Against Universal Consciousness

The only way human beings can understand the world around them is through their own experiences. This is limiting and predisposes each of us to egocentrism. Egocentrism is the inability to view the world from any perspective other than one's own and the tendency to frame all issues in terms of how they relate to the needs of the self. So, in discussions of politics, I respond to all comments from my individual, egocentric worldview. Likewise, my deliberations on topics ranging from sports to business to child rearing must all be interpreted through the filter of my ego. Egocentrism manifests in every aspect of human life.

A natural outgrowth of egocentrism is the inclination to anthropomorphize. Because we are restricted to understanding external items through the lens of human experience, we often

attribute human characteristics to non-human subjects. While my dog, Zeus, certainly understands his world as only a dog can understand it, I constantly (and inaccurately) bestow upon him a full range of human traits. It is intuitive to me that folks who assume the universe is endowed with cosmic consciousness are, likewise, anthropomorphizing.

While human consciousness was once a subject considered too enigmatic for scientific study, recent technologies have helped to demystify consciousness.
Historically, consciousness has been described as being like a stream. Indeed, people may subjectively perceive thoughts as flowing like a stream, however, “stream of consciousness” is a misleading and ultimately inaccurate metaphor. “Hive of consciousness” is a better fit for our current understanding of the phenomenon. “Stream” implies a linear progression of thoughts moving forward from a central source. Neuroscience informs us that human thought patterns more closely resemble a popcorn popper than a stream.

Consciousness is composed of neuronal firings from different parts of the brain. In simple terms, consciousness is a byproduct of the brain interacting with itself. Remove part of the brain and consciousness is altered. Remove all of the brain and consciousness is eliminated. 

Consciousness changes but does not stop during sleep. The brain remains active and different areas of the brain are still able to communicate with one another during sleep. When one awakens from sleep, one typically still

has some awareness of the passage of time and may remember dream experiences. However, when a person is put under general anesthesia, communications within the brain are blocked. When one awakens from general anesthesia, there is no sense of the passage of time and no dreaming. Consciousness is eradicated when internal communications between various parts of the brain are obstructed. Consciousness is produced by the brain and can not exist independently of the brain. No brain, no consciousness.

Since consciousness is a function of the brain, and there is no evidence that the universe itself has a brain, it would stand to reason that the universe is not conscious. 

Wise and powerful caregivers comfort the egos of human children. The egos of human adults desire similar comfort. In the absence of an actual wise and powerful caregiver, human adults invent gods or anthropomorphize the universe to meet this egocentric need.

Conspiracy Theorists are Lazy Thinkers

I used the term "lazy thinkers" to be provocative.

The truth is that lazy thinking is nothing more than "natural thinking." Every lower animal on the planet operates on intuition, or "what feels right." Humans who have not learned the skills of critical thinking naturally engage in the same thinking patterns as other animals.  

I am attracted to conspiracy theories. There is something about the idea of a conspiracy that titillates a paranoid vein that runs through the human psyche. However, conspiracy theories say much about us and very little about reality. It is not that conspiracies are impossible, just that the likelihood of successfully executing a large scale conspiracy approaches the impossible. The old adage, “Two people can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead,” rings true more often than not.

For any given belief, we will encounter disputing evidence (indicating that the belief is false) and supporting evidence (indicating that the belief is true). Folks with highly developed critical thinking skills approach these two pools of opposing evidence by objectively evaluating the quality and the weight of both pools. The foundation of a developed intellect is the willingness to change positions when disputing evidence clearly outweighs supporting evidence. This requires a great deal of emotional maturity. Our beliefs are rooted in our egos and we are wired to protect our egos at all cost. Shifting positions when disputing evidence outweighs supporting evidence also requires a deep commitment to truth. Truths are often uncomfortable and/or undesirable. Critical thinking requires that objective truth (what is true) must take priority over individual ego needs (what feels true or what we would like to be true).   

