Wall Street is again flush with the electronic facsimile of the stuff once known as money. But this is a Botox Recovery
Both economic depression and so-called psychological depression are engendered by some of the same sources: clinging to a dying system of belief (such as the death cult of late capitalism) and refusing to embrace the end of things; the gripping grief of one who refuses to honor the dead by the closure provided
by a decent burial. Thus not allowing the departed to rest, engaging them in an obsessive, one-sided conversation – demanding of the dead to do what they cannot do… rise and bring comfort to the living.
Also, depression can originate from being made subject to dehumanizing repression vis-à-vis demeaning forces of exploitation. Often, individuals who are subject to depression, by force of habit, press down anger, imagination, eros – vital sources of propulsion and purpose. Hence, feelings of hopelessness will descend upon the psyche.
Contrary to the highly profitable propaganda of pharmaceutical industry giants, depression, in the vast majority of cases, is not caused by a chemical imbalance. Anti-Depressants serve as palliatives for the demoralized workforce of the capitalist state. And these compounds are ineffective to boot. Study after study reveals antidepressants (SSRIs, in particular) are no more effective than a placebo. Although, these substances are not as harmless as sugar pills. Withal, anti-depressants are addictive. Withdrawal from these drugs is as painful and dangerous as with any other overused drug.
The neurological model has proven to be a self-serving reductionist fallacy. Regardless of abstruse (demonstrably false) jargon involving neuron receptors, depression is a state of mind — the stuff of subjective imaginings — a means of giving shape to and describing the mysteries of the self and the world.
Once depression (more accurately, sadness or grief or melancholia or ennui or the blues) is accepted as a changeable condition of the multi-verse of the human mind, its grip loosens. One's grieving soul simply longed for dialog, to leave its decrepit tower (after a necessary period of mourning, of course) and journey among other regions of the psyche; only it, in its isolation, had forgotten how to do so.
your soul is not advising you to kill yourself
If you're depressed to the point of contemplating suicide, your soul is not advising you to kill yourself. Rather, it is suggesting you kill the false consciousness that has tricked you into believing its imprisoning concepts apply to the totality of yourself and to your conception of life. Do not commit suicide; instead, expose and depose the usurper who schemes in the throne room of your heart.
Send out dispatches from both the cityscape of your soul and its most remote regions. Give voice to your spirit's elations and your heart's suffering. The sterile nothingscape of depression blooms to vivid life by the embrace of the living images that rise from an open heart. And decaying beliefs make excellent compost.
If not, desperation arrives. For example, the despair-engendered fantasy – of being raptured heavenward, or its secular counterpart – to be relieved of the stress and uncertainties, inflicted by commodified life, by winning the lottery. Deep within, one realizes that one has little prospect of escaping the stultifying, exploitative nature of the present order; as a consequence, citizens of the corporate state seize upon these desperate fantasies of release from its all-encompassing demands and burdens.
the heart's language is expressed in the lexicon of transformation
Under late capitalism, people feel imprisoned by their social and financial circumstances; large numbers no longer believe they can change the course of their lives by means of their initiative and labor. The operatives of the One Percent (the shapers of cultural awareness) are dream twisters, usurpers of yearning. They are well aware that the heart's language is expressed in the lexicon of transformation, of the deep-dwelling human longing to find the sublime in quotidian experience – a mode of being we term freedom i.e., a desire to have one's unique character forged by one's choices in life, as one negotiates the happenstance of unfolding fate.
Lottery mania and End Time fantasies reveal that the central premise of capitalism is a lie. Ergo, people realize under the current set-up that they will never be unburdened financially enough to pursue their heart's calling… only a highly unlikely spin of Fortuna's Wheel or a fairy tale-like summoning to a burden-free Heaven will ever set them free.
These are the fantasies of a shattered people – the craven beliefs and palliative remedies that are seized upon by a populace governed by entropy-ridden institutions that have lost any purpose other than self-perpetuation. Therefore, one has to be prepared to act as the structure crumbles.
Accordingly, construct within yourself an authentic inner structure, as outwardly you do your part to help imagine and to create new political and cultural models. In short, act as if the inevitable collapse has already occurred.
Part one of this essay is published here
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil's website or at FaceBook.
Sidebar Image: Damian Brandon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City.
Yet a bio amounts to dharma for dimwits: It defines a human being in the same manner and degree of veracity as a restaurant menu describes the various slabs of meat offered … commodified things that were once living beings.
