Suffering

[Sthira]

I am suffering, and looking for better ways to cope. Suffering is universal, we're told, and the Buddha, yes yes, his teachings are vivid, and Rumi's, and so suffering is the first rule of life, a natural part of sentient existence, like aging; but somehow I'd like to think that our suffering is curable, a disease that will be cured in the future, similar to aging.

 

One reason I found interest in healthy living practices -- say, calorie restriction or fasting or meditation or body motion art -- was this wild hope that I might one day find some peace inside inevitable suffering. Treat my body well, I am reasoning, and maybe my mind won't suffer as much as it would if I just smoked cigarettes and ate ding-dongs. Or something like that.

 

Do you have any thoughts or insights about the nature of the suffering we all evidently must endure in these tentative quicksand lifespans? Anything you've encountered to make the inevitable less painful and more bearable?

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/opinion/sunday/the-value-of-suffering.html

 

The Value of Suffering

 

September 7, 2013

Opinion

 

NARA, Japan — Hundreds of Syrians are apparently killed by chemical weapons, and the attempt to protect others from that fate threatens to kill many more. A child perishes with her mother in a tornado in Oklahoma, the month after an 8-year-old is slain by a bomb in Boston. Runaway trains claim dozens of lives in otherwise placid Canada and Spain. At least 46 people are killed in a string of coordinated bombings aimed at an ice cream shop, bus station and famous restaurant in Baghdad. Does the torrent of suffering ever abate — and can one possibly find any point in suffering?

 

Wise men in every tradition tell us that suffering brings clarity, illumination; for the Buddha, suffering is the first rule of life, and insofar as some of it arises from our own wrongheadedness — our cherishing of self — we have the cure for it within. Thus in certain cases, suffering may be an effect, as well as a cause, of taking ourselves too seriously. I once met a Zen-trained painter in Japan, in his 90s, who told me that suffering is a privilege, it moves us toward thinking about essential things and shakes us out of shortsighted complacency; when he was a boy, he said, it was believed you should pay for suffering, it proves such a hidden blessing.

 

Yet none of that begins to apply to a child gassed to death (or born with AIDS or hit by a “limited strike”). Philosophy cannot cure a toothache, and the person who starts going on about its long-term benefits may induce a headache, too. Anyone who’s been close to a loved one suffering from depression knows that the vicious cycle behind her condition means that, by definition, she can’t hear the logic or reassurances we extend to her; if she could, she wouldn’t be suffering from depression.

 

Occasionally, it’s true, I’ll meet someone — call him myself — who makes the same mistake again and again, heedless of what friends and sense tell him, unable even to listen to himself. Then he crashes his car, or suffers a heart attack, and suddenly calamity works on him like an alarm clock; by packing a punch that no gentler means can summon, suffering breaks him open and moves him to change his ways.

 

Occasionally, too, I’ll see that suffering can be in the eye of the beholder, our ignorant projection. The quadriplegic asks you not to extend sympathy to her; she’s happy, even if her form of pain is more visible than yours. The man on the street in Calcutta, India, or Port-au-Prince, Haiti, overturns all our simple notions about the relation of terrible conditions to cheerfulness and energy and asks whether we haven’t just brought our ideas of poverty with us.

 

But does that change all the many times when suffering leaves us with no seeming benefit at all, and only a resentment of those who tell us to look on the bright side and count our blessings and recall that time heals all wounds (when we know it doesn’t)? None of us expects life to be easy; Job merely wants an explanation for his constant unease. To live, as Nietzsche (and Roberta Flack) had it, is to suffer; to survive is to make sense of the suffering.

 

That’s why survival is never guaranteed.

 

OR put it as Kobayashi Issa, a haiku master in the 18th century, did: “This world of dew is a world of dew,” he wrote in a short poem. “And yet, and yet. ...” Known for his words of constant affirmation, Issa had seen his mother die when he was 2, his first son die, his father contract typhoid fever, his next son and a beloved daughter die.

 

He knew that suffering was a fact of life, he might have been saying in his short verse; he knew that impermanence is our home and loss the law of the world. But how could he not wish, when his 1-year-old daughter contracted smallpox, and expired, that it be otherwise?