The Critical Thinker's thought process looks like this:

The Conspiracy Theorist engages an entirely different process when presented with conflicting pools of evidence. The conspiracy theorist accepts ALL supporting evidence, regardless of quality, and rejects ALL disputing evidence, also regardless of quality. Disputing evidence will either be ignored or the source for the evidence will be baselessly maligned. The ultimate result of this process is the elimination for the opportunity to learn, aka willful ignorance. In the words of Dudley Field Malone, "I have never in my life learned anything from someone who agreed with me."

The Conspiracy Theorist's thought process looks like this:

Identifying Quality Sources of Information:

In the midst of the information age, distinguishing good information from bad information can be extremely difficult. People untrained in recognizing logical fallacies can be easily manipulated to believe even the most absurd claims (examples: The moon landing was faked. Obama is a foreign-born, closet Muslim. The government is hiding UFOs. Hillary Clinton is a serial killer who runs child sex rings. Ronald Reagan was in the Illuminati.). Relying on "reasoning" from outside sources to establish where one stands on the issues is akin to relying on a car salesman to determine which automobile you should buy.

• Despite claims to the contrary, mainstream sources of information tend to be of much higher quality than unconventional sources. Every place in the free world gets pretty much the same news. The mainstream media in the US reflects reputable news outlets in England, France, Germany, India, Australia, Japan, etc. The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Google News, The BBC, Reuters, and most professional journals are reliable, albeit not perfect sources for accurate news. These sources mirror the news from the rest of the free world. News reported by outlets in countries with authoritarian governments such as those of Iran, Russia, and North Korea, like news reported by Right Wing media outlets and fringe Left Wing outlets in the US, report very different news that is often in direct conflict with legitimate sources.
• News sources from authoritarian regions, as well as, sources from Right Wing and fringe Left Wing American outlets, use the "news" as an instrument for propaganda. However, citizens in countries with authoritarian governments have no choice but to consume fake news, while a huge percentage of mainstream Right Wingers and nearly all fringe Left Wingers in the US avoid legitimate news by choice. THIS is how a narcissistic, predatory, conspiracy theorist, who makes fun of the handicapped and spouts obscene vulgarities, became President of the United States.
• 

  Mathematics and scientific research represents the gold standard for quality information at this time. The statement, "any position can be proven with statistics," is patently false. It is true that statistics can be used by dishonest presenters to manipulate those who are untrained in statistics, however, there is an ultimate truth that will be revealed through the scrupulous use of statistics.
• While scientific research is often inaccurate, every advancement in the modern world has resulted from the application of science. As yet, there is no process more effective in the discerning accurate understanding of the physical universe than science. If the efficacy of science is not overwhelmingly evidenced by your own life experiences (as it should be to any self-aware human being), then developing a deeper understanding of the scientific method and the peer-review process should dispel any lingering doubts.

Consider The Global Warming Hoax:

Everyone knows the statistic that 97% of climatologists concur with the research that supports global warming as a legitimate phenomenon exacerbated by human activity. 

The conspiracy theory holds that first, global warming is a hoax conjured by the Democratic Party in the US. Second, scientists have skewed their research data in favor of global warming in order to procure grant money from liberal universities.  And third, because the Democratic Party has a greater interest in conservation and environmental protections and the Republican Party has a greater interest in protecting industry, Democrats benefit from the acceptance of climate change as an actual and man-made phenomenon.

