We are not happy. We can’t be. Not with the world as it is. Don’t tell us that life is unfair. We KNOW that first hand. Don’t tell us to suck it up. We’ve sucked up so much of the hatred and bile in this world that we have become the very thing we were trying to ignore. On those bad days spent resting in our on blood in on the asphalt at the playground. Every time we cried since we feared going to school, or out of our houses. When war broke out in our homelands, when solders knocked down the door, when the factory was closed, when there was no food, when we were kicked out of our homes under the bridge or out of our little tin shanties. We are so sick and angry and hurt. We are sick of being called: blackie, buckwheat, whore, bitch, spic, chink, cracker, cunt, retard, shorie, nigger, dink, frog, freak, faggot, gook, greaser, injun, wimp, pube head, monkey-woman, wanker, woogie, woodie, half-bread, coon, kike, crout, oreo, red-skin, red-neck, slicker, taco, whity, yellow, dike, wasp, jap, boonie, shine and chinko.
Some of the time, we’ve asked for change. Some of the time, we made some change. Most of the time… we fail. So enough! We are setting up folding tables in major cities; we have a simple message. Don’t smile, don’t be happy, not untill things are fair. Complain a lot. When you are hurt keep bringing it up. Anyone who fails to understand our pain and join us in mourning the death of any hope for true happiness is against us. Our collective sadness will drag them down— Soon the world will be one big mass of weeping victims. Since we have universal language of pain now we can recognize it. And then some day—when everyone cries, we have a slim shot at all being healed.-- futurebird, Dec 19 2002 depressing http://www.mirror.c...d=full&siteid=50143[mihali]Man in Black http://www.toptown....p/66/maninblack.htmFrom the gospel according to John(ny Cash): Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, And tell the world everything's OK, But...Till things are brighter, I'm the man in black. [mihali, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Man in Black http://www.toptown....p/66/maninblack.htmFrom the gospel according to John(ny Cash): Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, And tell the world everything's OK, But...Till things are brighter, I'm the man in black. [rowlycat, Oct 04 2004] Trent Lott http://lott.senate.gov/ [my face your, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Nuclear War?! http://www.art-for-...m/Vallen/vdraw5.htmI see nothing wrong with worrying about nuclear war. Worrying about nuclear war is one of the hallmarks of Generation X. I know I had nightmares. [xrayTed, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] <childish sing-songing pity-party>"Nobody likes me everybody hates me why don't I just go eat worrrrrrms..."-- RayfordSteele, Dec 19 2002 The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- Thoreau-- bristolz, Dec 19 2002 some not as quiet as others.-- rbl, Dec 19 2002 methinks there are already a lot people worrying about many things in the world. as bad as your life may seem, there is always some unfortunate soul who's worse off than you. that doesn't keep me from feeling more than a little depressed when i read stuff like the linked article. i read stuff like this and i wonder "what can i do to change this and make life better for these people?" it sometimes seems like the order in the world is turned upside-down by certain forces and just because some poor sod was unfortunate enough to have been born in a certain place at a certain time, he is meant to suffer for his entire life, as short as it's meant to be. when i read that the u.n. has to cancel aid shipments because of regular bombardment of innocent people, i feel even more helpless.-- mihali, Dec 19 2002 Then stop the music. Get up and get someone else depressed too.-- futurebird, Dec 19 2002 So, are we getting Morrissey or Robert Smith to write the Anti-Joy League anthem? Perhaps Joy Division should do it...-- Pharaoh Mobius, Dec 19 2002 "The 'People Who Hate People' Party! Join us!" "No!" --Bill Hicks-- friendlyfire, Dec 19 2002 What happens when the anti-joy league, or as I like to call it the pro-worry alliance, succeeds and the world is one big mass of weeping victims? Who do we blame then?-- CAO, Dec 19 2002 dude, commit suicide and shut up.-- alphabetsoup, Dec 19 2002 [alphabet] now don't get me wrong but delete that stupid remark and likewise your duplicate account. thank you.-- po, Dec 19 2002 alphabetsoup:You're ignorant and/or insensitive by posting that comment.Many, if not most people, in this case - halfbakers - have lost loved ones to the method you suggest. In some cases, a sibling who is missed dearly. Further, the halfbakery itself lost a vital member of our accidental community on July 14, 2002 due to depression reaching a horrible conclusion.That said, delete your comment in it's entirety.-- thumbwax, Dec 19 2002 alphabetsoup:Dude, go away and shut up. I'm sure it'll be appreciated.-- kaz, Dec 19 2002 But..but..[futurebird], I never said any of those things!-- egbert, Dec 19 2002 Life isn't fair. Nobody said it was supposed to be. Life is full of piss and shit.