 

After his poem of reluctant grief, Issa saw another son die and his own body paralyzed. His wife died, giving birth to another child, and that child died, maybe because of a careless nurse. He married again and was separated within weeks. He married a third time and his house was destroyed by fire. Finally, his third wife bore him a healthy daughter — but Issa himself died, at 64, before he could see the little girl born.

 

My friend Richard, one of my closest pals in high school, upon receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer three years ago, created a blog called “This world of dew.” I sent him some information about Issa — whose poems, till his death, express almost nothing but gratitude for the beauties of life — but Richard died quickly and in pain, barely able to walk the last time I saw him.

 

MY neighbors in Japan live in a culture that is based, at some invisible level, on the Buddhist precepts that Issa knew: that suffering is reality, even if unhappiness need not be our response to it. This makes for what comes across to us as uncomplaining hard work, stoicism and a constant sense of the ways difficulty binds us together — as Britain knew during the blitz, and other cultures at moments of stress, though doubly acute in a culture based on the idea of interdependence, whereby the suffering of one is the suffering of everyone.

 

“I’ll do my best!” and “I’ll stick it out!” and “It can’t be helped” are the phrases you hear every hour in Japan; when a tsunami claimed thousands of lives north of Tokyo two years ago, I heard much more lamentation and panic in California than among the people I know around Kyoto. My neighbors aren’t formal philosophers, but much in the texture of the lives they’re used to — the national worship of things falling away in autumn, the blaze of cherry blossoms followed by their very quick departure, the Issa-like poems on which they’re schooled — speaks for an old culture’s training in saying goodbye to things and putting delight and beauty within a frame. Death undoes us less, sometimes, than the hope that it will never come.

 

As a boy, I’d learned that it’s the Latin, and maybe a Greek, word for “suffering” that gives rise to our word “passion.” Etymologically, the opposite of “suffering” is, therefore, “apathy”; the Passion of the Christ, say, is a reminder, even a proof, that suffering is something that a few high souls embrace to try to lessen the pains of others. Passion with the plight of others makes for “compassion.”

 

Almost eight months after the Japanese tsunami, I accompanied the Dalai Lama to a fishing village, Ishinomaki, that had been laid waste by the natural disaster. Gravestones lay tilted at crazy angles when they had not collapsed altogether. What once, a year before, had been a thriving network of schools and homes was now just rubble. Three orphans barely out of kindergarten stood in their blue school uniforms to greet him, outside of a temple that had miraculously survived the catastrophe. Inside the wooden building, by its altar, were dozens of colored boxes containing the remains of those who had no surviving relatives to claim them, all lined up perfectly in a row, behind framed photographs, of young and old.

 

As the Dalai Lama got out of his car, he saw hundreds of citizens who had gathered on the street, behind ropes, to greet him. He went over and asked them how they were doing. Many collapsed into sobs. “Please change your hearts, be brave,” he said, while holding some and blessing others. “Please help everyone else and work hard; that is the best offering you can make to the dead.” When he turned round, however, I saw him brush away a tear himself.

 

Then he went into the temple and spoke to the crowds assembled on seats there. He couldn’t hope to give them anything other than his sympathy and presence, he said; as soon as he heard about the disaster, he knew he had to come here, if only to remind the people of Ishinomaki that they were not alone. He could understand a little of what they were feeling, he went on, because he, as a young man of 23 in his home in Lhasa had been told, one afternoon, to leave his homeland that evening, to try to prevent further fighting between Chinese troops and Tibetans around his palace.

 

He left his friends, his home, even one small dog, he said, and had never in 52 years been back. Two days after his departure, he heard that his friends were dead. He had tried to see loss as opportunity and to make many innovations in exile that would have been harder had he still been in old Tibet; for Buddhists like himself, he pointed out, inexplicable pains are the result of karma, sometimes incurred in previous lives, and for those who believe in God, everything is divinely ordained. And yet, his tear reminded me, we still live in Issa’s world of “And yet.”

 

The large Japanese audience listened silently and then turned, insofar as its members were able, to putting things back together again the next day. The only thing worse than assuming you could get the better of suffering, I began to think (though I’m no Buddhist), is imagining you could do nothing in its wake. And the tear I’d witnessed made me think that you could be strong enough to witness suffering, and yet human enough not to pretend to be master of it. Sometimes it’s those things we least understand that deserve our deepest trust. Isn’t that what love and wonder tell us, too?

[Dean Pomerleau]

Sthira,

 

 

Do you have any thoughts or insights about the nature of the suffering we all evidently must endure in these tentative quicksand lifespans? Anything you've encountered to make the inevitable less painful and more bearable?

 

It sounds like you're doing everything right (diet, meditation, body movement) and yet you still suffer. My heart goes out to you my friend. In my experience, the best way to deal with suffering depends on type of suffering you are experiencing:

1. Physical - My life is being ruined by the pain of back pain that I can't cope with and that clouds my every waking moment.
2. Emotional - I can't get over the loss of person X from my life - due to death, divorce, estrangement, etc.
3. Existential - I can't seem to find a purpose for life, and therefore see no reason for living. So why get out of bed?

For #1 I recommend vibration therapy - but I know you're already employing that. Something I've talked only briefly about is Inversion therapy, which I find really helpful both for stretching the body and getting fresh blood flowing to the brain. A short session of hanging upside down makes be feel both relaxed and mentally energized. Have you tried it? Finally, for #1 there is the age-old good advice - "have you tried icing it?" ☺

 

 I've also found music soothes the savage beast of suffering of all three types. In fact, it's thanks to you my friend, by rekindling an appreciation of music, and in particular of Matisyahu's music. Have you tried listening to him to help relieve your suffering? Here is the YouTube playlist of top Matisyahu tracks I've been streaming over and over again since you reminded me of my love for his music a while back. If Matisyahu music can't help relieve your suffering, then it's time to bring out the big guns...

 

The first big gun is the one you should whip out when the pain, suffering and/or loss is inevitable and unavoidable. That is the philosophy of Stoicism. And I don't just mean trying to embrace with platitude "Suck it up man. Life's a bitch and then we die. Get over it and get on with life." That can't work - there isn't enough meat on them bones to embrace. You need to do so reading and some careful contemplation on it. Read very slowly (like two pages per day) the very short Sharon Lebell translation of Epictetus I discussed here. She and Dr. E will put you on the right track for coping with inevitable pain and suffering.

 

But if you really want a big gun solution to suffering - I recommend the practice of envisioning that your actions, however small and seemingly insignificant, are contributing concretely to bringing about a better world. As you pass people on the street, look into their soul deeply, pretend you can identify their source of pain and suffering, and imagine yourself absorbing it into yourself, and projecting peace and well-being back at them, almost like a beam of laser light. You may recognize this as an informal version of the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tonglen (or Tonglin) meditation. Here is a short 5-min video of Tonglen by Tibetan master Pema Chodron that I highly recommend to everyone:

 

 

She walks you through the steps of practicing Tonglen in a formal, sitting-meditation framework. But I actually find it easier to do out in the world, since its easier to visualize when you've got a real person (usually a stranger, but sometimes a loved one or co-worker) immediately in front of you rather than trying to conjure them up in your imagination as Pema discusses.

 

Here is a crazy version of Tonglen that I do every day when I'm out on a walk / run. I look up in the sky for the contrail of an airplane, and follow it to its pointy tip. Then, focusing on the plane, I project an imaginary positive beam of energy towards it, while saying earnestly but silently to myself "may everyone on the plane be safe, healthy, happy, and at peace." I know it seems weird, but if you take it seriously you'll be amazed at how good it feels to be secretly and earnestly sending goodwill to so many tiny people far away all at once.

 

As I said, do the same thing with people on TV and in the public spotlight (even those you dislike), with strangers you pass on the street, with coworkers, with family and the people you love. But don't tell anyone you're doing it. Make it be your own little secret. Pretend you're a superhero in disguise, making the world a better place simply by the power of your thoughts. Project good intentions and a loving energy everywhere you go. I know it sounds crazy. But it worked wonders for me during Kyle's ordeal.

 

Here is an example from that period in my life. I took up running a lot during those difficult times to help clear my mind, and stay in shape so I could be of most service. At the end of each run, for about the last ½ mile, I would sprint all-out, until my lungs were burning. I'd also go out and run wearing only shorts when the temperature was in the 20-25 °F range.

