culture

False Reality and Real Depression

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Quick, what are the signs someone is truly depressed?  How do you recognize them?

I’m not entirely sure and I majored in Psychology (to be fair, a generalist), which really just means I’m better at looking them up.  At least twice I know I missed it in people I was friends with.  This of course doesn’t count times I missed it and didn’t know, which is a bit terrifying when you think about it.

There are many challenges facing us in helping friends, family, and ourselves when dealing with depression and other challenges of mood, personality, and mental functioning.  However one of the greatest challenges is knowing when someone is depressed (or has another issue that needs treatment) in the first place, and our culture is not helping.

It’s not just that our popular culture is giving us terribly wrong ideas about mental illness and issues, as Ed the Sock so brilliantly illustrates.

It’s that our culture, I think, confuses us further.

We’re a culture that has gotten rather into grandiose displays of emotion, from happiness to sadness.  We’re a reality TV culture where everything is spectacle, and we take our cues from media.  We’re a culture where reality TV, sensationalist politics, media megachurches, and the like turn real life into an endless drama.  We’re in a culture where people vie for attention and drama has become normalized.

You’ve doubtlessly heard the term “Emo,” which has nothing to do with the comedian, but evolved out of the music scene, and is often tossed around to mean agnsty over-emotionalism that people affect.  We even have a repurposed term for being overly dramatic and angsty and self-destructive (missing, conveniently that some people may show these behaviors and really need help).

So in a culture of grand drama, how the hell do you sort out when someone has real problems as opposed to putting on an act?  It’s far, far too easy to assume someone is being dramatic or having an affectation from culture because we’re used to our culture pushing that kind of behavior.  We can miss real cries for help because of these assumptions.

Our culture also doesn’t provide people a way to reach out – because it is a culture of drama.  Indeed, those who need help are provided few cultural tools for acquiring it; some may even take on cultural affectations from our overly dramatic culture as it seems to be the right (or only) way to get the attention they need.  We don’t provide methods for people who need help to signal it.

To help those who need it, family and friends, we have to work around our culture.  That’s rather sad.

But work we must.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

A Specific Pathology

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So, I’m still wrapping my mind around a man who figures criminalizing sex outside of marriage is OK.  I’m trying to imagine how he thinks that would work, or if it’d work in our society, or . . .

Well the truth is, people like him aren’t thinking.

There’s a strain of people who are absolutely obsessed with everyone else’s sex life.  They’re worried who you’re having it with, if you use contraception, if you’re gay or straight, and more.  They certainly go on about everyone else’s love lives over and over again, and are focused on regulating it, controlling it, and owning it.

I think it’s time to admit this.

These people have a sexual pathology.  They have a problem.  They have a disorder.

Their obsession with controlling other people’s sex lives is an obsession that clearly makes them unable to function effectively in society.  They must control and regulate everyone else, and thus bring conflict.  They show a truly unhealthy interest in other people’s lives that shows signs of obsessive behavior.  In several cases they show paranoia as they detail what others do and what’s wrong with them.

They shouldn’t be listened to.  They have problems.

And sadly, I’m not sure how sarcastic this post is, because look, something is wrong with these people.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Violence, Cynicism, and False Maturity

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Several times in my life I’ve encountered people who seemed honestly stunned or dismissive of the idea of avoiding violent confrontation in political, military, and even personal spheres.  There seemed to be something that didn’t register to them that the best solution was not always the one with the highest body count, the most blood, and the greatest number of smoking craters.  The idea that a less or no-violent solution may produce better results seemed alien to them, weak, or even laughable.

Of course most of the people I knew like this grew up.  When I look at our “3Ps” (politicians, preachers, and pundists) that are most popular, I’m seeing a lot of people who didn’t grow up.  Oddly, they posture themselves as the mature ones.

Similarly, in politics, in media, in punditry, it seems that nothing is too cynical, too dark, too nihilistic not to propose.  The more cynical the view the better, is the rule it seems, and thus we have people who denounce many if not a majority of their own countrypeople as evil, or contemptable.   We see it in media that vies to be the bloodiest, darkest view of people imaginable because it’s “true” – in short, it’s what we want to think.  Cynicism is seen as maturity.

Violence and cynicism (often mixed with sarcasm, which drags down sarcasm’s good name) are postulated as being mature.

Stepping back for a moment, these are two traits that very much are not mature.  To engage in violence for no good reason is a mark of pathology.  To be in a race to hate the most things is insanity.  Yet, it is considered mature.

It is considered, in short, realistic.  Upon reflection it’s certainly not realistic since it’s basically having highly predetermined and unchangable worldviews.  But it’s pitched as “realism.”

Realism is about cause and effect, true maturity and understanding, goals and achieving them, people and working with them.  We’ve traded real maturity for a kind of regressed adolescence of violent fantasies (of course those having the fantasies assume they’ll be untouched) and dark speculations (which of course justify the dark fantasies).

Next time you look at Congress, or our media, ask yourself how much is maturity and how much is faux maturity.

Then at that point, you may need to drink.  But do so in a mature manner.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.