RE: Traveling at the Edge of Depression
I just posted about how I don't fit in to main stream society and what I'm trying to do to still live a happy life. When you live in a world that is always trying to convince you that there is something wrong with you and that you need to work their crappy job most of your life in order to purchase products that will fix the thing that's wrong with you but that thing fixes nothing because their was nothing wrong in the first place and then you worked for nothing, its easy to be depressed. The chaos of this run on sentence is representative of how mainstream society makes my brain feel. It's all too much and it's all so ridiculous. And then, as you mention, there's all of the trauma to catch headlines and make money. People profiting off of pain. It's gross and depressing in itself.
I love the quote you included about not fitting in to a profoundly sick society. This is where my life changed. I realized that I'm normal and what our society projects as normal isn't attainable. I also feel that being labeled as depressed or clinically depressed is kind of inaccurate. It denies us normal feelings for life's events. It also makes us our feelings, but we aren't our feelings. Describing ourselves as our feelings makes it seem like a permanent thing. I also think that the word depression is what a lot of woefully unaware people use to describe those of us that actually understand the world and all of its nuances. I don't think that toxic positivity is healthy at all it's just more palatable for unaware people than the gritty truth of life.
Seems like humanity has built a system — a socital machine, even — that depends on people following a very narrow prescribed path in order to be included in the general benefits of that society. As you suggest, one particular job style, one particular set of values, and so on.
Coming to the USA from Denmark, one of the first things I noticed was the attitude towards work. I came from a culture where seven weeks of paid vacation a year is standard... and suddenly had to accept almost having to feel guilty for taking a single sick day as a mental health day.
It never fit my paradigm, and I had to step away from the cesspool otherwise known as the IT industry after a few years.
I live outside (for the most part) the norms of society... and I expect that a lot of people think something is "very wrong" with me.
Those in power benefit from this misery. The "culture' here was created by propaganda. We have used military like propaganda since the industrial age to brainwash US citizens into being modern day slaves. There's nothing wrong with you. You are just surrounded by assholes. Not your fault. My husband is European and I am very thankful to have him to slow me down and to encourage me not to work my life away. Quantity over quality is the standard here in the good old USA.