MozartLink wrote:Thanks for the feedback so far. I would like to talk about something here that is brief for others to address as well. I have been wondering about the non-hedonistic version of joy and meaning that a depressed and/or anhedonic person can have in their lives. I am very skeptical of it because I am really thinking here that our pleasure (good moods) are the only source of joy, inspiration, and meaning in one's life.
If a person is able to achieve the non-hedonistic version of joy and meaning in his/her life, then does it offer a whole new experience? In other words, does it offer an experience that is more than just words and phrases? For example, if a depressed person thought to his/herself that he/she still has joy and meaning in his/her life even without feeling any pleasure, then would it be an experience that says:
"Wow, this experience is far more than just words and phrases! I used to be a hedonist who thought that pleasure was the only profound joyful and meaningful experience in my life. But now that I have achieved this new version of joy and meaning in my life, it no longer feels like mere words and phrases like before. Before I could tell myself all I wanted that my life still has joy and meaning while depressed. But it was all nothing more than mere words and phrases at the time. But now, it is different. I am now experiencing a whole new mental state. It doesn't even feel like words and phrases anymore. It doesn't even feel like mere thoughts anymore. No longer is it just a mere intellectual experience. I am now experiencing a whole new mental state entirely. It is a whole new version of joy and meaning in my life now!"
So I am wondering here that if I can somehow achieve the non-hedonistic version of joy and meaning in my life, if this experience will, in fact, give my life joy and meaning. Or if this promised version of joy and meaning that others say I can have in my life is nothing more than words and phrases. If it's nothing more than just words and phrases (thoughts) with nothing more to them than that, then I would have to completely disagree that this is a form of joy and meaning a depressed and/or anhedonic person can have in his/her life.
To me, that would just be nothing more than the words and phrases of joy and meaning, but not any actual experience (perception) of joy and meaning. We have different mental states (perceptions). We have the perception of sight, hearing, thought, touch, etc. But we also have the perception known as pleasure. Pleasure is what allows a person to perceive joy and meaning in his/her life. It is no different than how sight and hearing are the only things that allow a person to perceive sound and visual things.
Now imagine if I told a blind and deaf person that they can still have sight and hearing in their lives just by thinking so. Or if I told a person paralyzed from a stroke that they can still move by thinking so or that a person who has no ability to taste food can still taste food just by thinking so. This would be nonsense. Therefore, this is what it is like to tell me that I, as a depressed and anhedonic individual, can still have joy and meaning in my life. Pleasure is an intrinsic naturally occurring source of joy and meaning and it does not come through our way of thinking alone at all just how sight, hearing, touch, smell, etc. also don't come through our way of thinking either. They are all different mental states from our thinking.
Your cure is at your fingertips.
Forget dreams, they only look inwards with confused eyes. They say nothing about your future, but only the confused ramblings of events of the past that need sorting. Let the dreams deal with that.
Concentrating on your problem is also no solution, that also is inward looking.
Depression is the weight of you having to deal with your self, compressing ever inwards. You are depressed because you are blocked off and going round in circles.
People often let off stream and reset them selves by getting 'out of it'. This can be achieved with booze and drugs, or by filling your senses with input. Look outwards, not inwards. Discover, explore, listen to music, here the birds in the trees. Open your eyes and see.
This is not as simple as that. This is something I do need to talk about. So I am going to ask this question here. Do you or do you not agree that I, as a depressed and anhedonic individual, can still have joy and meaning in my life through just thinking so? If you do agree, then how is this possible considering that the mental experience of these words and phrases offer no joyful meaningful experience in my life?
See, you have to be careful here. You cannot just say you have joy and meaning in your life just because you think so just as you also cannot say that you are able to move around while paralyzed or that you can see and hear while blind and deaf just because you think you can. We are not looking at the words and phrases themselves because to do so will only fool you. It's no different than that example I just gave here of a person fooling themselves into thinking they have sight and hearing just by thinking so when they are blind and deaf or that they are still able to move just by thinking so when they are paralyzed.
