Why People are so angry and depressed these days?

In a poor ‘Yoda’ impression: “Discontent leads to frustration, frustration leads to anger and anger leads to suffering.”  In the twenty-first century mankind stands at a stalemate, so much has been invented, discovered and achieved in such a short period of years that we can’t, not only, keep up but are losing that most vivacious and significant spark of our natures, that of hope and aspiration. 

To quote “The Lion King” or “Doctor Who”, “There’s more to see that can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done…” and globally we are starting to feel that. We either contort those words to become, “What can I see that has never been seen, what can I do that has never been done” or we are continually vexed and plagued by them.

A century ago, within living memory of some of our own relatives, life was not necessarily better but it was simpler.  There was great inequality between the sexes so that woman couldn’t battle and change the system overnight.  They had a cause to fight for but this now has plateau-ed.  The class system was rife and mankind had to find contentment at their level and though they could aspire for more there were limits.

Now, however, continental travel is cheap, products and services are accessible and that ‘something’, which people believe will bring them happiness, is now so near but still elusive.  We want so much more because we know that we can have so much more.  Things that were impossible to achieve just a hundred years ago now taunt us.  Everyone wants to live a good and full life and now there’s no time to do everything that’s possible and less of a restless need to explore and invent because there’s so much else to work to own.

In this way our achievements are always undermined by our potential goals and job satisfaction becomes the daily grind that is a means to an end.  There is a hopelessness in society that hasn’t been present for generations because as we have advanced the width and breadth of our possible goals has become seemingly insurmountable.  We can never keep up with the Jones because the Jones are no longer our village neighbours but a global media network where someone will always have more. 

This feeling of failure and insignificance to change and further the world leads to depression, self-anger and inactivity as tasks seem impossible and too scary and lofty to even aim for.  There is an increase in mass media, watching TV, reality shows to live vicariously through others.  Families are strangers due to the fact that the job market is so poor that everyone has to go above and beyond, work longer hours for lesser pay because they know that there are a hundred other people that could easily replace them.  The developed world is educated with more degree graduates than jobs so that so many can’t find career fulfilment or stimulation.

The one thing that saved people in such a crisis in the past was looking for wisdom, leadership and purpose in religion but now, with so much apathy, too much knowledge and a depressing realism of the world that rips at dreams and fantastical theories, even that is empty to many.

Thus there is an increase in alcoholism and smoking, even though we know the determents, they don’t matter as much anymore in life’s monotony and an increase in violent crime and sexual perversions - something, anything to make mankind feel and experience again. 

We are our own undoers but no society can thrive like this.  Even basic scientific principals state that there is a survival instinct in every organism and the world is one giant organism.  Society will be shaken up when those with influence speak out.  At the moment the powerful of our nations do not want to disturb the status quo as the material things we are encouraged to want encourage capitalism and profit but true happiness will come from a sense and understanding of self and embracing the real relationships and memories that make us want to live and fight on and that day will come again.

"Why do I always find the holes?"

“Why do I always find the holes?”

“Why do you always find the holes?” he says, after pointing and laughing at my twisted ankle and soppy, wet, grass stained knees!  Thank heaven the car has a heater with ‘point at feet’ option.  But this lead me to wondering firstly,  do I really find holes in EVERYTHING but I don’t feel like analysing my insecurities and self-destructive tendencies right at this moment and secondly, if men are from Mars and women from Venus, is Mars main mode of entertainment, slap stick comedy?  Charlie Chaplin and Frank Spencer, ‘Ohhhh Betty!’ slipping on banana skins and failing miserably at D.I.Y.?

Is it some kind of evolutionary tell tale from when men spent their days metaphorically, whacking things on the head with rubber mallets?  More controversially, what does it say about the complexity, or lack therefore of the male psyche and levels of intelligence when related to emotions such as happiness?  Should we be surprised that a man is total, insensitive tosser during ‘Auntie Flows’ visit when at the back of his mind he’s thinking ‘Ha-Ha!’ (In Simpson-esque manner) or desperately holding in the joke of, ‘Never trust anything that bleeds for five days straight and doesn’t die’.

Taking this further, can the level of ‘Y’ chromosome, the level of ‘daddy’ originated genes in a women be determined by the number of times she laughs at ‘Jackass The Movie’ versus the number of eye-rolls or squeamish grunts of disgust or incredulity?

Then thinking about the popularity of things like Jackass and reality T.V. mediaising the pain and happiness of others in extreme situations and getting worried how far away we are from snuff movies for public entertainment.  I recognised a modern trait that seems to be increasing.  In this day and age of technological, medial, scientific and even Thomas Cook travel advancement, does the average man, woman and child feel impotent in the natural human need to discover and adventure?  A hundred years ago people seemed so much more content, is that because their lifestyle opinions were so much fewer, whereas now there’s always something bigger and better to be having or doing, a wide screen plasma T.V., a trip to Australia for the weekend?

We are still living by the old rules of happiness, the white picket fence, car, job, family and dog but now there’s so much more out there and there’s less satisfaction in the thrill of discovery as like the misnomer of ‘Avant-Garde Theatre’, it’s all been done before.  We’ve achieved freedom, equality, wealth, science, even been to the moon – well at least in the developed west.   

Have we become complacent and apathetic, shutting off all those childish dreams just to survive because we’re so much more logically and grounded these days than to believe in dreams.  Like the drug addict do we need an increasing bigger hit just to feel something, to feel connected perhaps, especially with the growth of autonomous cityscapes and high rise offices?  Is that why more people seem to drink ‘til their plastered, take drugs, experiment sexually and physically in adrenalin junkie activities, or it is just because we can?

If you think about the most popular, ‘Box Offices’ smashes in our lifetimes, how many of them involve Superheroes – men with great power and responsibility that bear the irksome weight of the martyr to protect and save, to show unconditional compassion and hope in the potentiality of mankind?  Does this harken back to hunter instincts that psychologically point to a simpler time of honour and valour and the regret and guilt at the cut-throat world we now live in.  I know I want to be a hero, to make a difference, to fly into the heavens with Kyrptonian blood or in a ‘bigger on the inside’ police box and escape the daily grind and for the first time in centuries seems meaningless and void of true advancement on a social level.

How many of the movies are set in space again nodding to man’s need to explore and escape and how debilitated so many in society feel that they have to turn to the cinema for cathartic release.  Do you realise how many applicants to jobs there are in dangerous and self-proving jobs such as fire fighting?

Yet having drown attention to the desperation of our times and the often negative results of violent crime, alcoholism, promiscuity, it’s also so amazingly hopeful that something undefined within us all seems to rebel against the nature of our world and need to be the hero, the carer, the lover, to make a difference but those dreams are so easily stilted and euthanized in so many ways when faced with capitalism and economy, how do we pay the mortgage and keep up with the ‘Jones’?

I fear at some point the global psychological of the world is just going to snap and either properly embrace indifference and selfish ambitions or self-destruct in the face of the guilt and inadequacy of these feelings and hopefully then change can happen.

Oh this is way to depth thought for 6.00am on a Sunday morning, let me just punish my body with some nicotine for blogging and not doing!!!