I am so happy that this conversation made a difference to you. For what its worth, it made a difference to me, too.

Keep well
Mia

It is therefore incredibly important to be able to acknowledge ones own feelings and accept them, for they are a part of being human. ‘Humanity’, to me, seems almost to have become a product. Highly industrialised cultures have gotten to such a point in ‘lifestyle branding’ that many of us have internalised the images that we see to the point of viewing our lives and experiences through a media filter. On a simple level, this causes a disconnect, and while this is obviously not the only cause of depression/ insecurity/ isolation, it certainly contributes.

I feel that it is partly this mediated view of our lives that contributes to emotional insecurity when faced with economic recession, job insecurity etc. We look at our lives, and they don’t look the way they ‘are meant to’. We look around and compare what we have to what others have, and when we are finished comparing we are so far from reality that it is difficult to accept. Obviously I am not trying to belittle anyones struggle, and the fears that many experience are very real (family emergencies, losing your house etc are all very frightening and traumatic).

If we are able to reconnect with those around us and break away from this media fuelled ideal, we will all be much happier for it. I hazard to guess that this is what the original article was meant to be about. My difficulty with the way the ideas were presented, though, stems from the way in which sadness is ‘meant’ to alter or enrich your personal cache – through creativity, genius, etc etc. To me, this is just an extention of the human as brand mentality. Sometimes, we are just messy creatures, with loose ends in our lives and our minds, struggles, foibles and pain. And thats ok.

…for adding substantially to this article. Just like a book is a living, breathing, document that gets enhanced with each edition with reader feedback, blog literature become more multi-dimensional with the comments. Depression is a hot-potato subject in coastal parts of the US today, so people are particularly sensitive.

Mia, yes your perspective from South Africa is going to make an enormous difference. Causes for depression is not only internal and personal, but dependent on external forces of larger society too. I can attest that for many developed industrialized societies today such as Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Korea, coastal metropolitan US, England, Western Europe…the overall mood is gloomy somber due to unaffordable housing, people losing jobs during the information age to outsourcing or at least being pressured to overwork to keep existing jobs, and a once-leisure society being forced to swallow cut-throat competition and unpleasant changes brought upon by the internet, e-commerce, and developing countries opening their markets.

You might say it was our own society’s fault, for not making wiser decisions and safety nets to soften the blow, for letting our housing markets spiral out of control, but, here it is: when city homes are $400,000+ and not too much lower; wages are held stagnant by foreign competition, and job opportunities are diminishing in a recession, those who can’t afford the mortgage are renting out, compromising their future for a family and have a certain despair. This is highly correlated to the prevalence of “clinical depression” among middle class who are barely getting by to make payments in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco as well as Paris, Rome, London. For a time, I was in China and India, recipients of fresh opportunities and people being able to afford more, and the mood was noticeably more optimistic and less-desperate.

Back to the article, though… I find that individuals who come to believe depression as a necessary pre-cursor for great masterpieces are dangerously mislead. Reveling in it, they believe, leads to insightful aha moments. That has led many to deliberately choose risky lives of broken relationships, drug addiction, dissolution, self-pity alcohol dependency, and more damage to society than a healthy-functioning individual. It is a vicious cycle that doesn’t break easily. For every Marc Jacobs and Amy Winehouse, there are hundreds or thousands more creative minds who achieve distinction by discipline, practice, collaboration and personal fulfillment. None of the people I have ever met at LucasArts or Dreamworks is encouraged to be depressed. They are prolific precisely because they pay attention to details, to the present moment, and yes, sometimes being sad over loss also leads to that acute awareness of pain, but it’s better to just train oneself to be aware of inspiration rather than to be sad for its sake. (Following that argument, one might be led to believe that the most hopeless human despair might lead to abundant artistic genius: Haiti has not shown that to be the case.)

Sadness is unavoidable. It’s healthy, it’s empathy, and in appropriate times, it’s what makes us higher-order human beings. You can’t be genuine without it. I cry more for others than I cry for myself: for their demise, for their difficulties, for their being cheated, for callousness, for exploitation. It’s understandable to recoil, or grit our teeth and bear the trauma and say “yes grieve, life is unfair, now let’s figure out what I can do to ease the pain.” It’s growth and maturity in a world that falls short of our hopes, a society that isn’t ideal, people who abuse our trust, etc.

Despair is triggered by so many things: The individualist US has a culture that is devastatingly isolating for many immigrants who come from more crowded, inter-dependent societies. Russia produces top-tiered competitive young people who can barely find jobs to survive. East Asia has an intensely stressful academia where a higher score may mean being able to break a family out of generation-debt and poverty. Latin American barrios copes with cocaine disruption and an economic stagnation. Then there’s deaths, loss of jobs, being excluded from the cool crowd, demoralizing and abusive families, etc.

