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Comment by osdiab | Hacker News Reader

This statement is way too sweeping... Some forms of pessimism probably reflect that, I'm an optimistic, not-depressed person who sees things that way - but I know plenty of often-depressed people who fail to see their circumstances clearly, and spiral because as a result of it.

Friend: "I'm such a failure and my future is definitely going to be horrible!"

Me: "So, who's judging you as a failure, why does such judgments even matter, and how exactly do you have no options or influence over your future?"

I've had this dialog plenty, and it has little to do with realism.

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Right. They may be realistic about their circumstances. But they're not realistic about their ability to transform them.

Or they realistically assume that they have average ability but they have above average expectations. Most people will have to face the reality that they will never be special in some way, so if you aren't fine with just being another face among the masses you will be depressed. Or someone they care about just died, their expectations was that they would have this person for most of their life is now broken and nothing they can do can fix this, unless they believe in spirits and ghosts and ouija boards of course.

It's my operating hypothesis that people's abilities are generally limited mainly by their ways of being. Except for the few with physical and biochemical disabilities. And with general human limitations.

I mean, we're all familiar with "math anxiety". And the argument that women have generally been conditioned to think that they're bad at math. Or bad at spatial reasoning. Or that men are less empathetic, or better with tools, or whatever.

Consider scientific thinking. Based on my admittedly limited experience with young children, I believe that they're all scientists. For children in the "why phase", when I've actually taken time to help them consider how one might answer their questions, I've consistently been impressed.

Also, it's clearly not so much about having answers. Indeed, focusing too much on answers tends to stifle creativity.

But wouldn't you say that you see things that way AFTER overcoming depression?

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