Deep in the American social psyche is the Calvinist notion that setbacks in health and finances are always the fault of the sufferer. Wealth is seen to be the sign of divine approval not as Balzac's evidence of a crime. Similarly, ever since the New England Reader we have believed that cleanliness (and healthy living) is next to godliness.
One of the most difficult things about bouts of depression is hearing the well-meaning exhortations to be happy, exercise, meditate, as if the person had set out to defy the 11th American Commandment: thou shalt be cheerful. It echoes the chorus of Wall Street traders who jeered "losers" in response to aid for laid off people who were unable to pay their mortgages.
Rationalist-minded 21st century denizens might want to revise the social norm. We might want to be cheerful about having jobs (90.6 percent of us still do) while respecting the reasonable right to a little gloom and doom when others are so moved.
Between the medieval vale of tears and the 19th century delight in progress, lies another path, still unnamed and figuratively undescribed.
2 comments:
I agree completely. Thinking though... happiness is not always cheerful. Contentment is rarely cheerful, I suspect.
That eleventh commandment has done more damage than most realize.
~*
I have been in a funk of my own lately, knowing I certainly don't have all my act together.
I think what is different about a depression that is linked to Depression and the lack of good economy, is that the effects are more solitary. To compare, if it is an illness, a chronic illness, a medical community (if you are lucky) and family/friends might compassionately share the travail. If it is an enemy of the community, such as those who live in warfare, the entire community supports a militia.
But down and out monetary depression, unless one lives within a community or street or village of "as poor" people, usually rests completely on the the individual. It *feels* more lonely.
& a bottom line to it all is that one/I haven't "achieved". However, I don't want to be totally depressed and know that, yes, there *is* a bright side and in being cheerful I am less a communal depressant.
Anne
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