So we cannot look at the words and phrases (thoughts) themselves. Instead, we have to look at the mental states themselves. We instead have to look at all our different mental experiences themselves. So if a blind and deaf person thought to his/herself that he/she still has sight and hearing, then that said experience would not be sight and hearing and nor would it be any experience of movement for that paralyzed person either who thought that he/she can still move while paralyzed by thinking so.
It would be the words sight, hearing, and movement. But not any experience of those said things. Therefore, I look at what kind of experience the words (thoughts) joy and meaning give my life while I am depressed and anhedonic. Sure enough, the energy (experience) I sense from these types of thoughts is nothing more than a bland, dull, lifeless, intellectual mechanical experience. But if my brain were to get the pleasure signal right now like how I did in the past, then I would clearly sense a life-filled joyful and meaningful experience all around in my life.
Therefore, it goes without saying that it is instead pleasure that offers one a joyful meaningful experience in their lives and that people are only fooling themselves otherwise because they are only looking at the words and phrases (thoughts) themselves rather than the type of mental experience they are getting.
You asked me what I see.
i see a person who is utterly self obsessed.
Humans are gregarious, hunter/gatherers.
You need to company of nature and the company of other humans. Not virtual one, but in the flesh.
You resist my advice because you love your obsession.
I have nothing else to say to you. You either take my advice or leave it. Right now all you want to do is wallow in your self pity and pretend you can't attain pleasure. This gives you your reason to continue and justify yourself. But you get such joy as you can in this and this feedsback to your obsession.
Get off your backside buddy. No one really gives a shit.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:You asked me what I see.
i see a person who is utterly self obsessed.
Humans are gregarious, hunter/gatherers.
You need to company of nature and the company of other humans. Not virtual one, but in the flesh.
You resist my advice because you love your obsession.
I have nothing else to say to you. You either take my advice or leave it. Right now all you want to do is wallow in your self pity and pretend you can't attain pleasure. This gives you your reason to continue and justify yourself. But you get such joy as you can in this and this feedsback to your obsession.
Get off your backside buddy. No one really gives a shit.
That's what I am saying here. I have, as a matter of fact, lived by your advice. I lived by this said advice this whole entire time I had this depression and anhedonia and no new joy or meaning came into my life. Therefore, that inevitably resorts in me discussing this issue and why I think this non-hedonistic version of joy and meaning that others claim I can have in my life is all a lie. I explained how it was nothing more than just words and phrases with no joyful meaningful experience (energy) to them. Only my good moods contain that energy. I am also not getting any joy or meaning from discussing this. I just simply have the desire to discuss it since it is important. But that's not the same thing as having joy and meaning in my life though.
Stop putting yourself on the couch. Get a puppy raise it, love it and I agree with Hobbes here listen to music, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven to get out of yourself. Your center of gravity seems to consist of nothing but yourself...a kind of incest with one's own feelings. You call yourself Mozartlink! Why? If you are truly clinically depressed, you don't need a philosophy forum to help you out and you don't need a shrink. You need something to alleviate the chemical imbalance in your brain. Depression is all too common in modern society and it's not just the news that accounts for it.
Dubious wrote:Stop putting yourself on the couch. Get a puppy raise it, love it and I agree with Hobbes here listen to music, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven to get out of yourself. Your center of gravity seems to consist of nothing but yourself...a kind of incest with one's own feelings. You call yourself Mozartlink! Why? If you are truly clinically depressed, you don't need a philosophy forum to help you out and you don't need a shrink. You need something to alleviate the chemical imbalance in your brain. Depression is all too common in modern society and it's not just the news that accounts for it.
Yes, I do agree with trying methods to alleviate the depression itself and to bring back my good moods such as through medication and supplements since my good moods are the one and only source of joy and meaning in my life. But what I do not agree with is that I can still have joy and meaning in my life even while depressed and while not having my good moods. Read my previous post. I have lived by such advice such as going out, being with my family, and things like that. This has brought my life no joy or meaning. The pain/pleasure principle is all I have to give my life joy and meaning. That is, pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain and illness.