•  Global warming was dreamed up by the Democratic Party.
• The 97% of scientists figure is not limited to American scientists. It means that 97% of the scientists in the entire world accept the findings on climate change. Even if the Democratic Party were important enough to American scientists to risk sabotaging their own careers by falsifying data, it is inconceivable that scientists from every other country in the world would be so invested! Even if we were to change the premise from a plot invented by the Democratic Party to a plot invented by liberals in general, the idea of such a global initiative is ludicrous.
• Scientists receive research grants from liberal universities.
• Many scientists work for universities. Others work for government agencies. Still others work for industry. At any rate, the funds provided for research grants are typically supplied by outside sources and not by universities. Even if we accepted the bizarre idea that scientists across the globe could be bribed into torpedoing the integrity of their chosen profession, we would still need an industry capable of providing the motherlode of funds needed to accomplish the task. Which industry would stand a better chance of pulling this off, Big Oil (which benefits from disproving global warming) or Big Windmill (which benefits from proving global warming true)?
• Democrats profit from the efficacy of climate change
• Which makes more sense? 30 years ago, some Democrat mastermind or thinktank randomly invented an environmental phenomenon and was able to secretly coerce 97% of the scientists on Earth to fake research data... Or that the most lucrative industry in the world advanced a conspiracy theory to protect its own interests?

In truth, the global warming phenomenon has no more to do with politics than gravity theory or germ theory. Scientists simply support the efficacy of global warming because there is an ocean of high-quality supporting evidence for the theory and a tiny drip of low quality disputing evidence against the theory. If new, high quality, evidence disputing global warming grew to outweigh existing supporting evidence, every scientist worth her salt would shift positions and we would find the vast majority of scientists denying the theory. This is how the developed intellect operates.

Four Resons Why Religion Should Be Avoided at All Cost

REASON 1

Religion is an obstacle to moral development. According to psychological theorist, Lawrence Kohlberg, the first stage of moral development centers on the individual modifying his/her behavior in order to avoid punishment and earn rewards. Small children, dogs, and adult sociopaths tend to operate at this level of moral development. 

In the second stage of moral development, the individual desires to be considered a good person and so conforms to an external system of rules (example: laws, cultural norms, family values, and religion). An internal moral sense cultivated by indoctrination to external belief systems becomes deeply ingrained in people. At this level of development, moral "feelings" are mistaken for undeniable truths. For many reasons, questioning the validity of religious morals can ignite extreme hostility and defensiveness.

The pitfall of uncritically accepting a moral code learned from one’s culture, such as that offered by religion, is that it may include elements that are truly harmful to others. An individual raised in the environment of Nazi Germany would have the same deep commitment to that moral code as anyone indoctrinated into any external moral code.  In the pre-Civil War South, ministers used the Bible to justify the enslavement of other human beings. The Bible and the Koran are currently being used to justify racism and homophobia. The results? Torture, murder, and suicide.

The highest level of moral development requires a critical examination of values using universal litmuses like harm done, fairness, and empathy. Without a rational, compassionate evaluation of every aspect of one’s moral code, the potential for harm is great. Religion is a barrier to advanced moral development.

REASON 2

Religion inhibits intellectual development. The touchstone for intellectual growth is changing positions when disputing evidence for a pre-existing belief outweighs supporting evidence for said belief. Most of the dominant religions require accepting the legitimacy of their doctrines not on evidence, but on faith. Faith is often considered an admirable quality. However, faith and gullibility seem to be two sides of the same coin. Webster's defines faith as, "(a)firm belief in something for which there is no proof." Gullible means, "easily persuaded to believe something." So, aren't faith and gullibility inseparable? In other words, wouldn't it require gullibility to firmly believe something without proof?

Believing without evidence is a slippery slope. If I choose to accept one supernatural manifestation on faith, am I not then susceptible to believing any absurdity? Talking snakes, invisible deities, angels, pixies, leprechauns, and unicorns are all supported by faith and disputed by reason. How does one justify belief in a god, but not in a pixie, or in some other god? Disregarding evidence in favor of faith-based beliefs perpetuates ignorance. Religion is a barrier to advanced intellectual development.

REASON 3

Religion obstructs social development. In a modern global community, appreciation for the benefits of cultural diversity is paramount. Of the six Americans who won Nobel Prizes for Science in 2016, all were immigrants. By nature, religions are exclusionary. They create an "us and them" mentality wherein the "us" are good and the "them," not as good. This kind of social identity has been at the root of every war since the dawn of time. 

