Interconnected suffering and global depression

I posted a story on Facebook saying “Depression almost always stems from a loss of meaning in life”. One of my followers replied:

“Not really a loss of meaning, in fact the depressive gives meaning and above all value to misfortune. This ultra-negativity: that’s more his problem…”

There is no natural attraction towards darkness

Here is my expanded answer. I think the subject deserves it more than ever at a time when this question of the values giving meaning to life seems to me to be at the heart of our planet’s equilibrium and resilience.

No one can really find a temptation to value the negative… As darkness is just an absence of Light the attraction towards darkness always results from an absence or a loss of meaning and sometimes a kind of revenge about it.

Unfortunately, there are many believers in all religions to affirm and embody an idea of an opposition between light and darkness. This is the main cause of humanity’s problems… Especially when the other side is considered to be a representative of darkness…

Ikigaï and resilience

In Japan, the notion of “Ikigai” refers to the spontaneous expression of life that animates all the kingdoms of creation. In Hawaii, it’s called ‘mana’, a term that echoes the idea of the spiritual ‘food’ with which the Creator (the Source of life) fed the ‘Hebrews’ during their wandering… It can also be seen as the oriental expression of KI or CHI, which has two aspects, both positive (Yang) in certain circumstances and negative (Yin) in others.

You need to have been through a period of depression to understand this ‘false duality’. No therapist can really help a patient suffering from this trouble if they are unable to ‘understand’ it, a verb which means ‘to take with’, i.e. ‘to share’.

The real meaning of “compassion”

The Austrian neuropsychiatrist Viktor Frankl drew this capacity for empathy from his direct experience of the horror of the death camps. This period taught him one of the most profound lessons about resilience. This is also the case for Kamiya Mieko, a japanese psychiatrist who has spent her life exploring the roots of vital reactions in face of a loss of meaning. She calls this power to go ahead ‘Ikigai’. Her experience with leprosy communities and families of patients rejected by Japanese society has nurtured her capacity for ‘compassion’.

You need to have been in some way in the minds of people suffering from depression, or have been very close to them emotionally, to understand their situation. This plunge always results from the conscious or unconscious loss of one or more essential points of reference on which their lives were based…

Is it possible, without being hard-hearted, to say that someone who falls does it on purpose, and even to add that they become attached to their fall… It’s true that when you’ve fallen very low, you may think that you’ll never get up again, and then the call of darkness will become stronger and stronger…

Nobody gets depressed on purpose

You have to understand that people don’t really lose the meaning of their life on purpose, and that we’re all exposed to it. It’s this awareness that will enable us to empathise with all cases of psychological distress.

Are we capable of understanding (=taking with us) those who have lost their homes, their furniture and members of their families in Israel, Palestine or anywhere else in the world where war destroys life in the name of ideals unworthy of the name…

Let’s recognise that these people have the right to be depressed… Many will be. Neither our donations nor our “humanitarian” or “humanist” positions will be able to recreate the reference points they need to bounce back… It’s in this kind of situation that we can really realise the impact of Ikigaï or resilience, and the reasons of depression outside the intellect and judgement…

From personal depression to world depression

The depressing atmosphere of our planet at the moment makes it clear that we share our humanity in our flesh and in our spirit, whether we like it or not. The collective unconscious is our common heaven or hell. In fact, we are the cells of the same body called humanity, we are an interconnected network and for this reason, even unconsciously, all suffering is ours.