This article smashed most of my buttons. Read it. I know many of you friends and lurking readers are on mind-altering pharmaceuticals or have been in the past. I’d love to hear your comments.
Right now, if the statistics are correct, about 15 percent of Americans are not happy. Soon, perhaps, with the help of psychopharmaceuticals, melancholics will become unknown. That would be an unparalleled tragedy, equivalent in scope to the annihilation of the sperm whale or the golden eagle. With no more melancholics, we would live in a world in which everyone simply accepted the status quo, in which everyone would simply be content with the given. This would constitute a nightmare worthy of Philip K. Dick, a police state of Pollyannas, a flatland that offers nothing new under the sun. Why are we pushing toward such a hellish condition?
The answer is simple: fear. Most hide behind a smile because they are afraid of facing the world’s complexity, its vagueness, its terrible beauties. If we stay safely ensconced behind our painted grins, then we won’t have to encounter the insecurities attendant upon dwelling in possibility, those anxious moments when one doesn’t know this from that, when one could suddenly become almost anything at all. Even though this anxiety, usually over death, is in the end exhilarating, a call to be creative, it is in the beginning rather horrifying, a feeling of hovering in an unpredictable abyss. Most of us habitually flee from that state of mind, try to lose ourselves in distraction and good cheer. We don inauthenticity as a mask, a disguise to protect us from the abyss.
To foster a society of total happiness is to concoct a culture of fear. Do we really want to give away our courage for mere mirth? Are we ready to relinquish our most essential hearts for a good night’s sleep, a season of contentment? We must resist the seductions of mindless happiness and somehow hold to our sadness. We must find a way, difficult though it is, to be who we are, sullenness and all.
February 13th, 2008 - 2:48 pm
This is one of the reasons why Nietzsche hated the christian church.
He saw them foster the protection from raw reality of nihilism as little more than creating a culture of meek sheep.
Personally, while I philisophically agree with the writer, I am not so alarmist that the overally happiness of the sheep will increase.
Keep in mind, we have psychotropic drugs to thank for some of our most creative works to date.
A culture of drugs begets a culture of abuse, and in turn, creativity.
-ilz
February 13th, 2008 - 2:49 pm
The article seems to rely on a common misconception that the emotional problems of people who use psychiatric medication stem from a cognitive issue, or as he puts it, the fear of the abyss.
In fact, what little we know about the brain tell us that particular chemicals in particular balances are required for basic function. For example, you simply won’t wake up or be able to concentrate if you don’t have enough serotonin, regardless of how good you are at wrestling with sunata.
I have a much easier time waking up in the morning and concentrating when I’m taking St. John’s wort. I don’t want to stay in bed because I fear life or because I haven’t read enough Camus, I simply feel very very tired if I don’t take it.
February 13th, 2008 - 3:14 pm
Ilz: “Alarmist” is a good word for this, now that you mention it, yes. Wilson seems to believe this dystopia is hurtling toward us while I agree we won’t ever really “get there.” The anger and bafflement that so many people would even want to dull what could be their greatest creative inspirations remains.
February 13th, 2008 - 4:06 pm
i agree with jeremy. while some psychiatrists over-prescribe such mood stabilizers as SSRIs there are in fact a large number of people out there who would reap extensively beneficial outcomes from taking such medications. because their brains are “broken”. the chemicals they produce are imbalanced and thusly do not allow them lead ordinary lives.
i for one know that if i cease to take my psychiatric medications very very bad things happen to me. some of these things i cause myself because of these imbalances i mentioned. while most people who require psychiatric medications are not necessarily in as fucked-up a mental state as i, these medications have been proven, in large quantities of people, to help them actually live their lives versus ending them out of sheer desperation.
when your brain is broken you know it. you witness ordinary people doing ordinary things that you yourself consider extraordinary as you can’t accomplish such feats of strength on your own. and you think to yourself, “why the hell can these people ride the subway without feeling like everybody is staring at them plotting their demise? why don’t they think this train is going to crash?” and for some other people, it’s “if this train DOES in fact crash, i’d be the happier for it, as it would end my miserable and pathetic existence.”
i don’t believe in taking medications simply to make a person happier, but there are many cases out there where people are diagnosed as bi-polar or clinically depressed. these are chemical problems and need to be tackled with chemicals. but personally, and this is me just being a raging bitch, i hate people who take medications when they don’t really need them. i’m quite jealous of people who are relatively normal, who don’t keep pfizer and merck in business with every paycheck they cash. but i’m envious, and i guess that’s a sin.
if you’re sad, be sad. but not if it’s the chronic sadness that is clinical depression – if you have that, seek medical attention and mood stabilizers. and if you’re worried, be worried, and don’t take xanax just because something disturbs you. take it only if you require it in order to function. the people and the doctors who abuse these lax rules we have in place for such prescriptions make me more physically ill than every pill i have to pop each day.