Prepackaged, religious beliefs rob people of the opportunity to create personal meaning and to truly define a unique understanding of self separate from cultural definitions. The number one regret of terminally ill patients is that they conformed to the values of others rather than living lives true to themselves. Religion is an impediment to social development.

REASON 4

Religion is a barrier to emotional development. Emotional maturity results from coming to terms with difficult, often frightening, realities. Failure to take responsibility for one's actions is one aspect of emotional immaturity. Children tend to blame others or make excuses for mistakes. Mature adults take responsibility, attempt to make reparations, and try to learn from mistakes. While Christianity holds the individual accountable to a degree, it also provides an easy loophole. Per Christian doctrine, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was absolved of responsibility for his actions before his death because he sincerely asked for God's forgiveness. 

Another element of Christianity inconsistent with taking responsibility is the concept of Satan. Satan is ultimately responsible for all evil in the world and God is ultimately responsible for all good. 

By encouraging belief in a fantasy afterlife, religion inhibits adults from maturely coming to terms with mortality. Developing the emotional maturity to deal with the realities of death, unanswered questions, and all of the other uncertainties of human life without resorting to magical and superstitious fantasies requires courage and unyielding integrity. One must be committed to all truths regardless of how scary or difficult. Religion impedes emotional development.

Given that religion is an obstacle to nearly every domain of human development, I consider it a social ill. It is clear to me that outcomes such as charity, love, kindness, and peace have been mistakenly associated with religion. Historically, the opposite outcomes of greed, hate, cruelty, and conflict have just as often been the fruits of religion. Benevolent outcomes result from empathy, a quality independent of religion. If I value the Greek ideal of the fully developed person, I can not also value a system that prohibits human development. 

Why You Can't Always Trust Your "Gut Feelings?"

A “gut feeling” is an automatic, cognitive, short-cut that provides a crude, organic, meta-analysis of the culmination of one’s entire life experience relating to a given concept.

Life experiences are three-fold. First, they involve sensations. Real and/or imagined sensory stimulation from the environment such as light, sound, fragrance, texture, etc. Second, experiences require cognitions and perceptions. These are your thoughts about the sensory stimuli. Your eyes and brain may sense a light, and then your mind interprets, “Oh, the car in front of me just put on the brakes.” Third, experiences are bathed in varying levels of emotion. So, the car in front of you suddenly hits the brakes and you feel a quick twinge of fear that you may rear end the other car. Emotions are the body’s security system. They evolved as a mechanism to aid us in survival. Emotions warn us of danger and reward us for behaviors that have historically resulted in increased odds for survival of the species.

In the course of a lifetime, you have countless experiences covering innumerable concepts. Some of these experiences are available to the conscious mind, but most are not. It would be impossible to function if you had to process your lifetime of experiences every time you had to answer a question or make a decision. So, the mind provides a shortcut called the “gut feeling.”

If I ask, “Do you like raisins?” the answer will lie in an overview of every life experience you have ever had with the concept called, “raisin.”

…raisins are dehydrated grapes
…the dancing California Raisins
…raisin bran cereal
…raisins look like flies
…raisins are high in antioxidants
…as a kid, I threw up after eating a box of raisins
…raisins are sweet
…raisins have a funny texture
…I got raisins in my lunchbox when I was in grade school
…raisins smell bad
…and on and on and on and on

But, since filtering through these millions of experiences would be impossible and impractical, your mind makes a snapshot using the most dominant, overshadowing emotion related to the concept called, “raisin.” This provides your gut feeling and your answer… “No, raisins are gross.”

The gut feeling is necessary to navigate the complex terrain of human life. Without it, we would be paralyzed. However, it is also the fundamental cognitive error that interferes with human advancement. Our nature, like all animals, is to accept gut feelings as “truth.” If I approach a squirrel with the intention of giving it a walnut, the squirrel’s gut feeling may be that I am a threat, so the squirrel runs away. The truth is that I intended to help the squirrel by giving it food. Gut feelings are not truth. Truth is based in fact and possesses objective validity.

