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Comment by reayn | Hacker News Reader

It’s comments like these that slowly start to extinguish that flame i once had in me that wanted to work and chase after a “good life” once i became an adult, is it truly like this?

I look around me in real life however and see what appears to be a reality that contradicts this (people seem mostly happy with where they are, though that could just be my environment or lack of perception), i’m not quite sure how to feel anymore.

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I personally think of it as 'conditional' depression. Mine was conditional on getting out of poverty wages and into a decent job. I'm still cash poor but I also have a place of my own and stuff. I was in a depressed or depression-adjacent place for years, treatment didn't help, either felt nothing or went manic depending on the med.

I dont expect to ever own a house, I don't expect to find a wife and settle down any time soon. I don't expect a big number in the bank. I leave that up to future me. Present me is doing the best he can to keep moving forward and doing right by himself. Can't worry about what I can't control. Can take control of what I can now, and trust the person I evolve into in the future to handle more, having learned how that works first person.

Awesome attitude. I hope you succeed.

Moment to moment, everything in society is at equilibrium and therefore looks "normal". Even wartorn countries experience a strong impulse to normalize themselves and return to day to day living, despite compromise and sacrifice. Likewise people can't become depressed and suddenly cease to have any interest in anything at all. It's more a case of something becoming top-of-mind more often and coloring whether they see "a future". Like throwing the match before it's over, depression makes you relax your grip on striving for things, and on enjoying that struggle.

And, to speak to the quandary of the article, it can be relentless if your engagement with everyday life is constantly mediated by commercial elements, which it is, today. Poverty strikes harder in that instance because you don't seem to be able to "do" anything that matters to other people without engaging your financial brain(which you equate to survival, since you have to constantly calculate rent and groceries). So you're going to just be in survival mode all the time which is likely to give you a mix of anxiety and depression - all routes closed off except the worst and riskiest ones. But then flip the situation into a non-commercial one and suddenly a whole segment of the discouraged-depressed can be creative and engaged, and I think that's really telling. So long as you have the strength, it's worth it to try to move forward in your life, because you can't really help the people around you by holding yourself back and staying still.

I mean, its different for everyone. If what society wants to give you is naturally pretty close to what you want then it will be a lot easier for you. This is true for many many people and most of them are probably reasonably happy.

If you are the polar opposite just know you are in for a battle and you likely will hqve to take om extreme personal risk to make it work.

But i mean, certainly there are plenty of happy people out there.

Don’t take someone who saves 60% of their income and still feel miserable seriously. In general be empathetic to depressed people but don’t let them trap you with their despair.

Just curious, what is the implication here? That im sad because i dont consume anything?

I live in a very cheap country where i can consume drastically more than the average american (housing and food mostly, not much material stuff) at a much lower price. My lifestyle would seem pretty extravagant to many.

But im trying to return and realizing the numbers are insane.

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