Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now: Touching Base
Has anyone told you this week they’re feeling fed up? Down? Miserable even? There are two possible explanations:
1. The release of a new Morrissey single
2. This:
1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.
Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January’s pay day - and T is the time since Christmas. Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.
Which is, of course, the formula for how miserable people get in early January, and peaked on Monday 21st January this year. It may not be a co-incidence that divorce lawyers report their busiest time in the weeks after Christmas, nor that there have been several tragic headline stories this week about people taking their own lives.
One in Four
…of us will get clinical depression at some point in our lives, and other mental illnesses like OCD (which affects 2 or 3 in 100 people) are in the World Health Organisations top 10 most debilitating illnesses. Psychologist Oliver James, amongst others, has written about how consumer society is toxic to mental health.
Rates of depression and mental distress are steadily rising. At the same time we are hard-wiring them deeper into every new generation.
Alongside epidemic levels family breakdown (which has serious consequences for the mental health of children - research here, and here), exam stress and technology have made it a tougher world for kids to live in, never mind that fact that they are relentlessly targeted by the same advertisers who make their parents feel bad about themselves.
Grumpy? Or Just Browned Off?
There’s an increasing body of work trying to measure the financial cost of all this. I guess there has to be - it seems to be Gordon Brown’s principle language. Even his words of congratulation to the winners of the 2007 British Curry Awards took less than 2 sentences before getting into the financial contribution that the curry sector made to the UK economy. (The words are so dull they’ve been omitted from the official website, but if you visit a winner you can see them in the ceremony brochure).
The thing is that money isn’t the answer. In fact it’s possibly part of the problem.
Most of us aren’t depressed because we’re poor. We’re depressed because we don’t have enough good friends, our relationships aren’t working, we’re working harder for less fulfillment, and we don’t feel safe enough to enjoy what we do have, even though the crime figures tell us we ought to.
Shiny Happy People?
The last resort of men, when things don’t work, is to check the instructions. What do they say?
Well I don’t think you have to be a ‘world was made in 6 days’ creationist ostrich to find something worthwhile in the Biblical creation story.
Adam was as happy as Larry (except that Larry hadn’t been created yet) - why? Because all the key things are intact: meaningful work with a clear purpose, a great relationship with his Mrs (how many men since have woken up in the morning, looked at the beautiful naked woman lying next to them, and said a prayer of thanks?), and an open line to God.
When things go wrong in the next chapter, work becomes frustrating, relationships break down, God becomes distant, and Adam becomes dis-eased within himself and starts to experience shame and guilt. The breakdown of key relationships, loss of purpose in life and loss of fulfillment in activity, all are corrosive of happiness.
The next generation faces the crucial choice: be happy for what you have and thank God (Abel), or get angry about what you haven’t got and lash out (Cain).
Cheer Me Up Before You Go-Go
In the final analysis, what is it that makes us thriving and happy? Capitalism was always morally bankrupt, and has been proven spiritually bankrupt too. Where is the vision of what it is to be human which not only inspires us, but actually works?
