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I hope this helped you to feel more depressed.
That seems reasonable to me. I've often found optimism in others to be foolish. And for bipolar me, extreme optimism is a sign of hypomania. But there's a lot more to depression than seeing the world realistically. There's a tendency to feel inadequate, hopeless and disempowered. And there's more to that than seeing oneself and ones capabilities realistically. One aspect is failing to break out huge problems into man…
From my own experience I'd agree with this - I can feel down, certainly, but I'm nowhere near the non-functioning, clinically depressed state I was in for 4 years a few years back. I don't think the "realistic" vision I had of "the world" has really changed, just the attitude: I'm still "stupid as f*ck" and observing "person X I knew in high school totally has such a better life than I do" - but now, it's about inter…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One aspect is failing to break out huge problems into manageable pieces. This is the main problem I have had with depression. Beeing overwhelmed by the smallest problem because the consecquences of all actions that has to be taken to solve it.
> One aspect is failing to break out huge problems into manageable pieces. Isn't this rather a sign that the world is simply too complex and should be simplified?
Let's be realistic: there are only humans with subjective narrow view of the world out there. And whoever will tell you that you are more/less realistic than some other category of people are judging you by their own narrow opinion of what is the ultimate-true-real-reality™. I hope this helped you to feel more depressed.
Why am I not surprised? The world is really going down right now and just following news what's going on is reason enough to cry like a baby or lose it completely. That's one of the main reasons why many people take drugs - it helps to forget what's happening around us and it makes us numb enough to stop feeling the constant pain when we think about the things happening to our brothers and sisters who aren't lucky en…
Just because bad things are happening and dominate news doesn't mean that's all that's happening or that the net is negative.
Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free...
> It seems like the button is doing something, but actually it's not attached to anything
> Ask people if they felt like they had any effect on the world
> Depressed people say "nothing I do matters", non-depressed people say "Well, I'm not sure, but there might be some effect, yeah"
"DEPRESSED PEOPLE SEE THE WORLD MORE REALISTICALLY"
I cringe every time I see Vice on the front page. To be "depressively realistic", I think they care less about scientific accuracy, and more about making their introverted, male, mildly-depressed audience feel smart.
Let's be realistic: there are only humans with subjective narrow view of the world out there. And whoever will tell you that you are more/less realistic than some other category of people are judging you by their own narrow opinion of what is the ultimate-true-real-reality™. I hope this helped you to feel more depressed.
And as I've gotten older I realize I have a pretty solid grasp on things and the sort of woo-woo model of reality you propose "everything is relative" is eminently ignoreable.
Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed?
1. The world is, in fact, pretty messed up a lot of the time.
2. There are different ways to deal with it:
2a. Don't deal well with it; get depressed
2b. Denial: Refuse to face up to how messed up the world is.
2c. Deal with the world in some other way that is neither denial nor depression.
Presumably in their study 2a and 2c would both score more "realistic" and 2b would score less "realistic"; but 2b and 2c would be grouped together in the study, causing the "not depressed" group as a whole to score lower on the "realistic" axis.
IOW, the simplistic conclusion of this study would be, "The only way to avoid being depressed is to go into denial"; but the study may also be consistent with, "One way people avoid being depressed is to go into denial; but there may be ways to avoid depression other than denial".