All the more reason to value so much that is good in the world. I can't speak for anyone else - but I'm gonna hold on to the positive. I'm thankful for every breath taken - and despite recent personal events I'm not ever giving in.
(in case you missed that ...fishbone!)-- Jinbish, Dec 19 2002 // anti-joy league //
Aka the Al Gore for President organization...-- RayfordSteele, Dec 19 2002 Alphabet, futurebirds post is more than some simple suicidal rant - and I am not trivialising such things. If you had read it in its entirety and perhaps delved further, you'd see what it was about. People, as a whole, have lost the passion, the drive, and the will to get mad enough to bring about change. What is there to smile about in times like these? Sure, we're happy with OUR lives. And people might say you cant spend all the time thinking about the misfortunes of others...well why the hell not?! There are other PEOPLE, other HUMAN BEINGS, like you, like me, in this world who suffer day after day, and to detach ourselves from that fact is to lose our humanity. People need to get mad, people need to get upset and kick up a fuss. One day we might find ourselves on the other side of things, wishing that the world cared about what happened to us. Think about that.
That said, overwhelming unhappiness would probably reduce everyone to quivering whimpering wrecks - so much so that no-one would be in much of a position to do anything about it. it's finding the balance. it's having the optimism to make things better, but the empathy to feel shitty enough to want to change it.
My two cents s'all-- Laser Flannel, Dec 19 2002 //it's having the optimism to make things better, but the empathy to feel shitty enough to want to change it//
Fair enough - but I'm going to try and do that without the methods stated in the idea:
//Our collective sadness will drag them down— Soon the world will be one big mass of weeping victims.//-- Jinbish, Dec 19 2002 Hehe, agreed Jinbish-- Laser Flannel, Dec 19 2002 I'm going to try to be nice here to not hurt people's feeling, but what the frick is this idea about? Sitting down and pulling the covers over your head and giving up? You won't get anything from anyone here, or out there either. Get off your arse and make a change for yourself.
[alphabetsoup] thank you for being even more of an asshole than I could ever hope to achieve. It sort of takes the pressure off [of the bitch-girl].-- linguist, Dec 19 2002 [futurebird] I am concerned by reading your posts that you may be clinically depressed. This is the time of year for depression and it sounds like you need some help. Get up, go to your doctor and get help. Fricking assholes like [alphabetsoup] have their heads up their arse so far they can't see the light of day, so don't pay them any attention. The [bitch-lady] says to get off your duff and do something about it now!
And remember, that light at the end of the tunnel is most likely an oncoming train. <smiles>-- linguist, Dec 20 2002 //dude, commit suicide and shut up.// Futurebird, if I recall, is not a dude.-- AfroAssault, Dec 20 2002 This is depressing... So I guess its working.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 20 2002 I believe this idea's intent has been misread entirely by the bulk of the annotators.The intent, as posted by the author, (if memory serves, resides in the same city which hosts The United Nations) is for no more *Us and Them*With no more *Us and Them* - whether individually, or as a lump sum, there is less victimization, and therefore - less anti-joy. I'm reminded of the film *Netwoik*, whereby one leans out the window, stands on a corner, and yells "I'm sad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!"Why else would the author indicate what *we're* sick of being called? Why else would the author suggest not be *happy* until things are fair?Why else would Trent Lott step down? The collective voice of reason was heard.-- thumbwax, Dec 20 2002 (((((((((((((((((((((BIG HUG)))))))))))))))))))))))))))) for futurebird. I've been there a lot too......-- Marassa, Dec 20 2002 ((((((((((((((((BIG HUG))))))))))))))))) for blissy too....-- Marassa, Dec 20 2002 Well, I could've done without all the rantishness of the idea, all the specific insults and so on (suggest editing them out and the point is still made), but I'll take it as giving me license, because the "Don't be happy, worry" idea is a good one.
