Depression

Well, I took it pretty easy today due to my serious case of bubonic-avian-sars-pox (Tim, thanks for the diagnosis). I've got a couple things I've been thinking about lately. One of them is depression.

Now, I'm not depressed now or anything. I've just been thinking about it lately (one topic is as good as any right?)

In Ancient Greece they used to refer to depression as "the philosopher's disease." They actually thought that depression was caused by an excess in black bile.....

side note. Here is some humoric theory. We get this from Hippocrates...the father of medicine (according to many). Anyway, Hippocrates believed that we have 4 different humours in our body. Any excess of one over another created a disease of some type. These four humours were blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Each humor had a season, a locus in the body, an element, and a personality type. For example blood was in the liver, it's season was spring, it was associated with air, and people with an excess of blood were thought to be amorous, courageous, and happy.

What is interesting is how much of this theory is still in our language. For example, in modern language "sanguine" means happy. This is because the humour of blood was associated with happiness. The word sanguine actually means "blood."

Similarly, when we say someone has a good sense of humor we're referring to humor theory. We're basically saying there humors are balanced in a delightful and harmonious way.

When we say someone is melancholy we're saying that they have an excess of black bile (which was thought to make someone moody and depressed). Melancholy actually translates out to "black bile." So, when you call someone melancholy you're referring to the humors.

Anyway, this is a long aside and I'm gonna get back to my main point

Okay, so, yeah, philosopher's have an excess of black bile. Aristotle was known for being depressed. He even thought that it wasn't possible to be a philosopher without having the sort of introspective brought on by depression.

Today they have a similar stigma. I recently was talking with a girlfriend of one of my philosophy friends. She said "when I first met you I didn't think you were a philosophy major." I asked her why and she said "well, I know a lot of his philosophy friends and they're a somber lot."

I certainly can be somber but I guess she had never seen that. Anyway, the main point here is that there is a close association between depression and thinking.

In fact, I recently read a study that discussed the correlation between depression and intelligence. I guess depressed people are more likely to score high on IQ tests. Also, babies that cry a lot are more likely to be intelligent (they have discovered (and I don't know how they did this) that babies can have depression as early as 2 months).

Anyway, why there is a correlation is up for grabs. Most people think that people that are intelligent are more creative, more imaginative, more verbal, and that leads them to getting lost in a very imaginative (and sometimes dark) world. They are also more likely to be introspective and overthink things and worry over things that aren't that important.

William James wrote about this in his book Varieties of Religious Experience. He argued that there are healthy and sick minded people, and that healthy minded people have a natural (and often shallow) experience of the world. They take life in its beauty, the see sunny days and they're just caught in a happy and superficial moment. The sick minded person is one who dwells on the evil, one who is caught up in problems and contradictions, one who tries to figure out what is wrong and why. This of course leads to a relatively miserable life. James thought that the only way to break away from this was to have a life changing experience (often a religious one). And, the bright side of this is that a sick minded person who converts to a higher world view is in a better person who was born into a healthy mindset that never questioned life.

Anyway, enough justification for why Depression is in some ways a cool thing. On the topic of depression itself, here are some of my thoughts.

First off, there are a few different types of depression. There is inward focused depression and outward focused depression, chemical depression and situational depression. These are just distinctions I've noticed and I'm sure it's not an exhaustive list, and I'm sure that depression can be an amalgamation of any of these, but regardless, this is what I've noticed. Here's a description of each.

Inward focused depression is when you question your worth in relation to outside things. This is when you feel self-doubt. This is the depression that alienates people...it alienates people because you can't understand why they care for you and you can't see how you can in good conscience care for them (if you don't think highly of yourself that would be passing off bad goods). This is a very unhealthy way to view life. This type creates a personal hell of self-doubt. In this type you always question your decisions because your decisions are an extension of what you value and your values are all out of whack and undecided. And this makes sense, for how could someone judge something a good thing when they can't even judge themself a good thing.

Outward focused depression. This is the depression of the elitist. This is the person that sees all the problems in everyone and can't find a way to connect to people. This is the depression of the "poor misunderstood artist." A depressed person of this type sees so much misery that they can't find happiness. This is the depressed person who looks around and sees suffering and says to the healthy minded people William James spoke of "wake up, how can you be happy when everything is so far out of whack?" This sort of depressed person is constantly wishing they could turn off the way they think and just think like everyone else. To not overthink, to just be in blissful ignorance. But at a certain level this sort of depressed person likes the introspection and the game of thought. Anyway, this sort of depressed person judges the world, finds it lacking, and finds it hard to connect with it in any meaningful way. The downside to this type of depression is this type of depression finds it hard to love. While the inward focused depressed person is often loved but doesn't feel worthy of love, the outward focused depressed person feels deserving of love but rarely finds someone they would want to love. Sad paradox.

Chemical depression is depression brought on by a chemical imbalance (obviously). This is depression that most closely resembles a disease. It can influence all types of depression. This sort of depression is often manifested in one of the two ways already mentioned. This sort of depression is best corrected through prescription drugs in that it's mostly the result of the body mishandling the chemical seratonin. However, if one has the chemical imbalance and negative thought processes, just taking medication won't solve the problem, counseling (or at least correcting negative thought patterns) will be necessary.

Situational depression is the last form of depression (that I'll mention at least). This is depression brought on by some life altering situation. This is depression brought on by tragedy. Depression by definition must be an unreasonable sadness that lasts longer than 6 months, but depression, although it might be rational at first (depression at the loss of a friend for example) might eventually turn into irrational depression if you aren't grieving well and you get lost in your feelings. If this happens then situational depression becomes one of the other three.

Anyway, I'm tired of typing. This is just what I was thinking about as I was walking home from school. Maybe I should drive instead...

Take care everyone.