[c13k]

So this guy has a job, is able to commute, is able to donate money to charity, able to smile though bitterly. He had big dreams, and now is down? I don't get it. He's not jobless, he's not homeless, he's able to commute probably not even in a wheelchair or crutches. He's has spare change in his pocket. There is no sense of gratitude for what he does have and complains about what he doesn't have. Welcome to reality.

[farresito]

You are implying that someone who has everything you mentioned is happy, when it's often the opposite. The society we live in burns people emotionally, and it's precisely because of the lack of understanding from people like you (no offense intended) that we can't often do more about it. Do we work to live or live to work? Is donating money actually going to make him happy when he can't see the results first hand? Does money actually make people happy if we don't even have time to spend that money doing the things we would like to do? (It's common in the US to have shorter vacations than a lot of other countries.)

[adenot]

That's called depression... can hit anyone, no matter how fortunate they are, and doesn't mean it's their fault.

[makx]

Though you don't know if he's clinically depressed, just has a rough week, or generally lives in a rather bleak environment.

[tluyben2]

Having a 'job' and commuting actually made me wonder about the meaning of life, because working for someone (in a fugly grey building) and standing in a traffic jam or in a stinking subway is not really my idea of meaningful. Or, in other words, it differs from one person to the other.

[wott]

This is typically the kind of absolutely clueless reaction that makes me even more depressed about human beings.

[smonff]

Reacting this way is surely the worst thing you can do.

[Jugurtha]

Think about it as a closed loop system. There's a desired state, a process/plant that produces an output given the desired state, a feedback loop that brings information about the output, and a comparator between the output and the desired state.

This fellow had big dreams (desired state) and has a process (his actions) to produce his current situation (output). He compares between his desired and current states and the error is huge. What does that cause? The process works to bring the error down. It might overshoot, slowly converge, diverge, or oscillate around the desired state.

A lot can go wrong in this simple example. As you suggested, his life might be not bad at all but his transducer might be faulty and sending defective information. His feedback might be screwed so what he sees of the current situation is altered. He might also have one transducer giving a good reading on one quantity, but missing the other output's quantities because he doesn't have transducers for them.

His plant can also be at fault. The actions he's taking and how he conducts life might not be bringing the error down. In other words, he's not getting closer to his desired state.

His desired state might be changing. Which would be normal for many to evolve but this fellow might not have the satisfaction of accomplishment because the system doesn't register it has ever reached a desired state. The sense of accomplishment is never there.

His comparator might be at fault, too. His desired state might be beyond the plant's capabilities and it's impossible for it to reach it.

The communication lines might also be the cause because someone hastily crimped the connectors and did a poor job.

[c13k]

I think you see what the issue is, and I agree with you. In fact, I've experienced the exact same thing as the person in the article, about 20 years ago. From here you could gather how old I may be.

I've been so down in depression and anxiety, and I could easily have penned the article myself during my downtimes. Without giving way too many details, my desired state back then was the home with a white picket fence, a couple children and a lovely spouse.

The output (reality) was that I was became divorced, my only child kept away from me, and living in my parents basement as a fully grown adult, going through nasty nasty court battles. I lost all my money to lawyer fees.

The Comparator between the output and the desired state was HUGE.

Then this affected my job performance, causing all sorts of other issues. I hit rock bottom, and then I made a decision: crawl under a rock and die, or pick myself up. I chose the latter.

Looking at the positives of what I did have (my life, able to walk, commute to work, give money to charity to help others) etc - this is what made me turn my life around.

Lots and lots of hard work ensued, and some missteps along the way (some health issues due to stress). I cleaned up my diet, sought professional counseling help, went to the gym, personal trainer, took medication, did better at my job, got a promotion, found a new spouse, bought a house again.

My desired state mentality has also changed over the years. Instead of trying to get the latest gadget, the biggest house, more promotions, more everything - I am now content with what I do have. I am content with the reality I have created.

