Opinion (From snob.ru): “Patients with depression tend to evaluate themselves and the possible turn of events more realistically, whereas healthy people tend to overestimate.

“The down side of depression includes sadness, apathy, and loss of appetite; however, those who suffer from depression are notably better at making decisions than healthy people because they are more prone to analysis and to being more cautious.

“Cognitive problems are better solved by people with medium level of depression. Depression humanizes a person and makes him more moral. In a manic state a person can be violent and heartless, but in a state of depression one becomes sensitive and compassionate.

“While all of this is comforting, it does not justify depression.”

My Comment: Kabbalah develops one’s ability to be in two opposite states simultaneously. For instance, a person can feel joy and sadness simultaneously because alongside of his egoism, Kabbalah also develops his qualities of bestowal and compassion. This constantly expands a person’s perception and awareness of the world and allows him or her to be fulfilled by it while never becoming empty. This is impossible to achieve through our inherent egoistic qualities.
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In the News (from lastampa.il): “Italy is an aging, but healthy country, the third in Europe by life expectancy. … But there is a decrease in mental health: The use of antidepressants … has doubled over the past ten years.

“Depression comes from a deep dissatisfaction. In recent years, depression has become a real social problem.

“Society does not tolerate weakness. It is forbidden to show suffering. One must live in an artificial atmosphere of good mood. Melancholy and sadness have turned into a disease.

“The massive use of antidepressants indicates that pills are seen as the shortest way to resolve the issue, even without trying to solve it. Theoretically, the drugs should be taken in a critical situation until the recovery, but most people cannot abandon the medications and are not cured.”

My Comment: Depression is the most widely spread disease of the world, and it causes virtually all other illnesses. Our essence is egoism, therefore its emptiness, void, and dissatisfaction, is the foundation of our common condition.

A disease is the manifestation of the imbalance of the body, the system that constantly monitors its internal equilibrium. Our lack of balance between ourselves and with nature at the “human” level puts all the systems of nature out of balance: at the level of inanimate nature, the processes inside the Earth (the awakening of volcanoes, earthquakes) and on its surface (hurricanes), at the vegetative and animate levels, the extinction of species, and so on.
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In the News (from HealthDay News): “Americans who were jobless for longer than 25 weeks in the past year were three times more likely than those who were continuously employed to suffer mental health issues for the first time, a new study finds.

“’On the other hand, we found that people exposed to long-term unemployment were three times as likely as employed people over the past year to be exposed to their first bout of psychological distress in a clinically defined way,’ Goldsmith [an economics professor at Washington and Lee University] said.

“Being jobless also has a greater psychological impact on people with more than a high school education than on those with less education, the researchers found.

“Depression and general anxiety are the two primary causes of poor mental health related to long-term unemployment, the study found.

“The study also found that the psychological impact of unemployment tends to be greater among people in minority groups and those with higher levels of education.

“‘People with a lot of education tend to believe that they have control over events in their lives and are self-blamers. That is really damaging to emotional well-being,’ said Goldsmith.”

My Comment: Unemployment is inevitable as we produce too much unnecessary stuff, deplete natural resources, and pollute the planet. We have to accept the fact that we must feed, clothe, and equip ourselves with the necessary facilities, and not more. The freed time has to be dedicated to the studies of the global world, new integral society, and the way to reaching mutual guarantee. This will enable us to achieve balance with the surrounding nature and survive in a threatening ecological situation.
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In the News (From France24.com): "Flooding, drought, and superstorms boosted by climate change are not only poised to ravage human habitats but mental health as well, according to Australian researchers.

"’Recent experience shows extreme weather events also pose a serious risk to public health, including mental health and wellbeing, with serious flow-on consequences for the economy and wider society.’

“Up to now, however, few efforts have been made to assess the psychological impact of climate change-enhanced weather events, which in Australia have destroyed communities, farms, and businesses.

“In poorer countries with less capacity to absorb such shocks, the consequences on mental health are likely to be even greater, the report warned.

“’The emerging burden of climate-related impacts on community morale and mental health – bereavement, depression, post-event stress disorders, and the tragedy of self-harm – is large,’ noted Tony McMichael, a professor at Australian National University, in introducing the study.

“Statistics from Australia show higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, violence, family breakups, and suicide after extreme weather events, with impacts more pronounced in rural and semi-rural areas according to the report.

"’Evidence is emerging that drought and heat waves lead to rates of self-harm and suicide as much as eight percent higher’ when annual rainfall is at least 300 millimetres below average, it said.

“Children in particular are vulnerable to pre-disaster anxiety and post-trauma illness, the researchers noted.

“This is due not only to direct exposure of life-threatening situations and dislocation from family and community supports, but also to ‘the reality of living with long term threat,’ noted Ian Hickie, director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute.

“Climate change will also render already stressful conflicts over resource use, especially for water, even more volatile, he added.”

My Comment: But namely man by his behavior, his lack of aspiration to balance with nature causes the changes of nature, its instability and variability. And then nature itself reacts to these changes and backlashes. It’s because nature consists of the following parts: still, vegetative, animate, and human. A human is the highest part of nature, not because of his animal body, but due to his desire and reason.

For thousands of years, nature was developing desires and reason in humans. While the desires and the mind were evolving, nature did not put obstacles for us. But at the end of the last century, the individual development in each person came to an end. Since then, the desire and the mind started to unite with nature in one integral network. The world became globally and integrally connected. The network between us made us interconnected.

However, the desires and the mind remained egoistic, and thus, are opposite to the network, and in the process of convergence, evoke greater hatred and crisis: Egoists cannot function in the common network. And because man’s desire and mind are the highest, that is, the most influential in the connection network between all parts of nature, people suffer more than others—and from all other levels.

It is the time for everyone to draw a conclusion because nature will force us anyway! Is it not better to change our inner nature: egoism?
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Opinion: (Bob Murray, PhD and Alicia Fortinberry, MS): “Depression is one of the greatest problems and killers of our times….

“Antidepressants work for 35 to 45% of the depressed population, while more recent figures suggest as low as 30%. Standard antipressants… have recently been revealed to have serious risks, and are linked to suicide, violence, psychosis, abnormal bleeding and brain tumors….

“Long-term recovery from depression ultimately requires addressing the underlying relationship causes of depression, not simply symptoms such as chemical imbalance and depressive thoughts. This is why healing both the relationship environment and the whole person is vital in preventing relapse….

Depression Statistics

• “Depressive disorders affect approximately 18.8 million American adults or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older….
• “Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers — over a million — are clinically depressed.
• The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% p.a.
• 15% of the population of most developed countries suffers severe depression.
• 30% of women are depressed. Men’s figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher.”

My Comment: Undoubtedly, depression will grow, qualitatively and quantitatively, in the entire world, in all. It’s because we have created the world unfit for life. For the time being, it is depression in particular that urges us to look for a solution. Depression disappears only when we create a warm and loving atmosphere in the society.
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According to statistics, most of the demonstrators in Tel Aviv, as well as the organizers of the protest, belong to the middle and upper classes. Special research has been done on which layers of society populate these demonstrations and what the percentages are.

And the same thing is now happening in London. We think that people are coming out to the streets and raising havoc because they have nothing to eat. But that’s not the problem. Why has it become possible to incite them and agitate them to hold a revolution? It’s because the new generation does not feel that the future holds anything good for it. The tendency is for things to get worse. And this is the gist of the problem: that there’s no future!

What do I care about problems like an apartment, family, and children if there is no tomorrow for me? This means total despair, like depression, when a person does not understand what he should live for. And if he gets into this state, then he is ready to do anything at all to destroy this horrible feeling of inner sorrow. That is why people are coming out to the streets and holding revolutions even when they belong to the highest layers of society.

Their inner despair makes them vulnerable to being attuned and turned in this direction, while they don’t even understand what is happening to them. They explain this by a thousand of other reasons, such as the search for justice in society, as if they actually needed it. In reality, they don’t even know what this concept means because a just approach would make their lives even worse than they are today. They’re not looking for justice.

If we examine the serious, inner reasons, from the standpoint of the will to enjoy which we research along its entire depth, then the reason for the protests lies in the fact that there is no tomorrow! And this feeling reigns in the whole world. There is nothing that can be done about the situation unless we give people the light of hope for the future, which can come from just one source – the science of Kabbalah.
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From the lesson on 8/12/11, The Zohar

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In the News (from rt.com): “A triple disaster on a scale the world has never known caused damage, destruction and uncertainty, forcing tens of thousands of Japanese refugees to leave their lives behind and seek shelter anywhere they can.

”Some people do evacuate,’ says Komae Hosokawa, a nuclear sociologist. ‘But the problem is they are the minority and they have been accused by their neighbors, by their classmates and of course by official personnel that they are causing unfounded anxiety among people, which is not good.’

“Though primarily a move towards self-preservation, this idea of desertion is defined by many as characteristically un-Japanese and has earned those who have evacuated the dishonorable title of traitor….

“’We hear some organic farmers committed suicide, because you know for organic farmers soil is everything,’ says Komae Hosokawa. ‘They nurture the good soil after many years of hard work and it is just contaminated in one night or two you know. So some farmers committed suicide, and I am very sad to hear the news. And many other farmers are also very much depressed.’…

“’The rate increases not in the epicenter, disaster epicenter, but in the peripheral areas,’ said Dr. Hirohito Hirose, a disaster psychology specialist, ‘Because survivors who have to reconstruct their life, they have no time to [contemplate] suicide.’

“This disaster has certainly taken its toll on Japan’s economy and such constant reminders of an intense topic can harm the collective psyche of the people who live here as well.”

