Depression? Why?

I don't understand depression. I don't want to. I don't like it. I have had several bouts with it over the years, probably contributing to some of my transgressions, but not excusing them, and probably should have sucked it up a long time ago and talked to a professional about it. Now I have grown so used to dealing with my darkness by myself that the idea of counseling is so far removed from my thought, treated with such hostility by myself, that I will most likely never do it. Even if I think it would help me. It's like I think I have done all this by myself, why change now? Of course, I ignore the fucked up travesty of a job I have done. And I guess I am lying when I say I don't understand depression, not lying, just understating. I understand some. I understand the effects and some of the causes, just not what it is for.

I tend to think of things in a natural way. Some of you will tell me that is the problem, that I am thinking of things in a natural way, which are outside of nature. I will tell you, "Thank you. But you are wrong." And, as I have said countless times, this is my blog, my feelings. If you write your blog and your feelings, I would be happy to read it.

So, because of the way my brain is wired, I try to think of these things (emotions and actions) from a natural, scientific (limited science, I am not a scientist) way. It is all I have. I have read all the books, precepts, moral codes, whatever, and looked into most of the main religions of the world. None of it makes sense to me. None of it clicks, and I have tried, honestly, so if it was meant to be it would have been. I do not understand how people, intelligent people, can tell me with a straight face that they believe all the outrageous claims their religion makes, usually at the same time as they are telling me how outrageous and ridiculous the claims of other religions are. Religions which basically make the same claims as their's, just worded differently. Which is what it is all about, when you get down to it, an argument over linguistics and schematics. To an outsider it all looks silly to want to kill over the same words put in different order. I suppose I understand the feeling, because when I read something on evolutionary biology or a particularly striking passage in a philosophy book, I get a chill and goosebumps. I get the lightening strike, the AH HA! moment. But I have never gotten that feeling from a religious text, and I have tried. Close from some Buddhist and Hindu scriptures.

You can think of a use for almost every human emotion, when looking from an evolutionary angle. As much as the devout like to dispute this. The absence of a Dogma does not make you a foaming at the mouth, homicidal maniac any more than being a believer makes you a good person. A friend of mine told me a story the other day. He is in the restaurant business. He was having a bad day. A person of a different ethnic background than his came in (makes no difference what either of their races is for our purpose here, just that they were different). This person was being extremely contrary and rude. My friend had a derogatory comment on this person's race creep into his head. He asked me if I thought this made him a terrible person and a racist. I said no. I said it made him a human being. We all have these thoughts. When we are mad or hurt or upset, we lash out. We go for the easiest, quickest, most hurtful jab we can. What ever packs the biggest bang with the least amount of effort. It makes no difference if it is a comment on the person's race or sex or weight. If a person with one arm pisses me off, I will think something about all these fucking one armed bastards getting in my way. Whatever is the most obvious difference between us and the object of our displeasure is what we will latch onto. When you vocalize these thoughts or act on them is when you become a terrible person and a racist.Then my friend and I started the conversation which led to much of what I am talking about right now.

You can think of many ways in which these thoughts would have been useful when lifting our species to its lofty position on the top of the pyramid. Distrust and suspicion of outsiders, people different from our own, served to keep us going. This was mainly true in the Hunter Gatherer stage, I am sure. There was no reason to cooperate. We already had enough trouble filling the stomachs we had in our clan. Someone from another clan might be after our food or breeding stock (sorry ladies, but that is basically what you were then. you have come a long way!). Even if they weren't up to anything nefarious, they were still a problem. They were another mouth. They were competition. We learned the best thing to do was to keep to ourselves and shun outsiders.

The problem is that just because something has worn out its survival usefulness doesn't mean it has gone away. It is there, buried in the shadow or the ego or somewhere like that. It can creep back up from time to time, whether we want it to or not.

When we learned how to plant veggies and herd animals we settled down and made communities. Our distrust and suspicion was still needed, someone could always being trying to take something from you, but it had to be lessened a bit. Relaxed. This is also where love and compassion and cooperation came into being. Morals and ethics were needed long before religion was. That should be abundantly clear, if you look with an honest, open mind. Contrary to what many people think, morality is easily explainable without religion. In fact, I think it should be obvious to any somewhat intelligent person that that is an indisputable fact. How could it not be? We wouldn't be here if it weren't true. Science tells us that man has been in his modern format, the one we find ourselves in now, for about 50,000 years. Our oldest religious texts are a few thousand years old at best. That leaves 47,000 years of religious free survival. We would have never made it through, especially once we became farmers, without some niceness. Making the argument that there would be no morality without religion is impossible task in my opinion. All one has to do is point to all the immoral acts, acts which people of all faiths believe to be immoral, are committed each day by the devout in the name of their chosen deity. Your case crumbles faster than a Mighty Taco hard shell. And, if it were true, then the opposite would be true too. If you can only have morality with god, then without god you have no morality, but look at all the secular organizations helping people everywhere.

So I think almost everything can be explained in a natural way. I even disagree with the people who say monogamy is unnatural. There are examples of it in nature. You would have to look at what benefit it would give the species. Our species is a perfect fit for it.

Anthropologists also think (many of them do) that when we stopped scrounging the earth for our food we could settle down and start religions. Some one, probably the strongest male, took charge. He made the people farm and store food. Then he started pushing his worldview on the masses. Religion and power have been intertwined ever since.

I have gotten off track, as I often do. But this is a blog by some retard sitting in a coffee shop, not a polished piece in Time magazine. You will read it anyways, and then you will say to yourself, "What the fuck is that idiot talking about? How does he find the time to sit around and write this bullshit?"

Depression. I watched a documentary the other night (yes, I know I watch too many documentaries) about bipolar disorder. I kept thinking, "What pussies. At least they get to enjoy the highs. I want to jump in front of a bus everyday, and I don't get any highs, only lows."

I know this is no laughing matter. I know their lows are probably places I don't want to be, and I did feel sorry for them. The thing which struck me the most was that most of them were writers or artists.

What is the natural, evolutionary purpose for depression? Is there one? It could be that it is a side effect of some other trait which is desirable. Maybe it piggy-backed along with compassion or something like that, evolving and being protected. Or maybe it is here to ensure we have enough literature, art, and music. That was one thing many of the people in the documentary said, when they took their medications they lost their creativity. There was only one guy, an artist and architect, who used to cross-dress and smoke crack, who said it didn't. Remarkably, the guys wife stayed with him the whole time. He said he would go to the gay bath houses and have unprotected sex, trying to get AIDS. Fucked up dude. Suddenly. thinking you want to jump in front of a bis doesn't seem so crazy.

Maybe depression is a mistake. Gods might not make mistakes, but the process of evolution does. Having the main entrance point for food into the body shared with the main entrance point for oxygen might be efficient, but that is no consolation to the thousands of people who choke to death every year. Your incredibly large brain might come in handy (for those of you who use it), but up until a few decades ago, your mother might not have made it through your birth. Mistakes abound in nature.

I am on my third cup of coffee, and we have solved nothing. Maybe. I am not as depressed as when we started. I have a solution, though. There is a Solution. Those of you who have been to AA will laugh at that. I only have to have the Powers Which Be let me go home and 90% of my issues will be solved. I also have writing, which makes me feel better. And I have all of you. I am lucky and glad for that, even if I don't always show it.