Depressed? Perhaps it’s not You; It Could be the World Around You
The complexity of the modern world is taking a toll on humankind. We have always depended on others, but in times past, most of those others were people in our community. These days, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the vehicles we drive, the homes we live in, and the information we consume all depend on global supply chains and companies that see individuals as revenue sources. Too often, even the quality of the air we breath and the water we drink depends on the behavior of people focused on reducing costs, not being good neighbors. With that dependency, and being at the mercy of strangers worldwide, comes a sense of something foreboding. In creating a world that provides what we think we want, we have created a world that is hostile to what we truly strive for — a sense of control over our lives.
Depression, as defined by The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words, is “severe despondence and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.” In my book, the resonance of Life, I characterize control as the ability to transition from where one is to where one would like to be. Having “feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy” corresponds to an inability to make that transition. Is depression a consequence of insufficient control? Perhaps we are ambivalent or uncertain about our desired state, confused about how to get there, or perceive an inability to get there. No matter the reason, when applying effort seems futile, control has been lost and depression fills the void.
While the material goods we need and want depend on a world beyond our control, that same world is not shy about what it wants from us. There are income taxes to be paid and state and federal tax forms to be filed; we must deal with auto, home, and health insurance companies in the hope of being covered when calamity strikes; we must interact with banks, mortgage companies, and credit card companies for financial services, trying to follow all the rules to avoid being charged fees or creating a black mark on our credit report; we must be able to prove our identity by multiple means because many are adept at pretending to be us; we must stay on top of our utility bills for gas, electric, and water; we must responsibly dispose of old batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, electronics, old paint, and household chemicals; we must guard against computer viruses or risk a loss of important files or the theft of critical information.
Despite our efforts to comply with the world’s demands, the uncertainties don’t diminish. We are left hoping the food we eat and the water we drink haven’t been contaminated with too many pesticides, chemicals, or drugs; we hope our medical care doesn’t create more problems than it solves; we hope nobody steals our identity and ruins our credit; we hope to avoid encounters with terrorists, drivers who are drunk or not paying attention, and now mass shooters. We must also be constantly on guard against those unscrupulous individuals who either skirt or disregard laws in their efforts to appropriate whatever they can. We must do all that while keeping an eye open for those bumbling individuals who do damage without trying.
Individually, each item we acquire, decision we make, or task we perform is designed to provide some benefit. Troubles arise when those things are summed up and combined with everything else life throws at us. We are pushing beyond what many can deal with effectively. Thanks to the mechanization of farms, factories, and transportation, organizational tasks have replaced many physical ones, adding further complexity to many lives. With global production and transportation networks providing a variety of goods unimaginable fifty years ago, we have enough choices to boggle the mind.
At our core, we strive for control of the world in which we live. Each minor adjustment made, and each new item made available, has been aimed at improving someone’s control of something. Despite those intentions, we seem to be significantly more dependent on others and less in control of our day-to-day lives than were previous generations. How has that happened? Is it because we focus on the benefits of each new item but fail to see its overhead? Is it the cumulative overhead that is overwhelming so many?
Think of all the homeless, of all who believe wacky conspiracy theories, and the millions who flock to leaders who claim to have simple solutions. Is the complexity of our environment driving the homeless crisis? Is it a rebellion against complexity that powers conspiracy theories and populist politicians? Are mass shootings and hate crimes a result of too many people who feel they have lost control, who want to reassert themselves, who want to show they matter?
Our desire for stuff drives the complexity of our systems, but how much stuff is optimum? The thought may be blasphemous to capitalism’s leaders, but is our stuff becoming more of a burden than a benefit? A century and a half ago, Thoreau urged us to simplify. He considered his neighbors and wondered at the heavy load they attempted to push ahead of themselves in their passage through life.
“How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.”[1]
What would Thoreau think if he saw us today? How would he view the complexity of our lives? How depressed would Thoreau be?
[1] Thoreau, H. D., & Miller, S. (2004). Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 3.
