Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness by Edward T. Welch Page A
Authors: Edward T. Welch
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feel good about ourselves. Some students of depression suggest that the increase in depression is due in part to the backlash of the self-esteem teaching.
The reasoning is straightforward. What happens when people are raised on a steady diet of “You are great, you can do anything, you deserve it, you are the best, you can get what you want”? Sooner or later they find that they are not great, they can’t do everything, they are not the best, and they can’t control it all. Depression and denial are the only two options left.
A C ULTURE W HERE H APPINESS I S THE G REATEST G OOD
Ask those living in Western culture what they desire and you will begin to hear “happiness.” Look through the senior pictures in a high school yearbook and the frequent ambition is “I want to be happy.” Even Aristotle’s Ethics suggests that happiness is the greatest good. Given such a goal, it is not surprising that we have an ambivalent relationship with hardship.
People who have experienced war have learned to accept the trials and sufferings of life. Among many wise, older citizens in American society, there is no desperate flight from suffering. Instead, there is a recognition that it is a part of life that can have some benefit. Yet among those in the post-World War II generation, a wisp of happiness is the goal, and suffering must be avoided at all costs. If there are hardships in a relationship, end it. If there is an unpleasant emotion, medicate it. It is a generation that perceives no value to any hardship. Like a pampered child who never experienced the regular storms of life, we lack the skill of growing through our trials.
I’m not suggesting that we should pursue hardships. When the pain can be lightened, it is usually a good thing to do. But the point is that we live in a culture that idolizes happiness, and if we idolize happiness, it will always elude us.
A C ULTURE OF E NTERTAINMENT AND B OREDOM
Another feature of modern culture that has been linked with depression is our quest for the new and exciting, which, for many, is a frantic flight from boredom. “Amuse me” is the theme. If we are not amused, we have the dreadful quiet to fill. As Pascal astutely noted, “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” 6
Boredom is a malaise that hangs over the younger generations. Perhaps it is because they have compressed sex, drugs, and money into a shorter period of time and found them unsatisfying. With nothing new to entertain them, they are dreading the decades to come. With no particular purpose, their goal is to tolerate and survive a boring, goal-less existence that will probably be less affluent than that of their parents.
The antidote for boredom is joy. It comes when our hopes are fixed on something eternally wonderful and beautiful. Augustine rightly identified the ultimate object of joy as God.
True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in you, O God, who are the truth ... Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy. 7
According to Augustine, true joy is the delight in the supreme beauty, goodness, and truth that are the attributes of God, of which traces may be found in the good and beautiful things of this world.
C. S. Lewis gave considerable thought to the experience of joy. He found it in small, good things such as apples, fresh air, seasons, and music. He spoke of “reading” the hand of God in our little pleasures. Like Augustine, Lewis also wanted to make it clear that joy could not rest in those things, however good.
The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not inthem, it only came through them, and what came through was a longing ... For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have
The reasoning is straightforward. What happens when people are raised on a steady diet of “You are great, you can do anything, you deserve it, you are the best, you can get what you want”? Sooner or later they find that they are not great, they can’t do everything, they are not the best, and they can’t control it all. Depression and denial are the only two options left.
A C ULTURE W HERE H APPINESS I S THE G REATEST G OOD
Ask those living in Western culture what they desire and you will begin to hear “happiness.” Look through the senior pictures in a high school yearbook and the frequent ambition is “I want to be happy.” Even Aristotle’s Ethics suggests that happiness is the greatest good. Given such a goal, it is not surprising that we have an ambivalent relationship with hardship.
People who have experienced war have learned to accept the trials and sufferings of life. Among many wise, older citizens in American society, there is no desperate flight from suffering. Instead, there is a recognition that it is a part of life that can have some benefit. Yet among those in the post-World War II generation, a wisp of happiness is the goal, and suffering must be avoided at all costs. If there are hardships in a relationship, end it. If there is an unpleasant emotion, medicate it. It is a generation that perceives no value to any hardship. Like a pampered child who never experienced the regular storms of life, we lack the skill of growing through our trials.
I’m not suggesting that we should pursue hardships. When the pain can be lightened, it is usually a good thing to do. But the point is that we live in a culture that idolizes happiness, and if we idolize happiness, it will always elude us.
A C ULTURE OF E NTERTAINMENT AND B OREDOM
Another feature of modern culture that has been linked with depression is our quest for the new and exciting, which, for many, is a frantic flight from boredom. “Amuse me” is the theme. If we are not amused, we have the dreadful quiet to fill. As Pascal astutely noted, “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” 6
Boredom is a malaise that hangs over the younger generations. Perhaps it is because they have compressed sex, drugs, and money into a shorter period of time and found them unsatisfying. With nothing new to entertain them, they are dreading the decades to come. With no particular purpose, their goal is to tolerate and survive a boring, goal-less existence that will probably be less affluent than that of their parents.
The antidote for boredom is joy. It comes when our hopes are fixed on something eternally wonderful and beautiful. Augustine rightly identified the ultimate object of joy as God.
True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in you, O God, who are the truth ... Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy. 7
According to Augustine, true joy is the delight in the supreme beauty, goodness, and truth that are the attributes of God, of which traces may be found in the good and beautiful things of this world.
C. S. Lewis gave considerable thought to the experience of joy. He found it in small, good things such as apples, fresh air, seasons, and music. He spoke of “reading” the hand of God in our little pleasures. Like Augustine, Lewis also wanted to make it clear that joy could not rest in those things, however good.
The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not inthem, it only came through them, and what came through was a longing ... For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have
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