Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

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We don't face any struggles in our lives. This leads to depression.

I'm not criticising our culture or way of life. We naturally want to spend our lives comfortably at peace. We have managed to improve our lives, generation over generation, to the point now where the average person can reasonably expect to live their entire life without fear of violence or starvation and die of natural causes in their 80's.

But just like how eating all the high-calorie food we want leads to diabetes, because our bodies are evolved to a much less calorific diet (and periodic starvation), we evolved to face more challenges. The lack of fear and the ease of our survival leads to mental health problems because we have the luxury of wondering wtf we're doing here, instead of wondering how we're going to survive until next week.

Exercise helps with depression, partly because it's not easy, it requires effort and discipline and it's not "fun". Forcing yourself to get out of the house and go for a run is difficult (I know, I went through clinical depression and had to force myself to do this. Still do). It does the same for your body - stresses it to make it more healthy.

Hopefully it'll change. As following generations get used to lives without struggle or fear or starvation they'll adapt and be more mentally healthy. We'll also conquer diabetes, somehow, I'm sure.

Many people face struggles in their lives. Can be struggling to pay the bills, sickness, mental health problems, abuse at home or work, loneliness and so on. These did happen int he past too, but it is just not true that people today don't face struggles.

> Exercise helps with depression, partly because it's not easy, it requires effort and discipline and it's not "fun". Forcing yourself to get out of the house and go for a run is difficult (I know, I went through clinical depression and had to force myself to do this. Still do). It does the same for your body - stresses it to make it more healthy.

Exercise is and can be fun. And there are enough forms of exercise to take the one that matches your personality. People get addicted to exercise and many people overdo it - even injuring themselves for fun.

The struggle to go out was not because exercise is inherently not fun, but because you had depression.

Lonliness is not struggle in the same way we struggled to survive for thousands of years not knowing what next week would bring. Your examples kind of bear out his point.

Then again, the thousands of years mentioned here are kind of imagined history.

The acute life threat of war times and famine was not constant. While 21 century west have higher life expectancy then the past, the "don't know what next week brings" is not how majority of history works. There are such unstable periods (world wars etc) that get changed for stable periods.

Second, parent said that we don't face any struggle which leads to depression. That is not true on any point. People struggle, they are poor or in pain.

Third, unstable periods make mental health issues go worst. Including depression. They also make consequences of those mental health issues worst - meaning depressed person is more likely to die, get hurt or hurt others.

Having your house bombed, being drafted and forced to fight a war. Having most of your family die of plague. Being raped repeatedly by a rich man with no way of ending it because you're poor. These are struggles. Trying to work out how to pay your bills, or get up on a Monday morning to face your job, are not in the same league.

Exercise was used as a punishment during most of my schooling. It's not "fun" (otherwise the punishment wouldn't work). "drop and give me 20" is a punishment, not a reward. Getting addicted to something doesn't mean it's "fun".

You may enjoy exercise. Good for you, I'm jealous. Wish I did. But the reality for the majority of people out there is that it's a chore that they'd rather not do if at all possible.

And thanks for telling me about my depression. Please, go on, tell me more about my life that you clearly understand so much better than me...

> We don't face any struggles in our lives. This leads to depression.

I’ve never heard this before, and that’s a bold claim to make so matter-of-fact without a reference. Do you have one?

Social struggle is quite different than the day-to-day struggle to survive that was the default until recently on the human scale. Not sure that needs a reference.

I wasn’t referring to whether we face fewer struggles.

What I think needs citation is that this causes depression.

There has been some work on it. There is a higher prevalence of depression in our modern society. Other societies facing more struggles are less prone to depression. It makes sense, if you think about it - if you're struggling to feed yourself and your family, you're not happy, but you're also not depressed. You haven't got time to be depressed.

Of course, there's other interpretations: people with depression would have not bothered to get up to feed themselves, because what's the point? They would be early victims of whatever violence the society was under.

I've seen similar while travelling. Poor societies with better family connections are less depressed. Mentally unwell people are looked after by their families. Everyone seems happier and more content with their lives, despite being materially poorer.

Returning to Australia after a year away in Cambodia, my first impression was "why is everyone so unhappy and angry?". It's strange. We have everything, yet we're unhappy.

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