So, if I am interested in finding "truth," then I must understand that my gut feeling is an extremely fallible resource completely dependent on my very limited and unique fund of life experiences. To find “truth,“ I must test my gut feeling against objective litmus’ like logic, mathematics, physical properties, etc. The gut feeling is a necessary place to start, but it can be a foolish place to end.

The ability to override “gut feelings” is the characteristic that enables the human to operate beyond the confines of biological and environmental programming. Every animal on the planet is a slave to gut feelings. Throughout the majority of human history, we have operated exactly like every other species in this respect. However, the advent of logic, mathematics, and the scientific method has provided a means for humans to break the bonds of our animal nature and rise above superstition and intuition. It is a tragedy that so few take advantage of this magnificent opportunity.

The Difference between Feeling True and Being True

In her book, Being Wrong, Kathryn Schultz explains that being wrong feels exactly like being right! It is our nature to assume that the knowledge we possess is correct. Our level of certainty tends to remain constant regardless of whether we are actually right, or if we just mistakenly think that we are right. We enjoy an ongoing sense of rightness until the very moment we are proven wrong. 

In teaching General Psychology, I found that each chapter we cover carries the underlying message that, as humans, we are nearly always wrong about nearly everything. Our memories are erroneous. Our sensory perceptions are flawed. We are unable to conceptualize large numbers and great spans of time. We are easily fooled by appeals to emotion. Our innate tendency to make sweeping generalizations based on tiny bits of information creates an environment of near-chronic wrongness.

Despite chronic wrongness, it is natural for us to trust our feelings, our thoughts, and our perceptions. Navigating human life would otherwise be impossible. Our sense of rightness enables us to make decisions and take necessary actions. It is an unfortunate side-effect of living in this bubble of pleasant certainty that we experience shame when proven wrong. We stubbornly resist opportunities to improve on the accuracy of our respective funds of knowledge, because being proven wrong is so unpleasant. We are mortified as the false perception, “if I am proven wrong, then I am made a fool,” emerges. Evidence abounds to suggest that the accurate interpretation should be, “if I am proven wrong, then I am learning, developing and improving.”

• Make friends with being proven wrong. The moment you understand that being proven wrong is necessary to becoming a better you, a world of opportunity materializes. As Dudley Field Malone said, “I never in my life learned anything from a man who agreed with me.”
• Be a skeptic. Skeptics are not the same as pessimists. Pessimists are characterized by feelings of negativity and hopelessness. Skeptics are simply people who require evidence before believing a piece of information. Being skeptical is the opposite of being gullible. 
• Don’t be fooled by emotionally persuasive manipulations. Arguments that are supported by appeals to tradition, popular opinion, common sense, weak analogies, attacks on character, and false generalizations all exploit the human tendency to trust gut feelings and emotional responses.
• Learn to identify actual evidence. Very often, actual evidence will conflict with gut feelings and emotional responses. True evidence is measurable and empirical. I may feel that this was the hottest summer ever. However, if measurable data indicates otherwise, I must trust the empirical evidence over my feelings.

So, if I am interested in finding the truth, then I must understand that, while gut feelings are useful, they are an extremely fallible resource. I must continuously test my gut feelings against objective litmuses like logic, mathematics, research results, and physical properties. I must learn to trust real evidence, especially when it conflicts with my emotional leanings. 

The ability to override gut feelings enables humans to operate beyond the confines of biological and environmental programming. Every animal on the planet is a slave to intuition. Throughout the majority of human history, we have operated exactly like every other species in this respect. However, logic, mathematics and the scientific method provide a means for humans to break the bonds of primitive thought processes. Determining the difference between feeling true and being true is the mechanism for transformation.

