The paradox of easier life and greater anxiety
Life became palpably easier for humans in the last few hundred years, yet complaints of depression and anxiety¹ seem to be rising more than before. This probably arises from the change in our concepts and expectations. Struggle and hardship were seen as part of normal life and they were to be expected. Therefore, a certain degree of anxiety and depression was normal and to be expected too. Most cultures of the past grasped and accepted these as aspects of Life itself and of human experience.
It's only in recent times that hardships and difficulties (both in personal life, and in human existence in general) came to be seen as anomalies and mistakes to be corrected. Thus anxiety and depression (or melancholia) were transformed from normal human experiences that can become problematic if extreme, into diseases by the very definition.
Living an easy life surely was desired in the past, but was not considered the norm, nor was the inability to achieve it considered an anomaly or a failure. The death of one's child, for example, as tragic as it was and will always be, was always around the corner; a possibility never forgotten in one's mind. Most of our grandmothers already lost one or two children in the course of life and moved on.
Anxiety was not seen as an illness, but a sensible precaution. Depression was not a disease, but an attitude towards the evidently hard life. They were viewed either as personal traits, attitudes towards life, or matters of ethics, and they were ameliorated through religion, community ties, ethical teachings, and poetry.
¹I am specifically talking about depression and anxiety in their milder forms, so to speak, not of major depressive episodes, for example, and certainly not of mental illnesses that cause severe dysfunction like schizophrenia.
Life became palpably easier for humans in the last few hundred years, yet complaints of depression and anxiety¹ seem to be rising more than before. This probably arises from the change in our concepts and expectations. Struggle and hardship were seen as part of normal life and they were to be expected. Therefore, a certain degree of anxiety and depression was normal and to be expected too. Most cultures of the past grasped and accepted these as aspects of Life itself and of human experience.
It's only in recent times that hardships and difficulties (both in personal life, and in human existence in general) came to be seen as anomalies and mistakes to be corrected. Thus anxiety and depression (or melancholia) were transformed from normal human experiences that can become problematic if extreme, into diseases by the very definition.
Living an easy life surely was desired in the past, but was not considered the norm, nor was the inability to achieve it considered an anomaly or a failure. The death of one's child, for example, as tragic as it was and will always be, was always around the corner; a possibility never forgotten in one's mind. Most of our grandmothers already lost one or two children in the course of life and moved on.
Anxiety was not seen as an illness, but a sensible precaution. Depression was not a disease, but an attitude towards the evidently hard life. They were viewed either as personal traits, attitudes towards life, or matters of ethics, and they were ameliorated through religion, community ties, ethical teachings, and poetry.
¹I am specifically talking about depression and anxiety in their milder forms, so to speak, not of major depressive episodes, for example, and certainly not of mental illnesses that cause severe dysfunction like schizophrenia.
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Bist du von deiner Geliebten getrennt Wie Orient vom Occident, Das Herz durch alle Wüsten rennt; Es gibt sich überall selbst das Geleit, Für Liebende ist Bagdad nicht weit. — West-östlicher Divan, von Goethe (الديوان الشرقي للمؤلف الغربي، غوته)
إذا كانَ بُعْدُ الحِبِّ ما قد قضى دَهْرِي
كبُعْدِ مغيبِ الشمسِ عن مطلعِ الفَجْرِ
ففي القلب هادٍ قد حداهُ —مسافرًا—
يجوبُ بأرجاءِ الفَلَا والقرى القَفْرِ
وبغدادُ ما بغدادُ دارًا بعيدةً
عن العاشقِ الولهانِ في ساعةِ العُسْرِ
— ترجمه شِعرًا عبد الله التغلبي
كبُعْدِ مغيبِ الشمسِ عن مطلعِ الفَجْرِ
ففي القلب هادٍ قد حداهُ —مسافرًا—
يجوبُ بأرجاءِ الفَلَا والقرى القَفْرِ
وبغدادُ ما بغدادُ دارًا بعيدةً
عن العاشقِ الولهانِ في ساعةِ العُسْرِ
— ترجمه شِعرًا عبد الله التغلبي
Reconstructed Minoan Palace in Crete, built around 1700 B.C., and destroyed around 1350 B.C.
Forwarded from Bücher 📖
Sirens
Ludwig Goransson
"Eurylochus: What was the song of the sirens like?
Odysseus: All the things you wanted to be and then all the things you wished you never wished for. It was a delicious itch you want to scratch but you find it under the skin and can't reach it. So the delicious itch becomes unbearable. It told you what you most want is what you most can't have and that the most you can't have is what you already had and lost. It was a song of all the promises I failed to keep."
Odysseus: All the things you wanted to be and then all the things you wished you never wished for. It was a delicious itch you want to scratch but you find it under the skin and can't reach it. So the delicious itch becomes unbearable. It told you what you most want is what you most can't have and that the most you can't have is what you already had and lost. It was a song of all the promises I failed to keep."
Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß,
Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend saß,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte!
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend saß,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte!
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe