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I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

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Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#41

Post by oopsman88 »

minism wrote: post #15
sergiotapia wrote: post #13

>And as we were walking I just started to cry and she asked me, “what’s wrong?” >I said “I just realized that I don’t feel bad and I just realized that I’m not existing, I’m living.” I can't imagine a bigger turn off for your wife than this. Yikes! You're supposed to be the rock dude, save those thoughts for the lads. Then again this is the guy who asked his wife to lick some guys face while he's posing in the backgr…

What the fuck?

He raises a good point. I've read some of this guy's stuff on Twitter, it's really pathetic. No wonder he's depressed if he lets himself be treated like this.

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#42

Post by petermcneeley »

comboy wrote: post #2

So what do you guys think: hunter-gatherers, then feudal farmers and then now - how does median/average suffering per capita compare? We all have better luxuries now than kings had hundreds of years ago. Less famine, life threatening situations and so on. But we do have a way to compare ourselves with best parts of lives of many interesting people around the world. We have antibiotics and painkillers, but we also see…

The notion that we live better than the kings of old is absurd. Even materially one can ask Where is my castle? where are my tracks of land? where are my ships and armies? Where is my gold and gems? Where are my servants and slaves?

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#43

Post by paulpauper »

dragonwriter wrote: post #31
DrJones1098 wrote: post #28

I feel like capitalism separates people based on intelligence because value is added to businesses/society by your ability solve problems/create. Manual labor is something literally anyone can do(barring major physical disability). While this isn't a new idea in human history, the intelligent have always had it better, it's become a new problem recently that people who are of average intelligence cannot live decent l…

> Manual labor is something literally anyone can do. No, it's not; people can just as easily lack the physical capacity for manual labor as they can lack the intellectual capacity for knowledge work. There are plenty of people who can do knowledge work but would be unable to do manual work.

'Manual' does not mean lifting 300 pound stuff up stairs, which, yes, few people are strong enough to do, but rather jobs that are simple and hands-on. Almost anyone can pick up a mop and move it around. The minimum IQ to do that is around 78 I think. But few people can grasp the intricacies of coding, or math, or anything that involves a lot of abstractions and knowledge. It's not a matter of elitism but just biological reality.

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#44

Post by mattdeboard »

My therapist recommended a book to me a few months ago, and reading it honestly changed my life. It's called, "I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression", by Terrence Real.

Read the summary here https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Want-Talk-About-Overcoming/dp/06...

The thesis of the book is about how depression often manifests in men in ways society doesn't recognize as depression. Examples would be rage problems, substance abuse, "workaholism", and many others.

I don't know, maybe the book just caught me at exactly the right time in my life, but it has been profoundly transformative for me.

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#45

Post by dragonwriter »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #37
dragonwriter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Manual labor is something literally anyone can do. No, it's not; people can just as easily lack the physical capacity for manual labor as they can lack the intellectual capacity for knowledge work. There are plenty of people who can do knowledge work but would be unable to do manual work.

I think human beings have been doing manual labor since they emerged from the forests 50k years ago: hunter/gathering, agriculture(pre-industrialization) Manual labor is our default condition. Everyone can do manual labor, or they can eventually get in shape enough to do it.

> I think human beings have been doing manual labor since they emerged from the forests 50k years ago

Believe it or not, the conditions humans live in now are different than 50K years ago; it's much more common for someone able to survive to adulthood without being able to do manual labor now.

> Everyone can do manual labor, or they can eventually get in shape enough to do it.

Stephen Hawking, for a fairly extreme and well-known example, was quite capable of knowledge work, but could not have done manual labor, and could not have gotten in shape to do such labor, either.

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#46

Post by Fricken »

slg wrote: post #7
comboy wrote: post #2

So what do you guys think: hunter-gatherers, then feudal farmers and then now - how does median/average suffering per capita compare? We all have better luxuries now than kings had hundreds of years ago. Less famine, life threatening situations and so on. But we do have a way to compare ourselves with best parts of lives of many interesting people around the world. We have antibiotics and painkillers, but we also see…

We have the luxury of operating at much higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs than generations past. I would much rather worry about whether my life truly matters than worry about whether my life will immediately come to an end if I can't kill or grow enough food. Depression was probably always an issue, today we just have the privilege of it being the most pressing problem for many of us.

Many of the most memorable, meaningful, and exhilarating experiences in my life are derived from times that were desperate, physically gruelling and dangerous. I think it's what we're designed for. A ship is safe in harbour but that's not what ships are for.

The periods of depression in my life were quite safe and comfortable, and strongly associated with wondering if my life really matters, and you can't think about that too hard because when you do, you recognize that, no, your life is actually pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Hunter Gatherers didn't have that problem, because their whole world revolved around their one little tribe, and at that scale, yes, their actions and choices really did matter.

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#48

Post by protomyth »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #37
dragonwriter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Manual labor is something literally anyone can do. No, it's not; people can just as easily lack the physical capacity for manual labor as they can lack the intellectual capacity for knowledge work. There are plenty of people who can do knowledge work but would be unable to do manual work.

I think human beings have been doing manual labor since they emerged from the forests 50k years ago: hunter/gathering, agriculture(pre-industrialization) Manual labor is our default condition. Everyone can do manual labor, or they can eventually get in shape enough to do it.

> Manual labor is our default condition.

It might have been our default condition, but it certainly isn't now. Manual labor has evolved with the machines and techniques of civilization. Its been a while since ditch diggers weren't aided by mechanical assistance, and we've all met people who really cannot be trusted near anything with moving parts.

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#49

Post by trgv »

krapp wrote: post #32
anoncoward111 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunter gatherers didn't necessarily suffer that much. Sure, they faced a lot of environmental challenges like bugs, a lack of air conditioning, hunger, and serious diseases like malaria and smallpox, but they arguably had much easier social customs than we do now. There were no clothes, no laws, no social signaling for the most part. If you didn't like your tribe, I'm sure you were free to run away and eat berries in…

>There were no clothes, no laws, no social signaling for the most part. If you didn't like your tribe, I'm sure you were free to run away and eat berries in the forest and try to figure it out yourself. What archaeological or anthropological evidence are you basing these assumptions on? Why would hunter gatherers not wear clothes, when they can offer useful protection against the elements? Why would they not have com…

I agree with your comment.

> Why would hunter gatherers not wear clothes, when they can offer useful protection against the elements?

I was curious about this and looked it up. Apparently there was some period of time during which humanity did not wear clothes. This has been determined by looking at the DNA of hair lice versus clothes lice and seeing where they diverged: http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2011/01/uf-study-of-lice-dna-sho...

Re: I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed

#50

Post by dominotw »

comboy wrote: post #2

So what do you guys think: hunter-gatherers, then feudal farmers and then now - how does median/average suffering per capita compare? We all have better luxuries now than kings had hundreds of years ago. Less famine, life threatening situations and so on. But we do have a way to compare ourselves with best parts of lives of many interesting people around the world. We have antibiotics and painkillers, but we also see…

> hunter-gatherers, then feudal farmers and then now - how does median/average suffering per capita compare?

I think as a man you have evolutionary pressure to spread your seed as much as possible, that pressure manifests itself as depression. I don't think that has changed.

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