Life Out Of Balance Is Guaranteed To Be Depressing

That's my bias talking, at least in part, of course. But in this era of so much capability, and the fact that we're now supposed to be able to have whatever we want (if we supposedly work hard enough),  the lack of balance stands out in stark contrast to very sensitive aspects of our physical wellbeing, as well as our mental wellbeing. And because we can know so much about so many things and yet still be so empty inside because we don't know, or feel, our meaningful place in any of this mind boggling ability.

A big part of the problem, in my view, is that the commoditization of everything has left us with super advertised expectations, but still the same old human set of needs which, as this very telling article makes clear with the quote:

"...'There’s a lack of community. There’s the amount of time that we spend in front of screens and not in front of other people. If you don’t have a community to reach out to, then your hopelessness doesn’t have any place to go.' " 

And of course all of the so called social media available now offer commoditized, packaged interaction that is anything but really connecting with others in a meaningfully direct way. Sure, you can share some things, and can get some semblance of connecting, but it is a poor substitute indeed. Kind of like getting sugar, or fat, for all of your caloric needs.

Native peoples have understood this basic connection with each other, and life itself, even if they've never verbalized it all that well in the past (at least for literate Western ears). That's why a movie like Koyaanisqatsi could be so powerful.

So. The other part of my bias is that the only solution here, the only true solution here mind you, is to completely redefine both work, and social life. Which ought not be such a big deal when you also consider that the levels of change that have occured since the last time we did a big shift in social organization (going frist from subsistence agriculture, and hunter gathering, to Feudalism, and then to Industrialization), fueled certainly by industrialization's penchant for putting a premium on knowledge. So much change in fact that our reach with instrumentality has become quite cosmic now.

As such one might expect that the need for better meaning for our place in all of this might also grow accordingly. Unfortunately, though, our developmental progress hasn't gotten anywhere near where we need to go in that regard. And so now we pay the price. In great anguish. Just as the planet itself suffers, with all of this abundance of life just being either trivialized, ground down, brutalized, or simply exploited for purely selfish gains. Which is certainly the very opposite of balance.

And now all of it is under threat of not existing at all anymore. And we all feel that, at some level, whether we want to admit it or not. Which only exacerbates the problem.

And now you face the same choice I've been blathering on about for some time now. What will you do about it. Just sit and cry? Just sit and bemoan your lousy luck? I sure hope not, but only time, and your ability to make yourself act, will tell.

Major depression on the rise among everyone, new data shows