In this post, I will outline my beliefs on reality and why everyone nowadays is depressed to some degree. As my worldviews tend to be pretty neutral, I will offer both a religious and scientific version so that my point come across clearly. This belief is the result of my personal experience and life and the observation that a lot of people are depressed. I am curious to hear what you guys think of this.
==Religious version==
Humans have aspirations, dreams and hope - consious or subconsious desires, something they seek to achieve. Reality itself is sentient and it knows your deepest desires. Regardless of who you are, it will go on its way to assure that you will never achieve your dreams.
It will sometimes dangle your dream in your face and most importantly, it will convince you that they can be achieved. However pusuing them only lead to suffering and dissapointement.
There is no such things as happiness - those that claim to be happy are putting on a mask or are just in a state of apathy and disregard. Happiness is a social construct and thus is required in social situation - it is an artificial emotion. Everyone is depressed inside, some are just better at hiding it.
==Scientific version==
The human brain design "goals" for the host to achieve. Those are usually called aspirations, dreams and hope, they can be can be consious and subconsious. While the desire is based on data collected from observation in reality, the "interpreter" is flawed.
It cannot judge accurately what is technically possible and therefore create unreasonable expectations regardless of the host's awareness of the flaw. Even if someone do not whish to dream, the brain will generate unobtainable desire for the individual regardless. This can also be amplified by external factors such as media, but is not it's root cause.
As the individual try to achieve his dream, he will start to perceive the world around it as hostile or as a mockery designed to make him suffer. Despite the brain convincing him that his goal is technically achievable, he fail to grasp the greater picture.
When his ambition starts to crumble appart, he becomes depressed. As being happy is perceived as the "default state", people are socially incited to create the illusion of sucess around them, which led to futher depression for other. There is no such thing as "hapiness", all there is a possible state of non-suffering that can only be achieved by become apathetical.
==Reasoning==
This section will explain why I believe the belief outlined above is true. As stated above, it is based on my personal experience and some observation I made of the experiences of other.
I am only 22 years old, but the "dream led to despair" pattern is one that I notice everywhere. I noticed that I never actually achieved any of my aspiration. Any sucess I had were totally random occurences, things that never even crossed my mind. Here's some of my personal example.
---
My first dream was to become a graphic designer. A closely tied aspiration was to work at a graphical design compagny in my hometown. During my highschool days I had an internship there and liked the job a lot, so I naturally studied in this field.
During the final weeks of my study, I made a second internship there. I have an ear problem that cause me to hear more sound than everyone, it is essentially psychological torture for me. While I was studying in graphic design, the local compagny bought three big machines for their workshop. This essentially made the workplace too hostile and thus prevent me from working there despite good relation with the local compagny.
This was sad, but there was other places. Or so I thought. The only other place nearby is explicitly not hiring people. Upon doing more research, I learnt that this market is over saturated with people, so it would be extremly hard to start my own business. At this point it became clear that I had chosen the wrong path and that my desire was not attainably by any means.
---
My second aspiration was to try to get a girlfriend. Literally every girl I talked to already had a boyfriend. Not to mention that due to my aforementionned hearing problem, I cannot go in most social gatherings, I can't watch movies, I don't like dogs and children, I can't use the telephone and I can't drive a car.
I am pretty much the antithesis of a normal human being - calling me a subhuman could be a technically correct definition. Needless to say that statistically, my chances are in the negative, even moreso than normal people who are already struggling with this.
---
My third goal was to preserve a MMORPG called RuneScape 3. Back in 2018, I witnessed the death of RuneScape Classic but also the preservation efforts to save it. I won't go into much technical details, but a group of people essentially managed to create a 3rd party client that captured network data.
I thought it would be wise to start doing the same thing with RuneScape 3. As I did not posses the technical knowledge to create a third party client, I did the next best thing: seek help. Over the last two year I built a Discord server consisting of 40+ people with datamining and client knowledge.
There was one problem: no one is interested in preserving this version of the game (it is seen as lesser compared to Oldschool RuneScape). Despite my best efforts to try to generate interest, everything fell flat. While there is some who have the technical knowledge I sought, it turns out that the underlying protocol is cursed and make capturing networking data pretty much impossible.
While this Discord led to other positive things, needless to say that my dreams of preservation were shattered.
---
As you guys have probably noticed, everyone on the internet is pretty much depressed to various degree. The shattered dream that is often the most seen is dfinding a partner as it is pretty much a "constant". That being said, I suspect other type of dreams are being shattered everyday.
While everyone has their own set of aspirations, there is this general sense of dread. The phrase "have zero expectations" is now common wisdom. I think this speak about the hardship everyone is enduring.
Some speaks of hope and happiness, I wonder if those people are gaslighting themselves or if there is something wrong with us. From my perspective, there is no such thing, and such reality is only becoming clearer everyday.
I suspect that "hapiness" is a social construct. An illusion if you will. The closest thing to that state is not suffering. One might argue that it cannot be a design of mankind as animal such as dogs can seemingly be happy - but I persinally suspect that animals have inherently more "primitive" emotions and would be therefore not comparable to human hapiness.