The important thing is to reach out and connect, as all of you have done. Encourage and fit into each other’s lives. In sorrow, satisfaction comes with relating and serving one another, to build relationships either temporary or lasting, and having a useful role that you belong to. Spend quality time with one another, by that, I mean do your mundane everyday errands with someone else who cares for you. Dig the trenches together. The worst experiences of my life have always been made into fonder memories when I think back to those with whom I shared the struggle, it builds resilience and character and I can say: “Remember when you felt so awful?”

Maybe it’s the Shakleton phenomena (the Brit captain whose team was stranded in Antarctica) but even in seemingly hopeless scenarios, there is beauty and heroism in the struggle… as long as you have someone to confide with.

As for the assertion that many people would rather burn out than fade away, while I give credence to the idea that many people may, I stand by the opinion that it is insensitive to assume anything on the behalf of another.

Furthermore, a prozac haze is not always the outcome of antidepressants. There seems to be an assumption that antidepressants make you either happy or totally numb. Believe me, if this is what is happening to someone, I encourage them to seek alternative medication until they find one that actually normalises their emotional state. Antidepressants, as I have said earlier, are not there to make you unreasonably happy or totally zobie like, but rather to restore a normal state of emotional functioning. Although some people may never be able to reach this state through medication due to their brains chemical composition, for the majority of depression sufferers it is attainable.

I suppose I have a different perspective coming from South Africa; perhaps in the US people are extremely quick to self medicate? There is certainly something to be said about encouraging people to work through their feelings instead of going around them. I think thats probably what this article was initially about.

Furthermore, we don’t know if Hemingway would have preferred the life he had, or a 100 year Prozacked haze. I’d imagine that many people would prefer to burn out than fade away. And, personally, I think people should think twice, or thrice, about taking medication, in the same way that people should reconsider suicide. Even us geniuses.

She sums it up well with “sadness is OK”. I agree with that.

First off, antidepressants are not meant to alter a bout of ’sadness’. Sadness is not the same thing as depression. Depression is a total breakdown of emotional functioning which leads to difficulties in coping with life. Sadness is hardly comparable, and to compare depression with a ‘case of the blues’ is both condescending and shows a total lack of understanding.

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“In fact, it goes hand in hand with creative genius. Countless thinkers (Hemingway and Lincoln to name a couple) have been prone to bouts of extreme sadness.”

Countless thinkers and creative geniuses have also been perfectly content. To use this argument is simply to counter, in a very basic way, the argument that everyone should be ‘happy’. Sadness is not necessary for genius or great thought. Perhaps what you mean to say is that a wide range of life experience aids great thought, but although much life experience supplies pain and suffering, it also provides joy.

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“Sadness contributes to creative achievement as well as tragic demise. Would the world be better off if Hemingway had popped Prozac and lived to be 100?”

Would it be better if Hemignway had lived to 100? You mean, not killed himself? I hazard to say that YES, it would have been better. For Hemingway. This comment is so exceptionally insensitive, it boggles my mind. Are you seriously suggesting that depression is ok, as long as it serves the world?

And as for sadness contributing to creative achievement, well, yes. So does happiness. And numbness. And contentment. And breathing. And being creative. This statement is quite simply meaningless, and not only that, dangerous. How many people are now going to lord it over ‘happy’ people because they are not seen as ‘creative’ or ‘genius’ as soemone else?

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“I don’t know. And this isn’t meant to be an attack against anti-depressant medication or the people that need it. But what about the marginal people who experience the full spectrum of emotion?”

But didn’t you JUST say that depressed people (ie. Hemingway) should think twice about taking medication for the sake of their ‘genius’?

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“Next time you’re overcome by a melancholy mood, consider this:

* What is the cause of your sadness? Often the answer to this question can be the realization you need to make a change.
* How does sadness allow you to appreciate the pain of others?
* Does sadness make the happy times feel happier? Does it not have it’s own beauty?”

Finally, a *little* bit of sense. Although I hazard to say that needing sadness to ‘pay it’s way’ or contribute to something positive is the same as judging it as bad. Sometimes sadness is just there. It exists, it is part of life. It doesn’t HAVE to contribute to great change or development of empathy, although that is helpful.

If you always need you sadness to mean something, then you are setting yourself up for some pretty frustrating times.

Basically, what you have just said is that sadness is ok, as long as it contributes to some kind of happy, positive outcome: genius, creativity, empathy or change.