February 13th, 2008 - 4:35 pm
this smashed a lot of my buttons too, but maybe in the opposite way. for better or worse, here’s my visceral reaction.
his thesis: a bunch of people are taking antidepressant medications who shouldn’t be, and the world would be a better place if they would get off those meds. he’s wrong. wrong, wrong, wrong. also wrong. and i don’t believe he knows anything about clinical depression. he’s certainly never experienced it, and he’s certainly no psychiatrist.
at the beginning he states as a disclaimer, “I’m not romanticizing clinical depression.” but then he goes on to do EXACTLY THAT. he praises Keats because he “never fell into self-pity or self-indulgent sorrow.” oh, so people on antidepressants are self-pitying, self-indulgent wimps who just need to suck it up? that’s incredibly insulting. he questions whether depressed individuals who are not “suicidal and bordering on psychosis” should be on medication. well, you certainly don’t have to be suicidal or psychotic to have depression ruin your life. he simultaneously romanticizes and trivializes clinical depression.
he cites a broad survey that asked people if they were happy, and identifies the 15% who were not “very happy” or “pretty happy” as candidates for psychiatric medication. this is ludicrous. this is not how people with psychiatric conditions in need of treatment are identified.
finally, he is worried about the art. oh, the art! he asserts that if everyone who needs it started receiving good psychiatric care, “we would live in a world in which everyone simply accepted the status quo, in which everyone would simply be content with the given,” and would thus we would have no more meaningful art for him to enjoy. this is also ludicrous. to assert that all great art and culture to date is the product of untreated depression is ridiculous. depression is exactly the kind of disease that can prevent people from pursuing their creative dreams or striving to change the world.
and to suggest that many many people ought to suffer through an unlivable life just so the author will enjoy the world more is, again, insulting.
he’s probably not actually a bad person. he’s just expressing the common misconception that depression is a minor thing that people can live with or snap out of it, if they have enough willpower, and that the only people who need medication are the real crazies who commit suicide. unfortunately, clinicians have had little success in treating the depression of deceased patients, so they try to identify them and treat them before rigor mortis sets in.
here is what i believe: for the vast majority of people actually in need of help, seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist is a big, difficult step. deciding to take a psychiatric medication is a big, difficult step with risks and side effects. people generally don’t resort to these measures unless their life, in its current form, is absolutely unbearable. for many people, medication can give them their life back.
read this. it’s an article by a writer and former depression skeptic. it addresses many of the same concerns about art, life, depression and medication. this is a man who actually knows what he’s talking about.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index2.ssf?/base/living-0/116149796856910.xml
now that that’s out of the way, hi! long time no see! how ya doin’? you’re one of the only people i’ve ever enjoyed arguing with. thanks for the christmas card. come visit new orleans sometime. mardi gras is over, but this city is pretty excellent all year round.
February 13th, 2008 - 5:05 pm
Irene, you bring up what I think is another of our cultural myths, the myth of the Insane Artist.
The conventional wisdom is that since creativity is so often coupled with insanity, that it is in fact the insanity which causes the creativity.
I would posit that great works of art are not made because of insanity, but despite it. Great art does not come from insanity, but something far more mundane: practice, practice practice. And time spent being insane is time spent not practicing.
I would also posit that if Van Gogh had access to Prosac, he would have taken it.
February 13th, 2008 - 6:00 pm
I dunno… I know plenty of people on antidepressants who are *plenty* melancholy.
And plenty of actively creative people who were unable to do so before antidepressants because they were unable to function.
’tis a clever essay, but seemingly more for the sake of cleverness than any real illumination. As much as I hate what he calls bland American happiness, I’m not so certain ‘happiness’ is the goal or effect of antidepressants. …though I’m sure some seek it out as such. I also know some of *those* people, and they have been disappointed…
February 13th, 2008 - 8:05 pm
I couldn’t agree more with the comments posted by Jeremy, sarcazm, and Russ. I don’t feel the need to say much, because they’ve said it all. I’d just add that, personally, when I feel well my creative and intellectual output is off the charts: I can sing arias, act a song or scene, write a press release or blog entry, read a good book, have a political debate, or take a dance class. When I feel depressed I can … cry and sleep. Tell me, Mr. Wilson, which one would you prefer?
You know what un-depresses me? Dinner with Irene Kaoru. When?
February 14th, 2008 - 7:14 am
Well I have to agree with at least some points that the author made. I do think that anti-depressants are over-prescribed and I do think that the value of sadness has been overlooked. I do agree that the emphasis on “happiness” is unreal and impossible. It is important to experience the full range of emotions, there is nothing wrong with being sad occasionally. But yes, clinical depression should be treated, I won’t argue with that. I just think that the definition of clinical depression has become too pop-psychology, and maybe too broad. There are days that I don’t and haven’t gotten out of bed and I think that’s OK. I don’t necessarily think that my melancholy will make me more creative or more interesting, but I do value having it. I can’t imagine a world in which everyone is happy. It’s a science fiction nightmare – just look at “Fahrenheit 451″ to see what a world in which happiness is pushed for everyone can become. Now a caveat – I only skimmed the article that you posted, so I can’t say that I agree with all of it or most of it. I just think that it’s silly to want to be happy all the time.
I have something else that I’m thinking about – the fear of death and how that related to fundamental religiosity, and something about the article triggered that thought, but now it’s gone. Bah!
February 14th, 2008 - 7:21 am
Oh and another thing – in some of the other comments, I see a common thread and that is, some people need medication of some variety to be able to function. I think that’s vastly different from saying that people need medication when they’re not happy. I don’t think anyone would begrudge people something they need just to function how they want to on a day to day basis. But one doesn’t have to be happy all the time, either. That’s the difference, I think.
February 22nd, 2008 - 3:27 pm
[...] IRENE KAORU » Blog Archive » In Praise of Melancholy The article Irene quotes was clearly written by someone who has NEVER experienced depression. And again, like whenever shit like this comes up, I am really fuckin’ pissed off. (tags: depression assholes bullshit health medicine mentalhealth) [...]