This is all I am and this is all my life will ever be. There is nothing more to a human being than this and there is nothing more to their lives than that even though they are deluded and brainwashed by moral society into thinking otherwise. They live their lives by the moral principle in which one is somehow supposed to still have joy and meaning in their lives even while suffering and not having any pleasure. This is all clearly a lie. Morality gives our lives no joy or meaning at all. It is only the pain/pleasure principle that gives our lives this.
MozartLink wrote:They live their lives by the moral principle in which one is somehow supposed to still have joy and meaning in their lives even while suffering and not having any pleasure. This is all clearly a lie. Morality gives our lives no joy or meaning at all. It is only the pain/pleasure principle that gives our lives this.
Since when would morality have ANYTHING to do with meaning or happiness? Morality are merely the norms of social behavior and nothing to do whatever with the inner life. In fact, more often than not, it functions to paralyze it. Morality is hardly worth an honorable mention when it comes down to the more subterranean contents of the psyche which are far more inclusive of one's being than any external morality. You won't find anything alive in a graveyard.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:You asked me what I see.
i see a person who is utterly self obsessed.
Humans are gregarious, hunter/gatherers.
You need to company of nature and the company of other humans. Not virtual one, but in the flesh.
You resist my advice because you love your obsession.
I have nothing else to say to you. You either take my advice or leave it. Right now all you want to do is wallow in your self pity and pretend you can't attain pleasure. This gives you your reason to continue and justify yourself. But you get such joy as you can in this and this feedsback to your obsession.
Get off your backside buddy. No one really gives a shit.
That's what I am saying here. I have, as a matter of fact, lived by your advice. I lived by this said advice this whole entire time I had this depression and anhedonia and no new joy or meaning came into my life. Therefore, that inevitably resorts in me discussing this issue and why I think this non-hedonistic version of joy and meaning that others claim I can have in my life is all a lie. I explained how it was nothing more than just words and phrases with no joyful meaningful experience (energy) to them. Only my good moods contain that energy. I am also not getting any joy or meaning from discussing this. I just simply have the desire to discuss it since it is important. But that's not the same thing as having joy and meaning in my life though.
Dubious wrote:Stop putting yourself on the couch. Get a puppy raise it, love it and I agree with Hobbes here listen to music, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven to get out of yourself. Your center of gravity seems to consist of nothing but yourself...a kind of incest with one's own feelings. You call yourself Mozartlink! Why? If you are truly clinically depressed, you don't need a philosophy forum to help you out and you don't need a shrink. You need something to alleviate the chemical imbalance in your brain. Depression is all too common in modern society and it's not just the news that accounts for it.
The puppy idea is a great one.
I'd recommend a labrador. I have one and at 3 years she is still a loving puppy.
Having a purpose in your life makes your life meaningless and empty. It is only your health and well-being that gives joy and meaning to your life and a purpose can only give your life joy and meaning in the context of having your health and well-being. That is, having no depression, no major life threatening illness in your life, and having your full good moods to enjoy your life. Therefore, cancer patients who could die any day who have a purpose in their lives are all living meaningless empty lives in my eyes even though they may not think that way. That would be a meaningless empty life to me. I think I might have some potentially life threatening immune disorder along with my absence of pleasure. So I am now living a truly meaningless empty life regardless of what purpose I have in my life.
There is the difference between telling myself that my life still has joy and meaning as opposed to what my life actually seems like. I could truly think to myself right now that my life still has joy and meaning due to me having a purpose in this life. But that does not make my life seem meaningful and joyful at all regardless of how I live my life and regardless of what things I do in my life such as going out into the community, living for my family, etc.
Are you looking for confirmation of your wishes, to make the decision easier, ML? No one can give you that here, especially if they don't want legal liability. Your decisions have to be yours alone.
I can see where you're coming from and you make a valid point. Having a pet especially a dog can be very therapeutic for people who suffer from depression IF they generally love animals and especially if they had pets before and the means to take care of them. Pets have the power to remove you from yourself more than most humans...especially members of one's family. But, as you imply, if you wallow in your depression and time for nothing else, neglecting or abusing the creature, then absolutely KEEP AWAY! The idea of a puppy or any creature, even a fish, was not meant to be a panacea for ANYONE who's depressed.