I think maybe it's separate from depression, which is real and, yeah, if someone's thinking about taking the plunge, definitely time to seek help (seriously - there's no rational reason to kill yourself. If you get to that point, you've got to accept you're acting irrationally and get help). However, what's called anxiety and depression might actually have some meaning besides just an illness with little relevance to reality.
I read an article that criticized therapy along the same lines. The idea being, if some guy is having a hard time holding it together for his one-hour-each-way drive to work, he goes to a therapist, who talks to him and calms him down and gives him pills. He start digging into why he's living the way he is, why he's working at (and driving to) a job that has no real personal meaning or social value, that he's wasting all this time driving to live in house with no character in a place where there's no real community, etc. (Not to mention the whole craziness of automobile-based transportation.)
When I hit my teens there was this bellicose president who was talking about a limited, winnable nuclear war (only kills twenty-million). I was afraid of nuclear weapons and nuclear war, and had a few such nightmares. (Really gruesome because when you wake up, you don't get to go, "Whew! What a scary dream. Good thing my penis didn't really fall off!") I couldn't believe my society not only had, but was continuing to produce, devices designed to obliterate millions of people at a time.
Well, I was so concerned about this I got sent a shrink, to whom the solution was obvious - mess with my brain biochemistry. I wasn't totally losing it. Wasn't huddled in a ball all day. I was functioning, intelligent, articulate, and very anxious about this (I wouldn't even say I was obsessed). Fortunately, there were drugs to deal with my anxiety.
Years later another solution occurred: Join the Freeze campaign, spend time with like-minded people who might confirm that I had some pretty rational fears and that there was a real problem to work on.
To me, that sums up a lot of the trouble with therapy, the medications, etc. Consider that a significant percentage of the US population has taken these things (it's about ten-percent for Prozac alone) and you have to wonder if it's the people or the society. And if the society, should the individuals keep medicating themselves to not get so upset about it.
But I'm not done yet:
Julie, a lovely, sunshiny girl I knew, suddenly found herself crying in the evenings and on Sunday afternoons. There was no reason. She went over her life: engaged to her dream guy, nice job, nice house (they were buying it together), everybody liked her, etc. Still, the crying spells, the sadness with no cause.
Obvious clinical depression. Nothing based in reality, clearly, just some weird biochemical glitch. Anybody could diagnose it. (Even a GP.)
It got worse, so bad that she only wanted to be alone for awhile, and sublet a friend's apartment to do that.
Then her depression became so severe she couldn't go to work anymore. Just stayed home, in bed a lot of the day, just too down.
Now, any doctor would have been screaming at her to take anti-depressants, which would have restarted her life right there, but she didn't see a doctor, and it went on, getting worse and worse. One night when this was really bad, a friend dragged her out to a club, where she got drunk (the depression, obviously). She got so drunk she started necking with a guy she'd just met.
And then the epiphany: She realized she didn't want to get married. Her dream guy was just that, a little girl's dream. He wasn't actually who she, the grown-up woman, wanted to spend her life with, but she'd never looked at that, never let go of that fantasy (which maybe had sustained her through some difficult times when she was younger).
Happy ending - in time, she met another guy, very different. They've got a couple of kids now. Point being, if she'd just taken the pills like she should have, she would've learned to manage the crying spells, pressed on with the wedding plans, and would today be doing all right, knowing that she was just one of those people who, for some inexplicable reason, suffer bouts of depression, but fortunately there are ways to treat that, and mommy's doing just fine.-- rowlycat, Dec 20 2002 Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, hmmmmmmmmm - what does that have to do with the idea, you suppose?-- thumbwax, Dec 21 2002 Fair enough, I suppose. The idea I thought it went to was that when I was freaking about nuclear weapons, the message I got was, "Don't worry, be happy." When my friend was suddenly freaking about her life, the same (a textbook case for use of those soothing anti-depressants, in fact). In both instances, a better case could be made for the idea proposed.
We tend to view worry as the problem, not the things people are worrying about. We have a whole lot of people (like, running into the millions) who are Not Worrying - through medication if necessary - when they definitely should be worrying very much. Maybe changing their lives, getting involved. Spoke to the original idea, I thought.
That was what I thought I was trying to say, anyway.