Major Depression: 4 Steps to Navigating Rough Waters

Image by George Hodan

After suffering a lifetime of Major Depression, I have found 4 strategies that minimize the damages and maximize the benefits of this disorder. Yeah, there are actually benefits!

STEP 1: Get treatment!

Let’s start with separating “normal” depression that everyone experiences from clinical depression which affects 20-26% of women and 8-12% of men over the course of a lifetime[1]. Normal depression means feeling blue or having a down day. Clinical depression means that for most days, over at least a two week period, you experience 5 or more of these symptoms:

• Feeling sad, empty, depressed, or tearful
• Loss of interest or pleasure in almost all activities
• Increased or decreased sleep
• Restlessness or a sense of being slowed down
• Loss of energy
• Feeling worthless or guilt ridden
• Trouble concentrating or making decisions
• Thoughts of death or suicide
• Unintentional weight loss or weight gain of over 5% of your body weight (within a two week period).[2]

Prior to coming to terms 
with my depression, I was completely against medical treatment and in severe denial. I felt like getting such treatment somehow spoke to my character, as if it meant I was weak or less of a man. I employed every alternative strategy I could come up with. I tried yoga, running, diets, self-hypnosis, weight lifting, meditation, talk therapy, and every holistic treatment I could find.

By age 28, I was at the end of my rope. Fortunately, a doctor friend insisted on a trial of antidepressant medication. This changed my life. Over the course of a couple of weeks, my mental processes became clear, my sleep and appetite improved dramatically, and my overall level of functioning skyrocketed. I went from the being the lowest to the highest producer in my office. I had always been a “C” student, but when I returned to grad school after treatment, I earned all “A”s. Once I treated the underlying illness, all of the other strategies I had tried in the past were able to take root. It was as if I had been wearing dark glasses with the wrong prescription my whole life and suddenly they had been removed. This was how “normal” people felt!?! I had been dragging a boulder behind me while everyone else skipped along unencumbered!

Depression is a serious illness and should not be ignored. We lose many good people every day to suicide. Often, well-meaning, but ignorant, family and friends tell sufferers of depression to “get over it” or “suck it up.” The proper advice to give a sick loved one is to get treatment. No one would advise a heart patient to, “Stop taking your medication. You don’t need that shit!” However, depressed people hear such comments frequently, and from people who are supposed to care about them!

Treatment programs may include medication, talk therapy, physical exercise, yoga, meditation, dietary changes and numerous other strategies. A major obstacle to any treatment program is patient noncompliance[3]. Depressed patients often feel shame and embarrassment about their condition. It takes precious little social pressure from the people in his/her life to get a depressed person to stop treatment or fail to seek treatment. The results can be tragic. Statistically, death by suicide tops chronic liver disease, Alzheimer’s, homicide, arteriosclerosis and hypertension.[4]

Even with excellent compliance, depressive episodes still happen. But, sticking with the treatment program can make episodes much less frequent and much less severe.

STEP 2: Don’t trust your gut feelings.

Emotions evolved in humans because they helped our ancestors survive.[5] Feelings of love and affection motivated them to protect younger and weaker members of their social group. Anger and fear, associated with the fight or flight response, gave early humans the instinct to protect themselves by confronting danger or fleeing to safety. In a modern society, in certain situations, some of these primitive instincts can be a hindrance. For instance, if one were to act on every violent impulse one experiences when angry, the social, legal and physical consequences would be catastrophic.

During depressive illness, gut feelings are out of whack.[6] Because they evolved from survival instincts, gut feelings can be overwhelmingly powerful and difficult to overcome. Most people assume their feelings are accurate without question. This can be a HUGE problem for people with depression. Messages from the guts of depressed people can look like this:

“You are useless.”

“All you do is screw up.”

“Your life is terrible.”

“You are a failure.”

“Everyone can see that you are a loser.”

