Comment by riskneutral | Hacker News Reader

Comment by riskneutral | Hacker News Reader

I used to feel this way, then I discovered meditation and now I am almost always in a positive state of mind. In my experience, it is depressed people who are not seeing realistically, and they are caught in cycles of mental delusion. Happiness achieved in this way is just about truly accepting the "depressing" realities and being okay with it all including your own depressing reactions to the realities, and then not identifying with these mental processes, not letting them define, own or move you as a conscious being. After some practice, a person can cope with life's unending, unexpected, negative surprises by processing the negative event in a single moment and then returning the mind to a calm and positive state. For some reason, in our society, we are not taught that it is possible (and in fact imperative) to observe, guide and ultimately control one own mind and thought stream. This has been practiced in other societies for thousands of years, and even in our own society mindfulness/meditation is steadily becoming a mainstream fixture.

You can practice mindfulness and meditate daily and still be depressed about the state of the world you live in. You can recognize negative experiences, embrace them, and still feel empty afterwards. You can see yourself as a bristle on the brushstroke of the universe and still feel insignificant. You can see that life is just a game and not want to play.

In a world with 7 billion people all playing their own game, there's bound to be some people who don't want to play. Calling their game "delusional" is hilarious because reality is an abstraction. Saying you can "control" your thoughts is also ridiculous. You can't control your thoughts, Buddhism, Taoism, etc will tell you that. Your thoughts are you. You can only change how you react to them. No matter how many Alan Watts books people read, acid trips they take, hours they spend meditating, etc some people aren't going to think the game is worth playing. That's okay. No amount of telling them to go to the gym, eat better, and meditate is ever going to change their game.

>> You can see yourself as a bristle on the brushstroke of the universe and still feel insignificant.

Why is feeling insignificant bringing you down? Understand that for yourself.

To take it further, for some people meditation can crystalize beyond all doubt that they don't want to play the game. The only thing that appears to possibly change such people is massive life upheavels.

[disclaimer: I've been practicing Shikantaza meditation for 18 years]

Please do not paint meditation as one simple solution for depression. Things are more complex.

There are many different types of meditation with different effects on different people.

Some people need therapy and should not postpone it for meditation.

> just about truly accepting the "depressing" realities

I know what you mean but this does not describe clinical depression.

I had a very different and difficult experience with depression and meditation. Meditation highlighted the depression / anxiety and made me very aware of it, which made me feel the pain very clearly and deeply. It was like watching my brain stab itself repeatedly for hours on end. Meditation + SSRI is a great combination for me.

Meditation can be a double-edge sword because it's an attention training practice. You can think of it as a torchlight - you learn to regulate the torchlight, but what comes in focus is still controlled by something else.

The process relies on a circle of attention-interpretation and so on and so forth. So merely training attention without changing associations and interpretations may not be very helpful for some people.

Just wanted to drop in here and say that I am glad they have worked for you, and I wish you continued success.

For those that have not responded to SSRI's there is other options, one that is showing significant success rates is Ketamine Therapy: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/ketamine-for-major-depre...

The numbers are better than ECT which was alway considered to be the baseline as it is very effective but used as a last line due to some of the negative effects of treatment.

As for me, SSRI's did not work, I have co-morbid ADD as well. So the ADD meds do a really good job of papering over the really bad parts of depression and keeping me functioning until I come out of a down spell. That being said, I plan to try ketamine therapy now that it has been approved.

Is this akin to or different from dissociation and/or depersonalization? Because I don't want that coping mechanism, feeling and experiencing things is better.

I had a bout of depersonalization for a year and became a regular meditator much later. I didn't find that they were at all similar.

How did you overcome the depersonalization? I've had similar feelings since April. I'm an irregular meditator, probably 3-5 times a week.

I thought it was drinking and sleep deprivation, but cut out drinking completely and have been averaging 8-9 hours a night. this helps a little but I still feel very disconnected in a way I know I didn't always feel. I don't think it's permanent, but I really want to find a solution.

sounds like spiritual bypass. Maintaining a state of mind isn't the same as changing the relationship one has with daily experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_bypass

May I ask you what did you use to approach meditation?

This. There are lots of bad things in the world that do happen. Maybe more bad then good. You have one life to live and sitting around being depressed or angry about them is just a waste of time.

Wow how did I not think of that before! Just don't be depressed. It's so easy!

Tired of being homeless? Buy a home!

I'm not prescribing a cure for depression. However, for people who are angry or sad about macro atrocities in teh world, it is good advice to rationally know that focusing on it is a waste of time.

Depression is more about a loss of vitality than it is about 'being sad', although it manifests with lots of negative thoughts. You can't just suddenly become more alive or have tons more energy, although drugs and therapy can help. And telling people to 'snap out of it' does not help someone who is depressed.

It's like if you're really, really, really sleepy. You can't just suddenly be super awake. You can take pills or try to push through it, but you just want to sleep - you can't help it.

Depression is crippling just like having a broken leg, it's just that it cripples your mind.

I was just replying to his post, not prescribing a cure for depression.

Is it fair to acknowledge all of the worlds atrocities and then dismiss them so you can be happy?

You don't dismiss things in the world, you dismiss unhelpful patterns of thinking, and cultivate helpful patterns.

It can be more helpful to the world around you even if it is less helpful for yourself to not dismiss these patterns of thinking.

The point is that dwelling on them will make you miserable AND does not make anyone else better of either.

The trick is to recognize the things that are wrong, decide what (if any) course of action you can/will take to address them, then focus on that path. The rest you have to keep at arms' length. There are so many things wrong (and so many things that are so very, very wrong) that it should be overwhelming to a reasonable mind to try to "feel" them all.

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