todays english paper, written 4o minutes before class.

Mankind & his enslavement to suffering.

(Cause&Effect)


Depression seems to be the new plague; a rampant, incurbable affliction which can affect anyone regardless of their health, exposure, location, age, sex, or race. It requires no outside stimulus although most often it can be shirked off as having been caused by one. It cannot be ignored by the one suffering it, nor can those around them escape its effects. When a machine stops functioning because the key no longer works, does it make sense to keep trying to use the key over and over again to no avail, or to find another way? Society's self-imposed pain and suffering can easily be overturned, it only requires that the participants are finally willing and no longer have the will to cause themselves pain. Our mental processes manifest themselves in our physical world whether we are trying to make them or not, or are aware of that or not, and when they are negative, we bring the whole ship down with us.

According to the Uplift Program, which many therapists, authors, and counselors contribute to, "Depressive disorders affect about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year" which is approximately 18.8 million American adults, which, as a statistic, obviously excludes the amount of teenagers that suffer anxiety in this country. They also report "Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers -- over a million -- are clinically depressed." I am afraid to imagine the number we would come to if you were to combine the amount of depressed adults, teenagers and children in America.

What are these statistics really saying? That there is obviously something wrong with us as a society, though many refuse to acknowledge this (ignorance and bliss). How can we act as if things are "okay" when, as the Uplift Program theorizes, "Depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease by 2020"? Not a sickness or a war or a huge natural disaster, but people killing themselves will be responsible for the second highest number of deaths we can record; isn't that amazing? We live in a society that imposes on us how to act down to the very tiniest aspects of our personal lives, always made to feel as if someone is watching over our shoulder, whether it be the law or god. We are always meant to feel as if we are doing something wrong and should be chastizing ourselves for it, which creates a severe shift in self-esteem and perceived self-image. We are perpetuating this "disease" with our mental inclinations, and though we see the obvious manifestations of this in our physical world, most of us chose to believe that rather than causing it, it is being inflicted upon us by some outside source... we can't blame ourselves, we have to blame others, or blame god. Humankind chooses to ignore its responsibility.

What is depresssion? A feeling of no self-worth, uselessness, hopelessness, abandonment, guilt, shame, regret, worry, and fear all arising simultaneously. Sometimes we lose a job, a family member or a lover, not just to death but because of something we have done, and we find ourselves experiencing these things. Did I make the right choice? If one is always meant to feel that he is choosing incorrectly and acting out of accordance with the rules, that style of thinking will permeate into all corners of his mind and be present for every little decision, blocking him from attempting to do what he thinks is right by convincing him he will not arrive at the correct outcome on his own. "I am so stupid," "I am wrong." Have you ever felt this way?
Our addiction to our ego may be the obvious cause of all of this pain. When one cannot let go of functioning how others perceive they should, nor can he let go of worrying about the acceptance of others, there is much room for self-doubt and self-loathing to take the place of confidence and self-love. Our ravenous need to be identified and liked by others makes us form our false-identity, our ego, which is made up of all our bad decisions we made in the past that continue to haunt us, our current goals and intent, and our opinions. We are so voracious to prove that we have an identity that we form opinions, a severe discomfort over something and an allowing of something, just so that we can look a certain way to others. We have to prove we exist by compromising someone else's thoughts, worrying about what we experienced before in our lives, and calling attention to ourselves with our current actions. This empty egg shell cannot be filled with anything genuine, with any true feelings from our hearts, because our hearts tell us that this way of thinking is wrong. When it hurts because we are rejected, it must be wrong. "Pain is a warning that something is wrong" said Madonna, but many think that they deserve to feel the pain that they do and so perpetuate it, even though they know that it shouldn't be happening!

Would it not be suffice to say that we caused this epidemic? We have victimized ourselves to gain attention in the way of our last choice: pity. Should we be pitied because we pity ourselves? Our current way of thinking is forcing us to kill ourselves or live in complete suffering, and yet there still has not been a mass realization that this must be the problem, and those suffering are their own villains. Again, blaming everyone else seems comforting, that way we can say we have no control over anything, completely relinquishing the reasons for our decisions to everyone but ourselves. But if we do not have control over our own minds and bodies and experiences and perimital worlds, then what does it even matter what decisions we make? Humans function under this hypocracy absolutely. Why should you feel bad about something you did, if it wasn't even your fault that you did it? This shows me that we realize the underlying truth, we are responsible for everything, but it is easier to run away and procrastinate taking our true place than to face the music.