 

I would imagine that through the physical pain I was experiencing, I was somehow helping Kyle - absorbing the tremendous pain and suffering he was experiencing into my own body through some crazy law of Karma, and that way helping relieve his suffering through taking it upon myself. It helped tremendously with keeping my sanity during those horrific times. In fact, I can still remember as if it were yesterday, being in the middle of this practice at the end of one of my runs when my neighbor (who was helping us out and who was very close to Kyle), came rushing out of our house to meet me as I came sprinting up the hill to our house from the golf course. She said to come quick - Kyle had taken a turn for the worse. Four hours later he was gone. Thankfully he didn't spend it suffering, as far as we could tell. I like to think my practice of Tonglen might have had something to do with that. During those four long and hellish hours I sat next to his bed, continuing to project positive energy his way, while reading passages from Lebell's translation of Epictetus which I kept on my lap.

 

Try my version of Tonglen, Pema's or make up your own. Do it for a week. I guarantee you're life will be changed in a positive way as a result. And who knows, you might actually make a difference. Stranger things have happened.

 

Finally Sthira, just to get you going with Tonlen: I want to let you know that you have already made a big difference in my life (and not just rekindling my love of Matisyahu ☺). You have personally helped set me on my biggest vision quest yet. So you never know how something small you do might actually make a big difference in someone's life. Believing that you can make a difference, and make things better for yourself and others, is a big step towards making it happen.

 

--Dean

[Larry Johnson]

Do you have any thoughts or insights about the nature of the suffering we all evidently must endure in these tentative quicksand lifespans? Anything you've encountered to make the inevitable less painful and more bearable?

 

 

I wish I could offer something that would really help, but all I can do is describe my own simple way of coping.  Over the past 12 years I had a succession of deaths in the family.  First my wife of 20 years died after an agonizing six-year decline in which I was the primary caregiver.  A few years later my father died, then my mother.  None of their deaths were fast or easy.  So I spent 18 years taking care of people who were dying.

 

I learned things useful for me by watching their means of coping with the physical pain and discomfort, but the emotional pressure I was under only seemed to have one solution, and that was acceptance of each moment I was in.  I wasn't always perfect at taking that approach, but when I did, it worked.  In those moments I wouldn't think about anything I should have done in the past, or think too much about what's going to happen in the future.  It's sort of like the Serenity Prayer 12-step groups use: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."

 

I hope that didn't come of as just spouting platitudes, but that approach has worked for me in some pretty dismal circumstances.

[Sthira]

You're not spouting platitudes, Larry. We're all suffering -- everyone everywhere and if not today then we will tomorrow -- and, like trying to solve the seemingly intractable problems of aging, suffering is a disease without cure.

 

Dean's division of it into three parts is helpful, and to add, I think "hope" must play a role -- hope for a better future with less individual and collective suffering, not just for stupid little selfish me, but hope for less suffering for everything. So Dean's angle (machines smarter than we), I think, is our best hope out of universal suffering:

 

...my biggest vision quest yet. It may be quixotic, but I'm beginning to think more and more that it's not - that there really is something to it, that I may have something substantive to contribute, and that it might make a big difference to the total amount of suffering in the world. And I'm starting to realize that believing strongly enough that something might be true, or become true, is more than half the battle. 

In other words, I'm not ignoring attempts of alleviation of physical, emotional, and existential suffering through the uses of vibration machines, inversion, icing, music, stoicism, tonglen, attempting to live in the now, and acceptance of change. Nor do I mean to criticize, please don't read me as critical, but I'm trying to push past these ideas because these ideas really don't work very well. Do they? We do them; we suffer anyway. They're patch-up jobs (temporary coping -- which is indeed what I asked for -- how do you cope with inevitable suffering -- and you kindly offered insights) but... sigh...

 

How do we accelerate tool creation so we can all live in a brighter, better world? When we lose the earth's ecosystems because we've exceeded our carrying capacity, how then do we use our tools to explore outward into other places in the universe?

 

We were all just born too damned soon. Hope?

