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Existential Depression in Gifted Children

davidsongifted.org

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Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#141

Post by PavlovsCat »

penguindev wrote: post #124
PavlovsCat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm. "Not giving a damn" doesn't cause depression I think. It's kinda the other way around? You know, caring too much and whatnot, or caring about things you can't change in a way as if you could. Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever . Those who "become one with the dust" ca…

Your [excellent] post was essentially written over 2000 years ago in the short old testament book of Ecclesisates. "Everything is meaningless, there is nothing new under the sun, nobody is completely righteous, etc." It is the height of folly to think that people a hundred generations ago didn't have the same frustrations.

Thanks, I was aware I was rambling more about being frustrated about society than existential depression, and probably being unfair to the poster I replied to, but I couldn't help myself. I love me some cherry picked OT, there is so much wisdom in it! I also love this:

  When people no longer fear the power of government,
  a far greater empowerment appears,
  the Great Integrity,
  which never needs to enforce itself.

  Then, we will never again be driven from our homes
  or be compelled to labor for the benefit of others.
  We will all work naturally to fulfill ourselves,
  and to meet our community needs.

  In the Great Integrity,
  we will all love ourselves and all others,
  not as compensations for ego deprivations and defilements,
  but as natural expressions of our humanity.
Laozi, "Tao Te Ching", Verse 72

"work naturally to fulfill ourselves", or "ego deprivations and defilements", those are very few words for a whole lot of issues. When I was younger I was scared out of my wits of the idea that we might lock ourselves into them via technology without even realizing it, and now I do find consolation in two facts, that even if we do, it won't be forever, and that if we manage to get out of the solar system, given enough distance, at least diversity might once again flourish, that the dice will be rolled again so to speak, and more than once.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#142

Post by eshvk »

rdouble wrote: post #140
eshvk wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting; somehow reading someone like Camus didn't provide a convincing enough argument to get out of the existential crisis like depression. Do you have suggestions on any specific Murakami work to read?

Murakami's solution is to start jogging. edit: to answer your question, I suggest The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami is overrated. Once you've read that one, you've essentially read them all.

Yeah, I finally got out of the existential crisis by doing the mundane; jogging, living, cooking. Things that I know cognitively have no meaning in answering the ultimate question. Later, I realized that Camus's sense of rebellion although unsatisfactory was what I was doing. I was aware of the meaningless nature of existence and still progressing. That is hard; somehow it gave me more hope than it should.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#143

Post by asveikau »

heurist wrote: post #37
asveikau wrote: post #13

Not sure why the emphasis is on children especially. This seems to affect thoughtful people of all ages. Or maybe, in that thoughtful, existentially-depressed way, the author is just understatedly asserting that adults are just big children. That would probably be overthinking it.

It's on a website about talent development in gifted children, they're speaking to their audience. The article has been around for a while.

Ah. This makes my comment look silly then. Sometimes that kind of context is not obvious when these things come up on a site like HN.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#144

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Vivtek wrote: post #113
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I had thought you were referring to unexpressed inner intensity rather than just outward loudness. Of course, even that preference for outward "quietness" over "loudness" is quite cultural. I'm betting you're from a Northern European or Anglo culture?

There's a good point, the cultural one. No, I really mind how excited children can get about everything - it's the first time for them! Their highs are incredibly high, and their lows are incredibly low, partly because they have no experience to know that after the high will come a low, and after the low will come a high. But when my point was that the author seems to think only gifted children are intense, why do yo…

But when my point was that the author seems to think only gifted children are intense, why do you immediately assume I'm telling you you're not?

No, I had thought you were implying that adults are emotionally less intense than children, which made me feel alone because that's very much contrary to my experience. The big thing that freaked me out about growing up was realizing it feels much the same as being a child, except for having learned how to maintain a facade that it's totally different and I'm somehow actually as calm as I act.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#145

Post by eli_gottlieb »

penguindev wrote: post #124
PavlovsCat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm. "Not giving a damn" doesn't cause depression I think. It's kinda the other way around? You know, caring too much and whatnot, or caring about things you can't change in a way as if you could. Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever . Those who "become one with the dust" ca…

Your [excellent] post was essentially written over 2000 years ago in the short old testament book of Ecclesisates. "Everything is meaningless, there is nothing new under the sun, nobody is completely righteous, etc." It is the height of folly to think that people a hundred generations ago didn't have the same frustrations.

Funny how nobody ever quotes the opening and closing verse of Kohelet: "Fear God, and do His commandments!"