Tell me what you think. Be honest.
==Religious version==
Humans have aspirations, dreams and hope - consious or subconsious desires, something they seek to achieve. Reality itself is sentient and it knows your deepest desires. Regardless of who you are, it will go on its way to assure that you will never achieve your dreams.
It will sometimes dangle your dream in your face and most importantly, it will convince you that they can be achieved. However pusuing them only lead to suffering and dissapointement.
There is no such things as happiness - those that claim to be happy are putting on a mask or are just in a state of apathy and disregard. Happiness is a social construct and thus is required in social situation - it is an artificial emotion. Everyone is depressed inside, some are just better at hiding it.
==Scientific version==
The human brain design "goals" for the host to achieve. Those are usually called aspirations, dreams and hope, they can be can be consious and subconsious. While the desire is based on data collected from observation in reality, the "interpreter" is flawed.
It cannot judge accurately what is technically possible and therefore create unreasonable expectations regardless of the host's awareness of the flaw. Even if someone do not whish to dream, the brain will generate unobtainable desire for the individual regardless. This can also be amplified by external factors such as media, but is not it's root cause.
As the individual try to achieve his dream, he will start to perceive the world around it as hostile or as a mockery designed to make him suffer. Despite the brain convincing him that his goal is technically achievable, he fail to grasp the greater picture.
When his ambition starts to crumble appart, he becomes depressed. As being happy is perceived as the "default state", people are socially incited to create the illusion of sucess around them, which led to futher depression for other. There is no such thing as "hapiness", all there is a possible state of non-suffering that can only be achieved by become apathetical.
==Reasoning==
This section will explain why I believe the belief outlined above is true. As stated above, it is based on my personal experience and some observation I made of the experiences of other.
I am only 22 years old, but the "dream led to despair" pattern is one that I notice everywhere. I noticed that I never actually achieved any of my aspiration. Any sucess I had were totally random occurences, things that never even crossed my mind. Here's some of my personal example.
---
My first dream was to become a graphic designer. A closely tied aspiration was to work at a graphical design compagny in my hometown. During my highschool days I had an internship there and liked the job a lot, so I naturally studied in this field.
During the final weeks of my study, I made a second internship there. I have an ear problem that cause me to hear more sound than everyone, it is essentially psychological torture for me. While I was studying in graphic design, the local compagny bought three big machines for their workshop. This essentially made the workplace too hostile and thus prevent me from working there despite good relation with the local compagny.
This was sad, but there was other places. Or so I thought. The only other place nearby is explicitly not hiring people. Upon doing more research, I learnt that this market is over saturated with people, so it would be extremly hard to start my own business. At this point it became clear that I had chosen the wrong path and that my desire was not attainably by any means.
---
My second aspiration was to try to get a girlfriend. Literally every girl I talked to already had a boyfriend. Not to mention that due to my aforementionned hearing problem, I cannot go in most social gatherings, I can't watch movies, I don't like dogs and children, I can't use the telephone and I can't drive a car.
I am pretty much the antithesis of a normal human being - calling me a subhuman could be a technically correct definition. Needless to say that statistically, my chances are in the negative, even moreso than normal people who are already struggling with this.
---
My third goal was to preserve a MMORPG called RuneScape 3. Back in 2018, I witnessed the death of RuneScape Classic but also the preservation efforts to save it. I won't go into much technical details, but a group of people essentially managed to create a 3rd party client that captured network data.
I thought it would be wise to start doing the same thing with RuneScape 3. As I did not posses the technical knowledge to create a third party client, I did the next best thing: seek help. Over the last two year I built a Discord server consisting of 40+ people with datamining and client knowledge.
There was one problem: no one is interested in preserving this version of the game (it is seen as lesser compared to Oldschool RuneScape). Despite my best efforts to try to generate interest, everything fell flat. While there is some who have the technical knowledge I sought, it turns out that the underlying protocol is cursed and make capturing networking data pretty much impossible.
While this Discord led to other positive things, needless to say that my dreams of preservation were shattered.
---
As you guys have probably noticed, everyone on the internet is pretty much depressed to various degree. The shattered dream that is often the most seen is dfinding a partner as it is pretty much a "constant". That being said, I suspect other type of dreams are being shattered everyday.
While everyone has their own set of aspirations, there is this general sense of dread. The phrase "have zero expectations" is now common wisdom. I think this speak about the hardship everyone is enduring.
Some speaks of hope and happiness, I wonder if those people are gaslighting themselves or if there is something wrong with us. From my perspective, there is no such thing, and such reality is only becoming clearer everyday.
I suspect that "hapiness" is a social construct. An illusion if you will. The closest thing to that state is not suffering. One might argue that it cannot be a design of mankind as animal such as dogs can seemingly be happy - but I persinally suspect that animals have inherently more "primitive" emotions and would be therefore not comparable to human hapiness.
Tell me what you think. Be honest.