[Dean Pomerleau]

Sthira,

 

[ideas = vibration machines, inversion, icing, music, meditation, healthy eating, exercise, stoicism, tonglen]

Nor do I mean to criticize, please don't read me as critical, but I'm trying to push past these ideas because these ideas really don't work very well. Do they? We do them; we suffer anyway.

 

Some people find peace through practicing techniques such as these, and go to their grave without suffering despite the inevitable pain. Some Tibetan monks, or Ramana Maharshi come to mind. Granted, these techniques probably won't work for everyone. There is definitely a genetic tendency towards melancholy that some are born with, and there is little we can do about it until David Pearce can do some Paradise Engineering on us, as you and I have discussed before.

 

But they can seem to work quite effectively for some. I can honestly say I haven't suffered in quite a long time, since a few months after Kyle died - and even during those darkest days there was always a crack of daylight between me and my sorrows.

 

How do we accelerate tool creation so we can all live in a brighter, better world? When we lose the earth's ecosystems because we've exceeded our carrying capacity, how then do we use our tools to explore outward into other places in the universe?

 

We were all just born too damned soon. Hope?

 

Well Sthira, rest assured there are people working on it. I'm one of them. That's why I've suddenly become so (relatively) scarce around here. Right now, looking at the next few months, I'm both more hopeful and more scared for the future of humanity (or at least America) than I have ever been.

 

--Dean

[Sthira]

We were all just born too damned soon. Hope?

Well Sthira, rest assured there are people working on it. I'm one of them. That's why I've suddenly become so (relatively) scarce around here. Right now, looking at the next few months, I'm both more hopeful and more scared for the future of humanity (or at least America) than I have ever been.

 

http://www.paradise-engineering.com/heave2.htm

 

"...our descendants, and in principle perhaps even our elderly selves, will have the chance to enjoy modes of experience we emotional primitives cruelly lack: sights more majestically beautiful, music more deeply soul-stirring, sex more exquisitely erotic, mystical epiphanies more awe-inspiring, and love more profoundly intense than anything we can now properly comprehend..."

[Pea]

Sthira –

I am new here.  I have wandered around these boards reading various posts and getting to know a little bit about those who post here.  I love reading what you write.  Your thought processes are unique and interesting and fun.  I am so sorry to hear you are suffering now.  I too have fallen into dark places at various times in my life.  Often there seems no way out.  Yet experience has taught me that the passage of time somehow magically helps.  Slowly, imperceptibly, vague moments arise that seem less oppressive.  I don’t know of any quick or easy solutions.  Try not to spend too much time alone.  Be patient with yourself.  Occupy your mind with simple distractions.  Get lost in a book.  Dance, move your body around and go through the motions of life until life and joy return to you. 

 

 

From personal experience and things I have read, I think the roots of depression are due to our way of processing thoughts; our “ruminations”.  The dark side of rumination is probably something we can all relate to.  We get caught in a trap of pessimism, an endless loop of misery that feels purposeless and leaves us feeling helpless.   

 

Why does it seem the most creative, artistic and interesting people suffer the most with depression?

Its tendency to afflict artists and creatives, coupled with its inheritability, seem contradictory to Darwin’s evolutionary theory, “only the strongest survive”.   

 

Yet according to some theories, depressive disorders come with a net benefit that has a long intellectual history.  Michelangelo, Mozart, Beethoven, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Van Gogh, Lincoln, Asimov, John Adams, Kurt Godel, Tolstoy…. And the list goes on and on.  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adKEqin5SoI

 

 

-Pea

[Pea]

Dean,

 

 

 

I would imagine that through the physical pain I was experiencing, I was somehow helping Kyle - absorbing the tremendous pain and suffering he was experiencing into my own body through some crazy law of Karma, and that way helping relieve his suffering through taking it upon myself. It helped tremendously with keeping my sanity during those horrific times. In fact, I can still remember as if it were yesterday

 

Thank you so much for revealing your thoughts during unimaginably difficult times.  My heart goes out to you and my admiration runs deep.  You are not only brilliant, but you are brave and kind and good.   

 

I lost my father to a brain tumor when I was young. I was 12 years old when he was diagnosed.  The doctors gave him one year to live.  He lived 7 torturous years.  He became the child and I the parent. I could not bear the idea of his suffering and so I prayed the gods should let me suffer in his place.  I sought ways to suffer and shunned anything that might feel good. 