My Comment: Perhaps, it seems heroic, but is it not an escape from certain problems, which they have no strength to solve constructively? A human being is a vulnerable creature, a small desire for self-preservation, fulfillment.

That is why a lack of fulfillment, a feeling of emptiness, is felt as suffering which one wants to get rid of, possibly, by an escape from existence itself.
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Opinion: (Jerry Kennard, healthcentral.com): “We’re more anxious and depressed than ever before and the situation is worsening rather than getting better. The argument that modern technology would one day protect us from ill-health and distress and open up a world of leisure and, by implication greater happiness, is looking decidedly dated….

“Lead author, Dr. Catriona Morrison, from the University of Leeds, in the UK., found that high internet use is associated with depression. High internet use is frequently associated with gambling, interacting in social communities or viewing sexual content. According to Morrison, ‘the study reinforces the public speculation that over-engaging in websites that serve to replace normal social function might be linked to psychological disorders like depression and addiction.’”

My Comment: We mistakenly think that the Internet can replace communication. This is the very means that pulls us into loneliness and unnoticeably isolates each of us from others to such an extent that we no longer can communicate directly.

This condition will be worsening until the full realization of it as evil, and then, society will understand the need for a good open direct communication. Only it can eliminate depression!
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In the past egoism spurred us on from behind and from the sides, always leaving the path forward free. However, today the barriers are not arising along the sides, but in front of us. It’s as if a wall rises up before us, leaving us no place to run, nothing we can do.

This state is becoming more and more apparent: I don’t really want anything, I don’t feel that I can keep growing in my egoism. It is incapable of giving me answers to the questions that arise in me today. I have outgrown the previous phases and have entered the next level of questions, the level of adulthood and new necessities.

Food, sex, family—all of these are falling apart, taking on strange, “mutated” forms. Wealth, fame, and knowledge don’t seem to promise me a lot either.

Science is in a crisis and does not answer my questions, even though a mere 50-60 years ago it still seemed like it would give us answers to everything.

Power has become petty in our eyes: We see that its only objective is money. And money…. Is it really worth wasting your entire life on!? My questions have already outgrown any number of zeros that a bank account can display.

When a person loses the necessary “fuel,” emptiness emerges inside of him and he finds himself asking, “What is worth living for? For myself? But I lack fulfillment. For my children? But when they get older, they will leave the nest. And besides, why raise them at all? What bright future do they have ahead? Disintegrating families and a decomposing society?” A person does not feel attached to anything and does not have hopes for anything. That is the kind of impasse that our questions have led us to.

But there is also a completely different reason for the dead-end state: We are exhausting the natural resources. Today it is already clear that human progress won’t be infinite, both from the point of view of our demands and from the point of view of our existence as a whole. If we continue squandering the natural resources at the current rate, then very soon we won’t have any raw materials left even for the vitally necessary products.

90% of what we produce today consists of oil, be it energy, plastic materials, and so on. When the oil reserves end, we will be left with nothing. But nevertheless, we still keep on squandering it.

Thus, on one hand nature places a barrier before us in the form of ecology, climate, and resources, and on the other hand, egoism no longer pushes us forward. It asks questions that we cannot find answers to here, in our world, in this small children’s room where we had so much fun playing until now.

Today the situation already resembles suicide: We are irrationally using up the last remaining resources.

We have to understand that because of this, we find ourselves in the zone of choice. This is where freedom of will emerges, the freedom for us to start understanding the program of our development: “Who are we? Why are we here? What for?”, and together with us, the rest of the world. Now is exactly the time for us to solve this challenge. Otherwise humanity will find itself in a truly hopeless impasse.

In reality the gist of the problem is not the financial crisis, the technology crisis, or the crisis of families. We are in a crisis with ourselves. We have to understand who we are and what we are here for, both from the point of view of nature, which obligates us to this, and from our own point of view. Only then will we be able to set things right inside of us and in the world.
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From the Talk about a New Book 7/11/2011

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Opinion: (Stephen S. Ilardi, Professor, the University of Kansas, thedepressioncurebook.com): “Most Americans work long hours, eat on the fly, and lead increasingly sedentary, isolated lives. Alongside this lifestyle, depression rates have skyrocketed: approximately 1 in 4 Americans will suffer from major depression at some point in their lives….

“Our bodies were never designed for the sleep-deprived, poorly nourished, frenzied pace of twenty-first century life.” That is, depression is the brain’s reaction to stress.

My Comment: Depression is a reaction to inner emptiness. A person can live through anything if only he can justify the misfortunes in his life. Then, difficulties enhance the effect of victories and achievements. The main cause of depression is a lack of motivation and purpose.

If the environment demonstrates special values ​​that are equally important to all members of society, a person feels that he is part of the society and acknowledges its goals as his. In this case, there is no void; public opinion gives him assurance that there is something to live for. If, however, the cause of depression is not removed, drug treatment is the only option.
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