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Originally Posted by BrianTheMick2
It all mostly works out. As calming words, I offer that it has never been a kinder world than it is now.
Seems like it would be so much easier to have cross threads like "Is the world a kinder place than the past". No need to get into it, I get the gist. I do wonder if there was an ancient past in which a great number of peoples lived of weed, opium, and ma huang. A peaceful history that was wiped out, perhaps one that was in equilibrium but struck by an major catastrophe.
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The counter to me is that ants seem to have it pretty good.
I am not a panglossian and am not an idealist. The wildest and most creatively designed utopias are horrific to me. If I was in one (or specifically were an ant), I'd not mind.
This I understand I think and agree with, I think your mindset in that is correct and pacifying where as those conditioned to 'anxious' responses like "I hope that never happens to me (becoming an ant)" are showing the exact friction that is a certain depression.
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It has nothing to do with the subconscious. Depression is primarily a feeling of hopelessness. If a reasonable person can judge that circumstances are not dire for future well-being, then the depressed person is wrong.
I think I recently understood how to separate different forms of anxiety from depression (in definition). But I think I am understanding there is a difference between depression and sorrow in this context.
Also you point at hopelessness, but I guess that might not refer to a hopeless situation, which might cause sorrow, but is different from depression in that the hopelessness has a reference to a future we wish to escape from and the latter is a situation we accept we cannot.
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People don't work that way, but a moment of pleasure is a fine thing indeed. Lots of people happily put up with a week's worth of hard labor for the promise of an orgasmic moment.
I've worked with these kinds of peoples in underground mines and 4 week on 2 off camp jobs. Nearly all of them wouldn't survive it without drugs and alcohol, and/or were depressed (may or may not admit it). But maybe you were pointing at the time when they had hope (hoping/waiting for days off or even retirement).
I often wonder if I should instill hope in others for that reason, kind of like saving a bugs life but knowing its just going to starve to death anyways (trapped in a room).