The Sweetest Part of Depression is Solitude

Our upcoming generations will never be able to taste the sweetest part of depression — the core, the fruit — i.e., the solitude.

Strange, isn’t it?

As we grow, our personality diverges like a beam of light from a torch in the dark. But when we’re depressed, it converges. It returns to the source, the deepest point of our being.

In that return, the layers of illusions are shed off. The layers once we wore proudly to hide the raw nakedness.

Returning to the beginning reveals the internal structure — the bones — the personality of humans. The flesh on the bones is just decoration, imposed by society, demanded by culture.

When depression is felt strongly and analysed meticulously, we find ourselves surrounded by the intricate interconnected structures that shape our life. We who've been subconsciously driven by pleasures and pains since our birth. Between comfort and discomfort, we’ve got far away from our true nature — from our true self.

From the moment we are born, the brain starts working like a parasite governing our body whether we are aware of it or not.

What does this parasite want?
— Survival and Growth

In a crisis, the parasite gets scared. It fears for its life and thus depression happens — the nadir. It halts our growth to focus on its survival only.

Regardless, depression gives us a rare opportunity to return consciously to our true self — to the truth — to who we really are. But, sadly, the upcoming generations will nibble at the surface only — grazing the shell, the symptoms, the trivial things of depression.

Why so?

Because the generations prior to us have left no stone unturned in keeping us away from what we really are. The human beings who walked this earth, to compensate for their inability to journey inwardly, have created everything outside their psyche — religious texts, complex architectures, artificial intelligence and so on. The more we failed to go within, the more we built without.

We have created standard operating procedures to streamline processes and minimise disruptions. Everything is structured and documented.

The structures will be so good that every point in it will have an alternative in case failure occurs — even an alternative will have an alternative.

Everything is being delivered to us in condensed form.

The current generation is already drowned in the enormous ocean of infinite fleeting condensed pleasures — short movies, short stories, fast food, fast fashion, fast internet, quick deliveries, beautiful liquor shops, dopamine on demand.

The next generation will have so much to experience in their life. The generations yet to come will overload their minds with overwhelming sensory information. For example, eating their favourite dish in their favorite place, a scented candle, while watching a short movie that overloads the emotions with a robotic flesh lying beside them. The concept of marriage will be outdated.

Nobody will be able to afford a moment of solitude. The children of impulses will never be able to touch the serene boredom, and hence awareness and mindfulness will become theoretical concepts or too difficult to achieve. Once something natural will become unnatural. The generation will often come across advertisements, on websites displaying jobs, to learn awareness and mental relaxation from certified professionals for ₹ 499 only. Gurus trying hard to follow the status quo will sell philosophies to people completely filled with frustration.

We have too much to see in our lifetimes. Books to read, movies to watch, songs to listen to, cuisines to taste, and places to visit.

Dag Hammarskjold has said, “The longest journey is the journey inward”

The next generation won’t be able to embark on this journey. Because consumerism and materialism will be deeply rooted in the culture and it will be difficult for people to travel inward.

The wheel of life will keep on revolving because of the increasing threat of our extinction. The struggle is to sustain the model we humans have created. Our fear of letting go won’t be able to go against the human construct. The human construct keeps on evolving and becoming more complex year after year. The consecutive elements in the continuum cannot feel the difference. The noticeable difference occurs in the extremes.

Distractions will overpower depression.

The return journey will never be completed.

So what’s the solution?

We must reach the core of identity. We shan’t settle for any less.

Each one of us needs to search for answers to some fundamental question such as: who we are.

Each one of us needs to consume philosophy.

Desires — it’s a bottomless pit.

So is philosophy. But it may answer why you do what you do. This helps in living stress free and fearlessly.

In reality, philosophy doesn’t provide us with any solutions; it just erases all questions you have by showing something bigger that makes the problem you have insignificant.

Philosophy eats our identity and leaves us without self.

So there’s no self-doubt when there is no self.

It removes the burden of self-questioning by removing the self altogether.

But what remains?

Just the awareness of inexistence, of having no self.

The death of self births liberation.

Depression is a cure. It is not a disease.

Let’s find refuge in depression.
Let’s find refuge in philosophy.