When my son was 14, he suffered from depression brought on by his awareness of the suffering of others. Even though he was from a stable, loving home environment, he expressed determined empathy for friends who struggled with broken homes, identity confusion, substance abuse, and lack of love. He took up their cause as a social group and while that association sometimes landed him in trouble, I was proud of what a good friend he was. He also struggled with a more global depression, as labeled by a therapist engaged to analyze the ennui that sometimes overtook our boy. He had the ability to process the pain and injustice in the world outside his own and seemed to take it personally.
In "Depression's Upside", an intriguing piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Jonah Lehrer asks if there is an "evolutionary purpose to feeling really sad"? He examines the use of drug therapy to alleviate depression stating that "for some unknown reason, the modern human mind is tilted toward sadness and, as we've now come to think, needs drugs to rescue itself." But the article raises the concern that drugs can mask the real cause of depression and, in some cases, prevent people from actually finding a solution to their sadness, a state of mind that may actually be necessary and helpful to learning the skills of life survival.
If we even accept the premise that there is a certain "upside" to depression, it is doubtful that we are wired to process the enormous amount of information that comes to us every day via cable news and up to the minute internet postings. It is difficult not to connect emotionally to the devastation of the Haitian earthquake when we are bombarded almost immediately after the event by images of what used to be described as unimaginable suffering. It is no longer unimaginable in that we are now witnessing it nearly first hand. We watch the telethon organized by a handsome movie star and listen to the other stars recite the most emotional stories that can be found, designed to move us to the point of giving, of becoming part of the solution. And then just a short while later, a second quake in a different part of the world starts the process all over. It is horrifying to find yourself minimizing it's impact because the death toll is so much lower than the previous quake, in the hundreds instead of the hundreds of thousands. How can we really emotionally process the difference?
When did the local kidnapping of a child become a national news story, giving us access to what was once the private suffering of parents? When did we come to expect videotape of almost every event we hear about? And when did videotape of so many of those events actually become available? Was it necessary and appropriate for us to be shown the tape of the luge accident that caused the death of an Olympic athlete? It is hard to forget the athlete's father being interviewed through a translator in his tiny, rural village saying that he did not want to see the tape of how this happened to his son. But we saw it, probably multiple times, and even when NBC stopped showing it, it was easily found on the internet. It triggers the concern we all have for the safety of our own kids and we worry, cry, empathize, and grieve. And yet the grieving isn't personal.
Giving of ourselves has become a completely different process than it used to be. If a neighbor or a friend got sick and needed help, the community would often bring dinner, offer a ride to the hospital or the doctor, and assist with household chores or babysitting. Sometimes it would just mean sitting across the kitchen table and listening over coffee and a piece of pie. Now we can feel good about ourselves without ever leaving the computer. We send e-mails of sympathy and concern, make charitable contributions using our Pay Pal accounts, and rally around using Facebook and Twitter. Text messages replace phone conversations and actual visits are more rare. It allows us a kind of safety net to insure that we don't get too emotionally involved and yet still feel helpful. It is a skill we learned from processing sadness at a distance every single day.
In the recent past we have heard about the celebrity deaths of Michael Jackson and Brittany Murphy, the suicides of Andrew Koenig and Marie Osmond's son, and just today the fatal mauling by the family dog of the daughter of Jesse Browning, star of "Ax Men" on the History Channel. Her name was Ashlynn. It took me less than a minute to locate that example on the internet. Another very sad story that I wonder why I know anything about.
Sadness and a certain level of depression do have a place in our lives. Mr. Lehrer's article explains that we have a stronger ability to focus, analyze and gain wisdom when we are in that state. A high percentage of successful creative artists suffer from some form of depression. But it is no surprise that those who spend the most time on the internet tend to be more depressed. Is it because the internet depresses them or because they are depressed and withdraw to the internet as a result? Who knows? But as in most things, balance is part of a healthy existence and it may do us some good to at least attempt to limit our sadness and intermittent depression to things that are personal to us, things we can touch and feel and affect, rather than taking on the planet's suffering and making it our own.