Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!pesnta!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Depressing society (reposting a cancelled article) Message-ID: <1928@peora.UUCP> Date: Wed, 22-Jan-86 13:40:24 EST Article-I.D.: peora.1928 Posted: Wed Jan 22 13:40:24 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jan-86 19:00:24 EST References: <2338@pyuxd.UUCP>, <26600151@uiucdcs> <467@hounx.UUCP> <2734@sunybcs.UUCP> Organization: Concurrent Computer Corporation, Orlando, Fl Lines: 104 Well, in the past few weeks it seems all the technical newsgroups have died down, so I decided to try net.singles again. (You don't remember me but I used to write in here a lot about 6 months ago.) I'm following-up on a series of articles on depression. This series of articles has expressed the opposing viewpoints that: 1) Depressed people say depressing things if you are happy, and that's a real drag. If you say "so what", they will go away. 2) Depressed people perceive reality, and sometimes reality is depressing. 3) You shouldn't think about things that depress you, and then you won't get depressed. Well, depression tends to be a real problem for people who think a lot. In my opinion, there are several interrelated causes. First of all, people who are not particularly content at the moment tend to think a lot. If you don't have an escape from the problems of the world, you tend to think about the problems, because in such a state they are *your* problems, there, inescapable, since you are after all a member of the world, and have no convenient escape from the world at the moment. This is why often lonely people tend to be depressed. But many of the problems of the world are essentially intractable. Furthermore, many of the realities of the world are not particularly happy ones -- "what to do about world hunger," for example. Thus, if you have a lot of time to think, and you think in an orderly fashion, you are likely to become more and more aware of this, and this can be depressing. Second, many "great" people (forget Alan Turing for the moment) seem to have considerable bouts of depression. I think this is for a second reason (though the first may often be related to it), viz., that if you are an original thinker, many people will scoff and ridicule. People who end up making great accomplishments, as an earlier poster pointed out, are often ignored during their lifetimes. It is extremely difficult, if you believe you have discovered some new principle, invented some new thing, devised some better philosophy, whatever, to be the sole believer in it, while the mass of mankind scoff. But most new concepts are that way, because most people come to accept concepts not through construction, but throug assimilation; they are told that "this is the truth," and validate that assertion not by analysis (which may not be possible), but through much less reliable means. Thus asserting some new concept is like hurling oneself endlessly against a brick wall in the hopes of getting through it. It is not surprising that such people become depressed; most new concepts are not discovered in an utterly indisputable light, and their discoverer may in fact come to doubt himself, that he discovered and believed in something that everyone claims is "wrong", and wonder why his reasoning (which he formerly had confidence in) is so flawed, that he knows firmly he is right, yet myriads claim with equal conviction that he is wrong. Now, as to "what to do about it," I must grudgingly agree with that guy with the encrypted name that a major and very effective solution to depression is to identify the things that depress you and not think about them. Whether or not this is morally responsible, is another matter altogether. But as to "why do people say depressing things to happy people," well, it's because, at the moment, they *believe* the depressing things, and believe that you don't. If, for example, I say "SDI is a good thing, and I don't think having a lot of nuclear missiles is bad for us," whole myriads of people (no doubt quoting Sting) will come telling me, using largely emotional arguments, why it's not so, out of exactly the same sort of emotionally-based convictions, just based on more familiar emotions than depression. So then you have this other question, "what do I do about *other* people who are depressed?" I guess that depends on how important they are to you. Some people (I note it's often those who are very content at the moment themselves) have said "tell them to go away", more or less. This is certainly a reasonable approach for some arbitrary person who comes up to you and says "I'm depressed," but if it's someone you care about, then you have to take a different approach altogether, one that is much harder, and by no means algorithmic. ---- [Now, in this space in my original posting, I had posted a grumble about the persistence of nominal singles in net.singles. Since that time one such nominal single has followed the "make friends with your enemy quickly" philosophy, as a result of which I have cancelled my original posting, and replaced it with this one. This has little direct significance, as I am still annoyed with many nominal singles, but being slow to chide and swift to bless, as the poem says, I decided not to include it in my ultimate posting. With any luck, the original will get cancelled before it goes out into the world... Well, 'bye now...] Oh... I think Alan Turing committed suicide because he was depressed for general philosophical reasons, of which the example people have given is merely a contributing factor. Why did Van Gogh cut off his ear? (I know, someone will say, "Because he was depressed because he was gay and society wouldn't accept him for that. You can tell this because he cut off his ear because his brother went to a house of ill repute and this upset him, which obviously was because it inflicted feelings of guilt on Van Gogh because of society's closed-minded attitudes on gay people which persist to this day eventhough great people like Van Gogh who we all admire were also members of the gay community, not because he had high moral principles, as some would claim." Oh well... so much for logic...) -- UUCP: Ofc: jer@peora.UUCP Home: jer@jerpc.CCC.UUCP CCC DNS: peora, pesnta US Mail: MS 795; CONCURRENT Computer Corp. SDC; (A Perkin-Elmer Company) 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 LOTD(2)=a "A people without history is not redeemed from time, For history is a pattern of timeless moments." --TSE