Then (not meant to be catty) they might have noticed the behavoir of, say, a Trent Lott years before a single comment (well in-line with earlier ones) made all these media outlets suddenly spoonfeed them: "Oh, his whole pattern's been racist since he's been in politics." Gee. The secret's out.
A lot of people have tried to bring up that very issue for years. You know what we were told?
Is why I thought it spoke to the original subject.-- rowlycat, Dec 21 2002 OK, this convinces me it's time to start my blog and spare this thread. However, in response to waugsqueke's (good) points, I would like to one last time release the hounds:
On the second point: I do acknowledge that. I tend to think of them as short-term interventions, rather than a way to live your whole life. If such a significant percentage of the population on medication, just maybe there's a societal problem. Sometimes there's a reason we're feeling so uncomfortable, even if it's not obvious to us or anyone else right away. We should thus allow ourselves time to worry, be really sad, etc. (Just like children should be allowed to be idle and bored sometimes.)
(I see the value of anti-depressants in the case of suicidal tendencies. Note: When healthy test subjects took the anti-depressant Zoloft, many found themselves suicidal for the first time in their lives. Same with a couple friends who tried it for milder depression and suddenly were suicidal. Just in case you ever know someone who's in such a situation.)
On the first point: I agree that worrying to such an extent was a problem. It's just that the solution wasn't pills.
Take mihali's link. A lot of people read that and just get depressed, which is the worst thing (leaves you hopelesss and feeling you might as well not be informed at all). Then that combines with other dissatisfactions and before they know it, they're taking Prozac, and it's really helping them get through the day. What they should be doing is getting upset about it to the point where they get involved. It's a bad enough situation that we should be very upset (plus, they're talking about using nukes - threatening an already devasted people, with a dicator we long supported, with mass incineration). This stuff is being done in our name, with our money. We have some responsibility here.
With that particular situation (about which I will spare you the rant - though can I mention half a million dead children?), if you're working on it, doing what you can and confirming that you're not insane, you don't feel that excruciating anxiety and need for soothing medication.
How we figure out if we're nuts is by social interaction (also seems to have good anti-depressant/mood elevating qualities... hmmmmm). That's a problem in a society where social interaction has so dramatically declined, and where other people might be feeling as hopeless: In Europe, when I discuss the Iraq statistic above, we have a lively conversation. In the US, especially where people are more disconnected from each other, they tend to stare at me and say, "Where do you get this crazy stuff?" (Oh, the U.N., New York Times, etc.) And then I feel I must be a little crazy.
With the nukes, I didn't know about the activist groups. I just thought the problem was my worrying. That wasn't the problem. It's not like I was worrying about aliens zapping my head with rays. (I have tin-foil for that.)
And there's a lot we can do about them (assuming we live in democratic societies, anyway). As the world's only superpower, the US could easily say no more nukes, get that passed by the UN and set about halting production worldwide. There are ways to do this that don't require a huge policing effort (as Robert Oppenheimer detailed). Then we start dismantling those in existence. It's a real issue that needs more people upset (worrying) about it. These things are still out there, threatening any time to incinerate you, your family, etc. We'll probably get working on it, wake up to the issue (as with Trent Lott), after a couple pop off and we get CNN images seared children among the million victims (unless they're Iraqi, of course). Meanwhile, we won't worry.
As Bertrand Russel said on the topic: "Our world has sprouted a weird concept of security and a warped sense of morality. Weapons are sheltered like treasures and children are exposed to incineration."
While we're trying to medicate it out, roboticists are trying to find ways to program it in, to get robots to have rising fear (or anxiety, or worry) as they approach a precipice so they will change course.
One might make an analogy to a society that seemed to be approaching its own precipice(s).
And, hey, worrying keeps you thin. (Maybe it's Worry. Be Happy.)
(All right, time to figure out that blog thing. (Hold the sarcastic applause.))-- rowlycat, Dec 22 2002 <suggestion> Hey Futurebird, do yourself a favor and get on some anti-depressants </suggestion>-- JesseOQ, Aug 02 2003 I know someone who wanted to commit suicide. I told him: Don't commit suicide, things could be worse. So that's what happened. He didn't commit suicide. And things got worse.-- pashute, Feb 26 2024 random, halfbakery