EppsNet Archive: Depression

Drunk guy

I Used to Be Depressed, Broke and Anxious

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I used to be depressed, broke and anxious. Now I’m just depressed and anxious. 🙂 I appreciate this gentleman contributing free advice. It seems worthwhile. But something is off when the first thing a person tells you about themselves is how much money they make. I just read an article about a loneliness epidemic in Silicon Valley. People make a lot of money in Silicon Valley but apparently can’t figure out how to convert it into joy or connection. I’ve never seen any evidence that people with a lot of money are happier than anyone else. Quite the opposite, really. People think they’d be happy if they just had lots of money. Then they get lots of money and they’re no happier than they were before. Plus they’ve lost the fallback of thinking that the reason they’re not happy is that they don’t have a lot of money. There are… Read more →

A Positive Human Future?

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If you were a farmer in Nebraska 100 years ago when the Titanic went down, you wouldn’t have known about that for about six months. Today we’re bombarded with news, almost all of which is bad, and yet people wonder about the epidemic of depression and anxiety. What is journalism’s vision of a positive human future? Where are the people who are being praised for bringing about a positive human future? Where is the news about virtue and heroism in the world? Read more →

Why Do We Have Pessimistic Brains?

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From my notes on Coursera’s Positive Psychology course: The most recent geological epoch that we lived through, the Pleistocene, was the Ice Ages. Famine, flood, ice, drought, more ice. Now, imagine a primate mentality that thought, “What a lovely day today out there. I bet tomorrow is going to be really lovely as well.” That mentality got crushed by the ice. The mentality that survived, the brains that we have, are bad weather brains. They’re brains that say “looks like a nice day out there, but tomorrow the ice is coming.” And that is the way we process, automatically, information about a good world. Depression, anger, paranoia have served us very well. In the Ice Ages, it was a very good idea to think that bad stuff was coming. But consider the possibility that human progress actually exists, and that prosperity, a good world, living well, not having a tragedy… Read more →

The Ideal Consumer

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The ideal consumer is someone who is anxious, depressed and constantly dissatisfied. Academic studies from the most respected institutions show that sad people are bigger spenders. Why do you think our lives are saturated with images of flawless, unattainable beauty? Read more →

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not just surrounded by assholes. — William Gibson

I’ve Been in a Room

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I’ve never been lonely. I’ve been in a room — I’ve felt suicidal. I’ve been depressed. I’ve felt awful — awful beyond all — but I’ve never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me . . . or that any number of people could. . . . — Charles Bukowski Read more →