We all have a life story, and different perspectives.

[Jugurtha]

I get you, c13k. This is why I upvoted your first reply and I answered with something other than "how dare you not be nice". I knew there was more to your comment than what it let appear.

The part where you say you could have penned the article yourself? I deleted that before I posted my reply because I didn't want to bother people in here. My plant/process is wrong and I can't think clearly. I have no experience, no job, and no skills I can think of and still don't live alone. I was so focused on trying to be a success my way, it incremented the number of days I was a failure in the eyes of the people who are dearest to my heart. There are few things that hurt more than being considered a failure by your loved ones when everything you're doing, you're doing to take care of them. Though as certain as I am my situation could be better, I am certain it could be worse. I notice that and try to enjoy the things I do have, like family. But there's a divide that was created trying to be a success without even the success. I chased trains going opposite directions and ended on none. Love from a failure isn't worth much. I was in a lot of trouble during college and my wish at the time was that none of my old parents die before I graduate. I chased my ideas in a race against time.

I still have a few friends, the only ones I will probably have. The ones who didn't indulge in schadenfreude and where there for me. I won't lie to you and tell you I'm not saddened. I'm almost 30 and would have loved to spend time with my family while I lived with them. All the trips you don't go, all the pictures on which you're not, all the occasions you were absent. Time is not something to be messed with and we tend to take things for granted. I used to know that, then something changed and I forgot.

But it could be better as certainly as it could be worse.

[projektir]

This comment only confirms the depth of the disconnect... you had one experience, you resolved it without understanding what happened, and now you project it onto others.

Your first post was an immediate judgment. You saw something that looked like your experience, which it appears you have grown to despise, and so you've lost empathy towards it. You've addressed your experience a certain way, you derive pride from it, and you think others should address it the same way.

That is as far from understanding different perspectives as can be.

You're attributing a staggering amount of weight to your experience when you haven't even done any advanced introspection or examination of the available evidence.

You did not experience the exact same thing. Why would you assume that? Even the same style of depression is not manifested the same across people, and it's not terribly clear what OP is experiencing.

You spend a lot of time listing off a lot of things that should theoretically make someone happy. Work, ability to walk, having some money to give to charity. Yet, when you had all those things, you nonetheless hit something you describe as "rock bottom". The lesson here should have been that your emotional state is perhaps more important than any of those things?

You say you are content with what you have, and that you are not trying to get the latest gadget, house, or promotion. Yet previously you list off your job, spouse, house, and promotion as signs of success. Again, was the lesson here not that the emotional state is more important than these things?

There are many depressed people who you won't be able to identify from the outside. They never lived in their mothers' basements or lost all their money. They performed fine at work and got all their promotions. And yet, they stayed depressed. Some even killed themselves.

It doesn't appear that various states, achievements, or possessions, in and of themselves protect one from unhappiness or depression. They may help, they may hinder. This has been painfully obvious for such a long time that someone bring it up again just comes off so simplistic and clueless. Depression looks like a rather complex amalgamation of causes. It's not relevant that someone has a commute or some spare change. This is the first disconnect.

The other one is relating to the desired state. You say the disparity between your reality and your desired state was huge, but I disagree. It was achievable. It was within reach. You may have even believed it was far away, but a white picket fence, a spouse, and a couple children isn't exactly that terribly rare and unusual if you weren't born in a really bad situation.

For some, well, it doesn't work that way. They wanted to do more than that. They wanted to build something or help someone. They wanted to do something complicated and new. These people drive our future. Sometimes, they fail. That's a big gap. It quickly goes out of reach.

And then, for some, it's worse than that, where the gap is between the world as it is, and the world as it could be, and that gap is truly huge. It is not sufficient for those people to be merely temporarily OK in their particular situation. It doesn't matter that you are doing a lot better than someone who is living in a warzone. What matters is that someone is living in a warzone.

[DocG]

It does not work that way.