Depression 2023.

 

Depression 2023.

Many years ago, I was growing up on a farm in Israel without electricity and all its benefits. My father had a small encyclopedia with a lot of drawings. One that I remember was a picture of a large bird, an ostrich, burying its head in the sand while a tiger was running toward it. I asked my mom what was going to happen to the gigantic bird, and she said that it will get eaten. Why would it do it? I wondered, since it looked like he could run very fast. Mom said that some creatures think that if they don’t see danger coming, then nothing will happen to them. I was only six but couldn’t understand and I still don’t. I was living amongst those who survived the greatest war ever.

Years went by and that picture never left me. As life went on, the word depression became common, while drugs called antidepressants became popular. Soon people were talking about depression being a killer disease. The number of suicides increased, and the law changed to allow doctors to use their skills to make suicide painless. I live with chronic pain and cancer, so I understand. I am not sure that it is OK for us to take a life, even our own, but someday I may understand. Is depression somehow related to hiding from all the ugliness and evil in life and the world? You tell me.

Stress and depression are now commonplace, but I question why. Overall, the world is improving in so many ways. All we have to do is bury our heads in the sand, not listen to the news or what we call “negative people” and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, but it doesn’t.

I believe that thoughts have ways of materializing in the real world. We think in words and we believe God created all there is with words. “And God said, let there be light.” If I or anyone use words to point out that which we don’t like, do we create evil? Do other people avoid evil by not being exposed to it? Is the opposite true? Can we watch only the good and have a better life? I sure wish I knew. In my early life, people often said, don’t even think about something, or Don’t mention this or that. My mom believed bad thoughts woke the devil up. I am not even sure that I believe that there is a devil, but I leave room for the fallen angel, the one who is competing with the good God. There is something that creates temptation. In the Lord’s prayer, we say “and lead us not into temptation.”

Competition and temptation are the base of the theory of evolution. The strongest survive and the weak disappear. Often, what we consider the strongest is not necessarily the best. Albert Einstein was not the strongest, but the world wouldn’t be what it is without him. Somehow, the Universal Mind caused him to stay alive and take humanity a notch forward. Hitler might have won the war if Einstein was on his side.

Hiding from evil thoughts or realities reduces stress, and stress causes depression. Not being aware of danger can often lead to disaster. I look at the world that was changed significantly in my one life and I question, what is the best way to deal with life? Should people pursue happiness, try to win all competitions, or do something else? Which will offer my children and their children the best chance of survival?

When I went to school, we were practicing going to bomb shelters and what to do if a foreign army invaded the town. Some time later the cold war was on and we were told to hide under our desks in case of an atomic war. There were lots of pandemics and each time it took forever to come up with vaccines. In high school, we went through a lighter form of basic army training and learned how to handle guns. There was never a time without some threat to our lives. The one radio station that we had was our lifeline, and most adults that I met read the newspaper. I also never met anyone who wanted mental health specialists. When my mother had emotional problems, the doctor suggested smoking to calm her nerves.

Now we live in a different world. The biggest threat is us destroying our world by not resisting temptation and overusing our resources. We are burying the world in garbage and destroying the atmosphere and the freshwater that we can’t live without. Wars are still there and pandemics come and go. Our substantial labor force now is stagnating when there are no good jobs except in technology. For many of us, it is a scary world. I may be called negative, but I see reality and don’t sugarcoat it.

We get stressed, suffer from depression, and don’t know how to deal with it. People around me budget their time and money to have more of something. They do that and later “downsize”. Life has no meaning, and they get depressed. Changing gender or forever traveling doesn’t help.

Should we reevaluate where we're going, backup, and take another road? Instead of being depressed, we can try to do our best, and as the fiddler on the roof said, “We shall leave it in God's hands.”