 

 

Why do we do this? Does it make any sense from a biological or evolutionary perspective?

 

-Pea 

 

 

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. ”

― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems

[timc]

"The Value of Suffering

 

September 7, 2013

Opinion

 

NARA, Japan — Hundreds of Syrians are apparently killed by chemical weapons ... "

 

One idea is to avoid news (mainstream or otherwise - especially the local 'if it bleeds, it leads'):

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

https://open.buffer.com/mainstream-news/

 

 

[Gordo]

Have you considered treatment for clinical depression?

Also worth pointing out that underweight (defined as BMI <18.5) people may suffer more from depression (not sure this was adjusted for confounding factors):

 

Depression and body mass index, a u-shaped association

[Todd Allen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1bQBngQ6Xg

 

Fela Kuti - Shuffering and Shmiling

 

You Africans, please listen to me as Africans
And you non-Africans, listen to me with open mind

Suffer, suffer, suffer, suffer, suffer
Suffer for world
Na your fault be that
Me I say: na your fault be that

I want you all to please take your minds
Out of this musical contraption
And put your minds into any goddamn church
Any goddamn mosque
Any goddamn Celestical
Including Seraphoom and Cheruboom

Now, we are all there now
Our minds are in those places
Here we go

[Chorus]
Amen!

Suffer, suffer for world
Enjoy for Heaven
Christians go dey yab
"In Spiritum Heavinus"
Muslims go dey call
"Allahu Akbar"

Open you eye everywhere
Archbishop na miliki
Pope na enjoyment
Imam na gbaladun

[Chorus]
Archbishop dey enjoy
Pope self dey enjoy
Imam self dey enjoy
My brother wetin you say?
My brother wetin you say?

My sister wetin you go hear?
My sister wetin you go hear?

Archbishop dey for London
Pope dey for Rome
Imam dey for Mecca
Archbishop dey for London
Pope dey for Rome
Imam dey for Mecca

[Chorus]
Amen!

My people them go dey follow Bishop
Them go follow Pope
Them go follow Imam
Them go go for London
Them go go for Rome
Them go go for Mecca
Them go carry all the money
Them go juba Bishop
Juba Pope
Juba Imam
Then them go start to yab themselves:

[Fela starts chanting in mock-Latin/Arabic]

Every day, for house
Every day, for road
Every day, for bus
Every day, for work

My people, my people
My people, my people

We now have to carry our minds
Out of those goddamn places
Back into this musical contraption
Right opposite you
Now we are back here

This is what happens to we Africans every day
Now wetin I want tell you now
Na secret o
Na confidential matter
Don't tell anybody outside
Na between me and you
Now listen

As I dey say before
E dey happen to all of us every day
We Africans all over the world
Now listen

[Chorus]
Suffering and smiling!

Every day my people dey inside bus
Every day my people dey inside bus
Forty-nine sitting, ninety-nine standing
Them go pack themselves in like sardine
Them dey faint, them dey wake like cock
Them go reach house, water no dey
Them go reach bed, power no dey
Them go reach road, go-slow go come
Them go reach road, police go slap
Them go reach road, army go whip
Them go look pocket, money no dey
Them go reach work, query ready

Every day na the same thing
Every day na the same thing
Every day na the same thing
Every day na the same thing

Suffer, suffer for world...

How many, many a many you go make?
Many, many...
How many, many a many you go make?
Many, many...
How many, many a many you go make?
Many, many...
How many, many a many you go make?
Many, many...

[Sthira]

I am so sorry to hear you are suffering now. I too have fallen into dark places at various times in my life. Often there seems no way out.

Thank you for your compassion, Pea. Not to sound melodramatic (I'm not good enough with words to not sound weird when discussing what's at the core for me here) but I think some of us reach a point of despair with life that really isn't very recoverable, and I may be in that place. Dunno. I hope I'm wrong, and that there is a purpose or point to any of us being alive (I like Dean's life as computer simulation promulgations here on this site) so I keep listening to strange podcasts like this one that seem to resonate here in some system of a down I've found myself round.

