What is depression?

[anthony]

Feb 10, 2009 21:02:03 GMT -1 pat said:

There's a great cartoon book about a black dog (his name was depression). The pictures are brilliant, I can recommend it.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/system/topicRoot/Black_Dog/

this book is great

[datacruz]

Apologies, it may well be annoying when people delete their posts nevermind eh.

[datacruz]

Perhaps I got a bit carried away on that post, bit un called for in places, but there you go, words are only ever so good, especially on this subject.

[anthony]

Jun 1, 2009 17:48:51 GMT -1 datacruz said:

More broadly speaking, this social pathology, if I can put it thus. Life is a bit like a birthday party where the adults are lousy at supervising... where as, at a birthday party yummy things are the main thing, and theirs usually enough to keep everyone happy, when you grow up sex is the main thing but sexual selection is insane... it seems that once upon a time, in the Stone Age perhaps, certain characteristics in men were a win win, now those same characteristics tend to be at odds with the trade-off that is civilization but that doesn't stop a lot of women selecting them, and rewarding them etc... 'What's he got that I ain't??' Oh yeah.. That! perhaps when he's in prison, or finally crashed the bank and the biological clock is really ticking you'll reconsider... too late!

I think ultimately you judge yourself, and if you look for someone else to judge you (ie a partner to judge if you are a worthwhile person), then ultimately that is a very quick path to depression, and I know many many people who have fallen down it. please don't appologise for the rant

[datacruz]

Well, for staters, I think the roller coaster analogy (never used it in that context before, although of course 'life's a roller coaster' blah blah, I didn't really mean it like that) is misleading.

"I think ultimately you judge yourself, and if you look for someone else to judge you (ie a partner to judge if you are a worthwhile person)"

Yes well, if only... I probably judge myself more than most people... I've basically been a loner, outside of work, for some fifteen years because I don't rely on people to judge me, or themselves, each other etc.

I recommend watching this www.youtube.com/homeproject all of it, but at least the last half hour.

I had a moderate Christian upbringing, it should be fairly obvious that I don't consider myself a believer but when I was in my late teens I knew a few people who underwent radical conversion. My background, the sort of person I am, the way the world is, I was prone to dwelling on the apocalyptic - I have always been inclined to see how our everyday, local, activities relate to the global consequences.
Most compromise is due to sexual selection... 'The Things We Do For Love' charming song, but unfortunately it ain't no joke... www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-all_sex.html

the reality is, how can anybody be expected to get a bearing on their lives if not with reference to their 'reference group', other people. I've been very selective about who I associate with which has been quite a positive thing however, as Dalrymple says

"The British are sadly changed from Hayek’s description of them. A sense of irony is the first victim of utopian dreams. The British tolerance of eccentricity has also evaporated; uniformity is what they want now, and are prepared informally to impose. They tolerate no deviation in taste or appearance from themselves: and certainly in the lower reaches of society, people who are markedly different, either in appearance because of the vagaries of nature, or in behavior because of an unusual taste they may have, especially for cultivation, meet with merciless ridicule, bullying, and even physical attack. It is as if people believed that uniformity of appearance, taste, and behavior were a justification of their own lives, and any deviation an implied reproach or even a declaration of hostility. A young patient of mine, who disliked the noise, the vulgarity, and the undertone of violence of the nightclubs where her classmates spent their Friday and Saturday nights, was derided and mocked into conformity: it was too hard to hold out. The pressure to conform to the canons of popular taste—or rather lack of taste—has never been stronger."

www.city-journal.org/html/15_2_oh_to_be.html

People will no doubt think it absurd to claim that 'they tolerate no deviation in taste or appearance' Actually, I think there's more substance in that than not. 'Prepared, informally to impose it' with a thousand thousand subtle and not so subtle techniques at their/our (I've been guilty) disposal.

[datacruz]

oops I did it again