Why Depression

[A Fellow Lighter]

I am not fully acquainted and fluent with the English language, so it just may happen that this post comes across as low quality. 

What we're taught...

In growing up and learning of the workings of this world, we are, quite naturally, enlightened on what it means to be alive, and how to maintain this livelihood. As children we are taught about the basic human needs: water, food, clothing and shelter. And later, as we grow, we are taught of the complexities that come with the proper use of these needs in a way that is balanced and healthy, such as hygiene, exercise, diet and etc. The idea is this: ‘Take care of your needs and you'll be taking care of yourself.’ and basically, health is the opposite of death - the healthier you are.. the more alive you are.

What we're not taught...

That life is not that simple, that what it means to be alive is really an individual matter, not a science matter. We're not taught that life is not so easy to figure out and that what it means to live is really something to be figured out by the individual from finding his or her own way, and not something to be defined by a social collective.  Sure, as children we're nudged in the right direction in terms of basic survival instincts, but there's more to life than that, much more to us than that.

What I'm trying to say is that what you are, fundamentally, is not biological and mechanical. Food, sex and comfort just won't cut it for you. You are exhaustible, your hunger gets beyond nutrition and in to the realm of spiritual fulfilment. You are soul. You can still tire even if you're living in luxury you can still become weary of life. We are not like other animals that live to survive.

Why we depress...

Because we're wasting energy on things that don't fulfill us, things that only serve us on the physical level and not on a spiritual level. See, we were taught how to take care of the body but never of the spirit, never of the soul. 

Depression is like a pre-physical death, you die before your body dies. You are taking care of the body but not of the spirit, whilst you putting it to work extensively for almost no return. Feed the spirit, fulfill the soul, and there will be balance and harmony with life. I mentioned the wasting of energy.. yes, depression is a sign of abuse of energy from within - soul energy. Whether this abuse is external or self-inflicted, it still drains you.

What is soul energy?

It is your ability to care. Don't get it twisted, your ability to care about things does not come from the simple state of living, your state of living is produced by your ability to care. Stop caring about anything, and you'll die. This is depression. Take care of your soul energy, use it meaningfully. 

If my depression had taught me anything, it's that what I am is something like a love-bubble - my nature is that of caring. And if I don't care, I am as good as dead.

[PepperBlossoms]

Thank you for sharing this.  This is really good stuff.

[Razard86]

18 hours ago, A Fellow Lighter said:

I am not fully acquainted and fluent with the English language, so it just may happen that this post comes across as low quality. 

What we're taught...

In growing up and learning of the workings of this world, we are, quite naturally, enlightened on what it means to be alive, and how to maintain this livelihood. As children we are taught about the basic human needs: water, food, clothing and shelter. And later, as we grow, we are taught of the complexities that come with the proper use of these needs in a way that is balanced and healthy, such as hygiene, exercise, diet and etc. The idea is this: ‘Take care of your needs and you'll be taking care of yourself.’ and basically, health is the opposite of death - the healthier you are.. the more alive you are.

What we're not taught...

That life is not that simple, that what it means to be alive is really an individual matter, not a science matter. We're not taught that life is not so easy to figure out and that what it means to live is really something to be figured out by the individual from finding his or her own way, and not something to be defined by a social collective.  Sure, as children we're nudged in the right direction in terms of basic survival instincts, but there's more to life than that, much more to us than that.

What I'm trying to say is that what you are, fundamentally, is not biological and mechanical. Food, sex and comfort just won't cut it for you. You are exhaustible, your hunger gets beyond nutrition and in to the realm of spiritual fulfilment. You are soul. You can still tire even if you're living in luxury you can still become weary of life. We are not like other animals that live to survive.

Why we depress...

Because we're wasting energy on things that don't fulfill us, things that only serve us on the physical level and not on a spiritual level. See, we were taught how to take care of the body but never of the spirit, never of the soul. 

Depression is like a pre-physical death, you die before your body dies. You are taking care of the body but not of the spirit, whilst you putting it to work extensively for almost no return. Feed the spirit, fulfill the soul, and there will be balance and harmony with life. I mentioned the wasting of energy.. yes, depression is a sign of abuse of energy from within - soul energy. Whether this abuse is external or self-inflicted, it still drains you.

What is soul energy?

It is your ability to care. Don't get it twisted, your ability to care about things does not come from the simple state of living, your state of living is produced by your ability to care. Stop caring about anything, and you'll die. This is depression. Take care of your soul energy, use it meaningfully. 