 

https://youtu.be/JJX5nOm1MoE

 

The above certainly isn't the only, but it's a nice representation, it's sweet, it's soft, it's kind, and it's hopeful. Forgive me for not providing a coherent discussion and review of this, like the brilliant Dean here would do, I've simply no time or intellectual energy to do it. :-(

 

Dance, move your body around and go through the motions of life until life and joy return to you.

Yes, of course, and I've built my life around this idea, so here's a shorter version of the thing -- near death experience -- posted just above, a song among millions billions trillions of songs that also might be relevant, but I choose this one, oh geez a vision I've posted here before maybe:

 

https://youtu.be/Cvrjn_pF9tY

 

Why does it seem the most creative, artistic and interesting people suffer the most with depression?

Its tendency to afflict artists and creatives, coupled with its inheritability, seem contradictory to Darwin’s evolutionary theory, “only the strongest survive”.

 

Yet according to some theories, depressive disorders come with a net benefit that has a long intellectual history. Michelangelo, Mozart, Beethoven, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Van Gogh, Lincoln, Asimov, John Adams, Kurt Godel, Tolstoy…. And the list goes on and on.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adKEqin5SoI

 

Thank you again for that, and again I hope not to sound like supradramaqueen, but for the individual in the species I don't think there's any redeeming value whatsoever to "depression" or "depressive disorders" and I'd bet my everything that most "creative, artistic, and interesting people..." would trade their creative abilities, art, and interestingness for relief from "depression" (which depression is not "sadness"). I know I would, anyway, and I'll never be anything close to a Nijinsky anyway, so...

 

https://youtu.be/UyHXBBpW1y4

 

No value for the individual, but perhaps like Dawkins's selfish gene there is value for the survival of the wider species. I guess, haha, like I'd know, ha...

[Dean Pomerleau]

Sthira,

 

 

 I don't think there's any redeeming value whatsoever to "depression" or "depressive disorders"

 

Agreed. Have you considered anti-depressants? They worked wonders for Kyle. He was on Zoloft for the entire length of his ordeal, and they were helped tremendously - allowing him to keep engaged with life despite sucky hand he'd been dealt.

 

--Dean

[Todd Allen]

Shtira, google "ketogenic diet depression" and look at a tiny fraction of it and think if any of it might apply to yourself.  If fasting makes you feel better, perhaps slashing carbohydrates, keeping steady on protein and pufa and boosting mufa, sfa and salt will benefit you too.  For myself, it's been nearly a miracle, though I was suffering from a variety of different maladies.  If you try it, I'd expect the transition to go more smoothly after one of your fasts.  Otherwise be prepared to give it a week or two as your body transitions into and adapts to ketosis.

[mikeccolella]

Dont know your personal situation Sthira, but an intimate and loving relationship can have a huge impact on your life in a very positive and powerful way. If thats missing it might be the solution.

[Mechanism]

Edited

[mikeccolella]

Dean thank you for posting about Tonglen meditation. I tried doing it today while shpping at Wal Mart.AMAZING! Totally changed my experience. Generally hate going there, but this time I looked at the people not as nuisances in my way but as human beings suffering and in need of compassion breathing inand out and I practiced, as best I could the Tonglen, and it just blew my mind how different it made the whole experience.

 

I will continue the practice in those type situations and see where it goes. It can be challenging especially with annoying people but thats what makes it especially satisfying when you can conquer that negativity and just feel the compassion and put it out there. Why dont they teach this stuff in school!

[Mechanism]

Edited

[Sthira]

Thank you guys, you're kind and beautiful. And all of you are helping me in little ways with your goodness.

 

I do love David Foster Wallace (have you read his Infinite Jest?) but sadly I think he shot himself. What a beautiful soul -- depression is such a horrible tragedy.

[Mechanism]

Edited

[Dean Pomerleau]

Mike,

 

Isn't Tonglen amazing? It really can change your whole perspective on this game we call life.

 

Mechanism, I'd never heard David Foster Wallace's 2005 Kenyon University commencement speech before. Thanks so much for pointing to it. I listened to the full (22 min) version of his speech as well, and read the transcript too (pdf).