Interestingly, besides that verse, Kohelet was considered too depressing for the Judaic Sages to canonize.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#146

Post by eli_gottlieb »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #114
skore wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But with the cosmic sadness there is no going up one level, it's all there to ponder and still real. No snapping out of it. There are two mechanisms to cope with this without discarding or distorting it. Both are linked to accepting and expanding the comical (and cosmic) smallness of our existences. The first one I actually learned recently from reading Stephensons Anathem (which made me wonder if I'm reading that…

Uhm. "Not giving a damn" doesn't cause depression I think. It's kinda the other way around? You know, caring too much and whatnot, or caring about things you can't change in a way as if you could. Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever . Those who "become one with the dust" ca…

where there is no reason to believe power, control and deception will not be absolute and insubvertible one day

But neither is there a reason to believe they will be. If the universe has no teleology, that means it does not inevitably tend towards evil.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#147

Post by driveby_bye_bye »

kijin wrote: post #89
skore wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But with the cosmic sadness there is no going up one level, it's all there to ponder and still real. No snapping out of it. There are two mechanisms to cope with this without discarding or distorting it. Both are linked to accepting and expanding the comical (and cosmic) smallness of our existences. The first one I actually learned recently from reading Stephensons Anathem (which made me wonder if I'm reading that…

Just to play devil's advocate: > accepting ... reality is always more fascinating, weird and grand than our brains can even begin to imagine ... We're along for a ride and that ride is awesome. Sounds like defeatism and resignation. Why resign yourself to the "ride" and pretend that there's something nice about the long, arduous journey when you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination, or if yo…

I know you're doing devil's advocate. I liked this part of your comment: kijin>"What if all those people gave lots of damns about things that actually aren't worth a damn?"

Because I certainly don't know if these things are worth a damn or not, and I generally don't trust people who believe that they do know.

----------------------

But this uncertainty about whether "any specific thing matters" cuts both ways, and I'm not sure it is clearly stated in another part of your comment:

kijin>Sounds like defeatism and resignation. Why resign yourself to the "ride" and pretend that there's something nice about the long, arduous journey when you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination, or if you believe that everyone is riding in the wrong direction?

I think that there are 2 defeat/resignations in your hypothetical. The first defeat/resignation happens at the point where you become convinced that "you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination". The second defeat/resignation is the one that you pointed out, when you make the decision to pretend that here's some destination.

----------------------- skore>>it's related to the fact that even our understanding of the heat death of the universe is based on and limited by our human brains.

Skore is raising the question that maybe we DON'T "know very well that there's not much to see at the destination."

Some people believe that there is no way to know that "there is not much to see at the destination", and some people believe that there definitely is a worthwhile destination that is worth struggling towards. Religious people, anyone believing in transhumanism or "the singularity" to name the vast majority of humans.

Some people would lump everyone who doesn't commit suicide into this category: "If you aren't getting off the train, you're moving towards station."

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#148

Post by IneffablePigeon »

alexvr wrote: post #125

I think this is a really pathetic reason to be depressed. And these "gifted" people have it all wrong. No, the laws of physics don't directly dictate that all governments be democratic, or that people drive on the right side of the road. But if they thought about the world on a deeper level, they would realize that there is structure, and that it's breathtakingly-beautiful (albeit subtle and not always easy to pick u…

Anyone who tells someone with depression to just "appreciate the world and their existence enough to at least have a good time" doesn't understand what depression is. The very inability to do that is one of the main symptoms.

You don't need a "reason" to be depressed, and judging one as "pathetic" does nothing for anyone, least of all the depressed person.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#150

Post by dkural »

mtrimpe wrote: post #72
MichaelAza wrote: post #35

I cried a little. I'm 18 and since 3rd grade I was in a special class for gifted children. I know this feeling so well, from my experience and from those of my classmates and friends, it literally hurts. I'm no psychiatrist but from my nonobjective personal experience depression in gifted children and your regular "normal" teenage depression are completely different, in symptoms as well as in cause, which I think the…

Since you're still 18, I'll give you the advice I wish someone had told me 13 years ago: You are not a head in a body. Your mind is intertwined with your body and your body is what connects you to reality. Keep in touch with your body. It's easy for you to focus on things to the exclusion of everything else and it's very easy to forget about your body. Don't. I'm fairly sure that's also why the article mentioned hugg…

I wish I became of this earlier as well! Great point. Somewhere in high school I lost touch with this, and it took a lot of effort in my twenties to consciously realize this & bring it to my life.
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