If my depression had taught me anything, it's that what I am is something like a love-bubble - my nature is that of caring. And if I don't care, I am as good as dead.

I love how your mind works friend. Your ability to express is profound. I would pay to hear you pontificate LOL.

[PepperBlossoms]

I liked the idea about how the stuff we are doing is not serving us and is taking away our energy.

For me, when I get depressed, my thoughts would be like daggers and I would be under constant attack by my thoughts all day, day after day.  The thoughts were not serving me to feel well and I was not doing anything with my activity to serve me well either.  I was sitting in the puddle of getting attacked by my thoughts.

I can see though that we are choosing to be under attack, maybe we have shame and we feel we deserve to be attacked because of our shame and so we keep on throwing the daggers at ourselves; we think we need this shame, we think we need to talk down on ourselves, we think our karma needs to have it to make things even, we think that that will help us to figure it out and to strengthen us; however if nothing but shame, it can be too much and too constraining, too confined, too repressed.  But also the thoughts can eventually help us figure stuff out but not necessarily when they are daggers but rather when they are like lily pads of ideas, when they aren't as threatening to work with.  When we can use them to build mansions of ideas instead of just stay huddled in a shed.

This reminds me of how sometimes I have to do something completely different, like a video game, weed, a painting, an interaction, something to distract me and change my environment/focus and get me to be too busy to have time to dagger myself, that I can let ideas in that do serve me, do lift me up, do inspire me, etc.

I guess when we do inspiring stuff, we inspire ourselves and that inspiration can feel so great that we don't feel the need or desire to dagger ourselves.

And it can produce this dopamine effect where we want to do more things that inspire us, captivate us, make us curious, make us feel proud, etc.

The act of doing things that the heart will enjoy and that fills the heart up is huge and very helpful for recovery, in my experience.

Edited March 29, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

Sometimes I feel like when depressed, it is not that we don't care, but that we care so much that we are unwilling to drop the seriousness obsession with how much we care; so much that that is what we focus on the entire day non-stop constantly with extreme work ethic, focus, and diligence on our dire mental health.  It is what we see all day.  We care so much that we are willing to try anything to make things better, even if that means turning to drugs, turning to wild sex with random people, turning to speeding, turning to stealing, turning to hitting, turning to yelling and calling people names, willing to stay up all night.  We care so much we contemplate suicide because that is just another thing we could try, another state of mind to play with to see if that will make things better; if we tell ourselves that this is the worst, this is the bottom of the barrel, if this, a way like procrastination or a way of having no plan B, that maybe this will get some sort of idea, reconciliation to pop into our head, something to make things better.  We care so much about feeling better that we are willing to quit school, quit our jobs, play video games all day, go for our passions, make music, write books, chase after the dream partner, etc. because we want to see if that will work.

...

I guess I need to explore some more on the not caring.

Edited March 29, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[zurew]

1 hour ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Sometimes I feel like when depressed, it is not that we don't care, but that we care so much that we are unwilling to drop the seriousness obsession with how much we care

I think you are totally right on that one. We are being so attached to the depressed state/depressed perspective that we can't let it go. If we wouldn't care, we would let it go, but we are caring so much about staying in the depressed state, that we  build a whole persona and story around it so it can become stronger.

Thats how powerful attachments are, being obsessively attached to something can literally destroy your life. Thats why practicing detachment and letting go of things consciously is a very powerful technique.

Its very interesting, that sometimes the ego would rather lead itself to suicide, compared to letting the negative identity go, and letting go of  negative attachments. 

[A Fellow Lighter]

@PepperBlossoms energy is only that.. energy, your ability to care is only your ability to care. What your mind does with this energy is an entirely different matter. But in whatever it does - it will reflect in the emotional beingness of the individual. 

See, mankind's challenge is exactly this: We have been granted unlimited power (source of energy) for a limited time - the time is the incarnation; the power is love. When this energy is wasted, the spirit feels wasteful. When the spirit feels wasteful your very existence will seem like a waste of space. And if there's enough room in the psyche for the agents of chaos to do their negative bidding, then you will be made to feel like you're a burden to the people you care about thus turning your own power against you.

Soul-energy, or your ability to care, has never been the problem. It is the use of your mind-instrumental/tool that needs more attentiveness. There must be balance. Watch closely what you choose to do with your mind: only mind what serves you, do not mind what doesn't serve you.

[Spence94]

@A Fellow Lighter  Beautiful. 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Spence94

[OceanRiver]

@A Fellow Lighter fantastic observations strength to you! ????????????