 

What an nice coincidence that Mike talks about practicing Tonglen at the Walmart, and DFW talks about our freedom to choose how to think about "consumer-hell" situations like standing in a slow line at the grocery story. DFW points out that rather than judging others and simply consider them obstacles in our way at such times, we can chose to give others the benefit of the doubt. He points out that a more compassionate attitude and perspective towards others isn't necessarily True with a capital-T, or the right way to think, either interpreted as "correct" or "virtuous". It's just that if nothing else, adopting such an attitude makes life more interesting and enjoyable, more like a noble quest than a deadening struggle.

 

As DFW said, we all have the freedom to "be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation." The key is to recognize first that we have a choice, and that we can refrain from simply going with the default, self-centered attitude that our western culture inculcates in us from a young age.

 

After recognizing we are free to choose our attitude, we then have to decide how to wield this freedom:

 

This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

 

It was a tragedy that DFW killed himself a few years after this speech. It goes to show just how hard it is to keep things in perspective, and avoid getting sucked into the echo chamber of self-centeredness that people naturally tend to live in most of the time. Remembering we have the freedom to chose our stance towards life isn't always easy, especially if you suffer from depression.

 

From his Wikipedia page it sounds like DFW had suffered from depression most of his adult life, and that antidepressants allowed him to be productive. It sounds like he tried to wean himself off them due to side effects. When his depression returned he found the antidepressant he'd been using no longer was effective. A couple months later he killed himself.

 

This shows that antidepressants can really help those suffering from depression, and don't necessarily negatively impact one's creativity. In fact, quite the opposite - for those for whom depression is debilitating, antidepressants can be the only way they can cope and be productive.

 

--Dean

[Gordo]

I recently heard a song over a college radio station, from a local band, that immediately made me think of this thread.  The band must be pretty unknown as their youtube videos have only like 100 views, haha, but I thought you might enjoy it.  It imbues a sense of peace and positivity in me...

 

https://youtu.be/EtJvPgdLE_0

[Sthira]

"...it's like having all the power of the universe and being shoved into a tiny space. I am corked. Like Aladdin..."

 

[drewab]

Since I noticed Matisyahu tracks, one should definitely take a look at this:

 

 

Also, there is a phenomenal band called Nimo out there too. There music is to be sure to alleviate your suffering, for at least a few moments here and there. Here is a link to one of there most popular songs, grateful.

 

 

I don't have all the answers to suffering, most people don't.  I've experienced a lot of it myself, including this.  Most of the time I am grateful for my suffering, but I still have moments where I feel sorry for myself. I think had I not experienced a seriously challenging event at a young age I would have continued to live out my life as a self-centred person who sucks life and resources out of this globe without any regard for what I contribute.

 

In addition to Dean's loving-kindness walk, I also practice meditation daily, do not watch the news, and engage in most of the CR practices people around here do.  Yesterday I was feeling down and the temperature was -4'C and I went for a 7km run with very light clothing.  The combination of cold exposure and exercise did the trick and I felt better for 10 of the 12 hours my day had left. I also spent a bunch of time outside building snowmen with my family for some additional CE.  

 

On the bright side I needed to eat a lot of good plant-based food to balance the calories I burned. 

 

I've personally found the teachings of Eckhart Tolle to be of incredible value in attempting to alleviate my own suffering and that of others. His book A New Earth was very helpful.

[Dean Pomerleau]

Drew,

 

I too have learned a lot from reading and listening to Eckhart Tolle. I personally preferred his first book (Power of Now) over A New Earth, but it seems right now we could use more global consciousness raising, which was more the focus of A New Earth.

 

Speaking of consciousness raising, thanks so much for sharing the nimo and the Grateful song. He is amazing, from self-centered rapper to ambassador of love and hope to the world. Checkout the backstory to his Empty Hands album in this video:

 

 

[bTW - if you want to embed a YouTube video, just paste the URL into the message, don't  insert it as a link. I had to remove the links from your URLs above to make it so the videos were embedded, rather than showing up as a blue link].

 

I like nimo's Empty Hands album so much, I downloaded it (for free) and donated to his efforts here.  Here is a Youtube playlist off the other songs on the album for anyone who wants to preview them.

 

--Dean