have in whatever religion you glorify, you can still fall down the pit of despair every once in a while. And many people never find the way out, even when they have absolutely all the means to. And this is the reason: fear. People fear to look inside themselves, because most of the time what we hold within ourselves is a gigantic mess of terrible, unpleasant thoughts, generated by all the problems and stress we accumulate everyday and by the horrible, pessimistic notion that society has placed in our heads: that we're replaceable. That no matter what we do, there's always someone else who can do it better than us. It's this way that we start to devaluate ourselves inside our own heads, to think we have nothing to offer to this world, as if we owed something to it (which we don't).
We start to develop an ego, a character formed inside our minds and we convince ourselves that we are this character because we don't want to accept who we really are. And the worst part is that we want people to acknowledge this character, and to even support it wholeheartedly, because if they don't they might be able to see the real person lying within, that real person that we hate. The ego starts to grow, and depending on what kind of situation we're in, we either become highly selfish or highly self-denying to the point where we don't care about ourselves anymore. We start to live for others and for the way they think about us. We wish for them to reinforce our ego in a desperate attempt to convince ourselves that we are that character. And this is how social inhibition is born inside an individual. We start to care so much about what others think that we lose track of what we think, and we suppress our inner thoughts more and more by the passing day. We fall under self-pity, we want compassion and sympathy instead of the truth, because the truth scares us. And like this we start to develop stuff like depression, anxiety and personality disorders, just for the fact that our ego prevents us from facing our own demons. For instance, people who cut themselves do it because they desperately need social acceptance. It's all a product of self-pity. And most of the time they won't realize it, as it's all mostly subconscious. Most people usually don't realize this, but "feeling bad" is an incredibly comfortable position to be in. It takes no effort to be sad. Granted, it doesn't feel good, but it's a lot easier than actually doing something for your own happiness. And this is understandable, as fighting for the sake of bringing yourself happiness is hard and needs to be constant, as your problems and demons will never stop existing. You'll never completely get rid of them, no matter how much you distract yourself from them.
This process is almost universal. You'd have to be some sort of hermit to not fall under this collective social conditioning that's been going on throughout history in general. And the worst part is that no one is at fault, really. How could someone in particular be at fault of something we've all contributed to in some way? But the thing is: we can break the circle. We can teach people that feeling sad is okay and we've succeeded at this as seeking mental help isn't taboo anymore, but we've forgotten something very important. Teaching people to accept their weaknesses and to turn them into strong points. Teaching people that living for yourself isn't wrong or selfish, in fact it's quite the opposite. It is selfish to live for others and to wish for them to reinforce your ego. It's selfish to use others as a means to feel better yourself. However, when you learn that the ego is something that will always be there and that it's healthy to keep it as long as you don't let it do damage within your own interactions with yourself and with the rest of people, that's the moment when you start to live in peace. When you stop caring so much about what others think about you. When you realize that when you dislike something, it's either because of envy or because they remind you of yourself. When you see that your opinions aren't part of yourself but are rather a sort of box that you bring with yourself everywhere you go. When you see that being friends or falling in love isn't about always being with the person in question, but being able to distance yourself from them and have nothing change between you. Keep in mind, this is not something that happens from one day to the other. This is a process that often takes a lifetime to complete. You can always learn more about yourself, and that's the key to this enigma: knowing yourself and acknowledging yourself fully, and not trying to suppress who you really are.
I have a personal philosophy that's gotten me through many situations in life, and I'd like to share it with you. It's based on a phrase from a visual novel/anime titled "Little Busters!", and it goes as following.
This sentence, as depressing and Schopenhauerian as it sounds, is absolutely true. No matter what it is we're talking about, everything you have in life is temporary and you will eventually lose it. This means happiness isn't within not losing anything, but withing finding the way to accept loss and move on. To accept that you will eventually die and that whatever you do in life doesn't really matter too much, but that this doesn't mean that you shouldn't live your life to it's fullest. In fact, quite the contrary. It means that you can do whatever you want, not even the sky is the limit. So don't feel guilty for "wasting your time", because no time spent on what you enjoy is really wasted. Always take the red pill, as the truth will never be hurtful if you don’t let it hurt you. Live, my friends, and always remember: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
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