When people trust this faulty sense they are worthless and life sucks, depression is intensified. When clinical depression manifests, symptoms are unavoidable. “Thinking your way” out of an organic, depressive episode is akin to “thinking your way” out of having a bad cold. You can be aware that you have a cold and think positive, healthy thoughts… but you will still have a cold. The depressive episode will pass, but it will do so gradually, the same way a head cold subsides.

At this stage in the game, I am acutely aware of the physical and cognitive symptoms of emerging depression. My concentration and memory slip. My ability to do complex tasks becomes impaired. Everyday activities feel overwhelming. My sleep patterns change. I know the experience is unavoidable, but I also know that it is temporary.

STEP 3: Be kind and patient with yourself.

If you have depressive illness, you have an ILLNESS! Ease up on yourself.[7] How would you treat a sick friend? Would you tell them to get over it? Would you tell them that they are worthless and lazy?

As soon as I become aware of depression, I consciously start to shift my inner dialogue:

“Take it easy. You can’t rely on your feelings today.”

“This is like a thunderstorm. It will eventually move on.”

“You can’t trust the emotional signals you’re getting today.”

 “Depressed feelings are not evidence of anything but depressed feelings. They don’t mean a damn thing.”

“Just like a head cold. Take care of yourself and it will eventually pass.”

“You are doing the best you can and that is enough.”

“If these exact same things happened on a day when you were not depressed, they would not affect you at all.”

When I realize I am dealing with a depressive episode, my priorities also shift. I know that the machine I use for problem-solving, planning, and social interactions is malfunctioning, so it’s a bad time to engage in those activities. I know not to make big decisions about my life when I’m depressed.

For some people, socializing eases depression. But for me, solitude can also be helpful. I communicate that I’m not feeling well and need some time. Then, I go off by myself and nap, read, listen to music, write, play guitar, watch movies, or do light exercise. These solo activities can be comforting to me when I’m depressed. The best strategy, when you are having severe depression, is to fill your time with any non-hazardous activities that help you cope until the episode passes.

STEP 4: Appreciate the experience.

I am a fortunate man. I was thrown into the world an intelligent, reasonably attractive, white, male American with a loving, stable family. I have received a lifetime of benefits (seen and unseen) associated with these qualities, even though I did nothing to earn them. Under other circumstances, I could have easily become an arrogant, self-righteous, uncaring, privileged jerk. But, depression has made me keenly aware of human suffering. Depression helped make me an empathetic, caring human being. Depression has given me the opportunity to experience depths of emotion that are not available to people without the condition. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but I wouldn't be me without depression. And, I love being me!

People say they want a “happy life.” I consider this a foolish aspiration. Every healthy person will live through a complete repertoire of emotional experiences. Each of us will know joy, sadness, boredom, love, hate, excitement, bliss, pain, and on, and on. Emotions give color and texture and meaning to our lives. Often times the most difficult emotional experiences are the most necessary ones for our own development.[8]

I don’t think anyone would actually want a “happy life” even if it were possible. Less emotional experiences would mean being less human. Why are there movie genres for horror, comedy, tragedy, action, romance, and fantasy? Because people want to experience a full range of human emotions!

No one “enjoys” having depression, but the experience is wasted if you fail to, at least, appreciate it.

---

[1] "Hotline Information." Depression Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

[2] "Major Depressive Episode Symptoms." Psych Central. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

[3] Martin, Leslie R., Summer L. Williams, Kelly B. Haskard, and M. Robin DiMatteo. "The Challenge of Patient Adherence." Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management. Dove Medical Press, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

[4] "Hotline Information." Depression Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

[5] "The Nature of Emotions." » American Scientist. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

[6] "Corsair Philosophy." : Why You Can't Always Trust Your "Gut Feelings?" N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

[7] "Depression Acting Up? 5 Ways To Be Kind to Yourself." Depression Acting Up? 5 Ways To Be Kind to Yourself. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

[8] "Negative Emotions Are Key to Well-Being." Scientific American Global RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.