The Happiness-Suicide Paradox
paul.kedrosky.com
paul.kedrosky.com
I'd agree with you that the "status game" is more prevalent in "well-off" societies though, except I feel that there's parallel competition to have the biggest problems and the most cynical take on the positive things in life - good for melancholic and angst-ridden cultural output but not so good for the suicide rate.
I think there is something sinister about recommending material indulgence as a means of overcoming the sin of "emotional" indulgence, especially if those who suffer from want are used as justification.
Is all trauma in rich society non-existent? Does death no longer exist, or loneliness, or guilt, or regret, or uncertainty, or evil, or unrequited love, or feeling trapped, or inadequacy, or betrayal, or aging, or health issues, or any other existential problem? Why is art throughout history rife with these issues if they are abnormal elements of the human experience?
I agree that some can overly prioritize negativity or cynicism, but I think this phenomenon is just a contrarian response to the dominant emotional valuation. I am tempted into it whenever someone insists that I must be happy, or talks down about angst as if they were not themselves human. It's offensive to the spirit and sense of honesty, integrity, and self. Better to let feelings flow naturally. I too like feeling happy, if it's genuine.
As for the "perfect partner", I either feel a romantic pull towards someone, or I don't. Every time I see people fake it for the sake of looking normal, it ends in disaster.
My point was simply that the less-well-off have considerably more pressure not to react emotionally to [relatively minor] adverse circumstances and considerably less time for introspection and musing over what could have been, if only. Possibly their everyday crises also better-calibrate their sense of perspective (or if you prefer, densensitize them).
I'm not convinced that rich society is dominated by the relentless pressure to be happy so much as a focus on emotional state, whether that's trying outdo each other in terms of success or agonising over failings many would consider trivial, because the meeting of our material needs can be taken for granted and none of our social relationships are based on need.
(The problem with the search "perfect partner" is not so much the romantic pull at the beginning as the worry that the level of romantic bliss is not what it once was, or could be, or the grass might be greener on the other side.)
From what i see, Western society seems pretty lonely -- I often wonder if that's because there is nothing (no problems, no adversity) to bond people together.
It's fun to see when something happens. For instance, the credit card system broke down everywhere for about an hour this Saturday, during the prime shopping hours. This almost caused a panic but there was also a lot of friendly conversation among strangers becuase they suddendly had something to talk about!
This is a well-known problem when treating severely depressed people with anti-depressants.
It makes sense, though. I had a very depressive roommate years ago, and it seemed like the defining characteristic of her depression was sometimes having an insurmountably high activation energy for seemingly mundane tasks, and being painfully conscious of it. Somebody who was full of frustration / anger from fighting that all the time, but suddenly able to follow through could really take it out on themselves. (She eventually transcended her problems, and was still a cool to know in her worst moments.)
That's a really good description.
However searching quickly, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12... verifies the link between anti-depressants and suicide. And further verifies that the link is short-term, but long-term they help.
Are you happy? It's the only
way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy, it's a good nice
way to be.
But not happy-happy, kid, don't
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It's the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people ... bust hard ... they
do bust hard ... when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too
doggone happy
One of the common findings in that field is that you don't do stuff based on absolute measurement, but always relative. One of the good examples studied are revolutions: you don't do revolutions because what you have is intolerable, but because you can see, either near you or in a theoretical model a better solution.
To come back to suicide, one of the reason he provided as a lesser suicide rate among the catholics and jews is the social pressure: you just don't do that. With a weaker social link (that isn't incompatible with more happy society), committing suicide is even more accepted.
Ie. I'm surrounded by happy people that don't care about me, that's quite an incentive to look for a final solution.
Beside, might be that these countries as a all are more happy because the less happy persons are no more because they committed suicide ?
Read durkheim, still a enlightening author.
However, I personally think that the paper is still on to something. A few weeks ago after reading some article I was skimming through murder and suicide rates by country and it looked like there could be an inverse correlation there, but I haven't had time to study it yet.
In our society we pretend to do important work. But a lot of stuff is just too keep us busy. If you're able to look through this, than it can be quite depressing.
A) Distract yourself.
B) Find enjoyable things in your immediate-present circumstances. This seat I'm sitting in is pretty comfy.
C) Don't go on facebook to see all the apparently happy people.
Etc
Pretty even mix.
I doubt it.
"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 28,322 American deaths as suicides in the year 2000. Conservative estimates are that 6-10 people are intimately affected by each death. However, a study by the Baton Rouge, LA Crisis Intervention Center (Bland, 1994), the combination of possibly affected individuals reached over 28 people per suicide. In some families, the estimated numbers exceed 50 people (Coleman, 2003). Since, on average, 1,200 New Yorkers die by suicide each year, the latter estimate means approximately 60,000 people qualify as suicide survivors each and every year. This is equivalent to the population of the city of Utica (pop. 59,947, July 1, 2002)."
http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/savinglives/volume2/suicid...