depression

February 1, 2026

Memories of a Grieving Spouse

What happens when things end, especially relationships? This usually refers to breakups that, by definition, shatter a once precious connection. Think of a chasm and a broken heart at its bottom.

Julian Barnes knows what loss feels like. His wife of 30 years, Pat Kavenaugh, died in 2008 from an aggressive form of brain cancer. There were 37 days between her diagnosis and her death.

The author found his wife’s approach to her demise both stoic and graceful, “never angry or cross.”

The writer described the depression that followed in a recent interview with Terry Gross on “Fresh Air.”

It was like being caught in an avelanch. Every day it became worse. It was the most appauling thing that happened in my life and the blackest, the thing that deprived you of hope and balance. It took me years to get over it.

Barnes recalled that he considered killing himself if the grief didn’t stop. A few weeks after his wife’s passing, he found himself thinking of taking his life as he walked on a familiar path home.

I looked across the curb on the other side of the road … and I thought I can kill myself … that’s permissible. It’s not unforgiveble in my morality. I’m extremely unhappy, I’m bereft, though I have many friends. And I think I said, or a friend said to me: give it two years and, ok, I’ll give it two years.

But before that two year period elapsed I discovered why I couldn’t kill myself: I wasn’t allowed to kill myself. And that’s because I was the best rememberer of my wife. I knew her and I had celebrated her in all her forms and all her nature, and I had loved her deeply. And I had realized that if I had killed myself then, in a way, I’d be killing her, too.

I’d be killing the best memories of her, they would disappear from the world, and I wouldn’t allow myself to do that. And at that point (my thought of killing myself) just turned on its head and I knew I would have to live with the grief a long, long time, but I didn’t think an answer to the grief was killing myself.

The writer has never believed in God, nor does he hold the idea of being reunited with his wife in heaven. His view of human existence is that “life is not a short walk across an open field. There is always something waiting for you, coming out of a hedgerow at you.” His writing has long dealt with endings.

Mr. Barnes continues to write and is a much-celebrated, award-winning, prolific author.

Six years ago, however, he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer. It is treatable and, with continued daily medication, he is not likely to die from this condition.

His continuation of life, as he describes it, is a form of responsibility. He did not want the thoughts and stories and fullness of his wife to vanish because of his own suicide. Nor, it seems, to dispense with his meaningful affection for her and remembrance of her.

Were we to follow his example, we would all keep photos and movies, enjoy mentioning the departed with those we know, and share our memories. I have friends who have written their own biographies using StoryWorth to leave an account of their lives for those who care about them.

Indeed, I have completed such a memoir myself, including advice that it will be more than proper for them to laugh about me once I am gone.

We don’t want to be forgotten, do we?

But while we live, we should “live” with all the strength, joy, and kindness we can muster, as demonstrated by Julian Barnes getting married again a few months ago, 17 years after his loss of Pat Kavanaugh.

What a marvelous thing it must have been for him to marry again, at 80.

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The first photo is of Julian Barnes at Headred, 2018, Estonia. It was sourced from Wikimedia Commons and is the work of WanderingTrad. Next comes a picture of Pat Kavanagh, an image from the Evening Standard. Finally, Barnes, with his second wife, Rachel Cugnoni, sourced from the Telegraph.

March 23, 2025

On Therapy, God, and Love

Do you have a minute? I am not trying to sell you on religious faith, but I always appreciate a new idea. 

What does a preacher talking about love and God have to do with a therapist treating someone with depression?

This post is about a man of faith whose approach to the world can be used in therapy. I know this because I used it.

You might remember Reverend William Sloan Coffin Jr. (June 1, 1924 – April 12, 2006) if you read my posts regularly. His name is quite a name, one suggesting death, but he was a person more alive than most of us. He had a beautiful voice and used it to preach and take action for justice.

Wikipedia tells us this:

In his younger days, he was an athlete, a talented pianist, a CIA officer, and later chaplain of Yale University, where the influence of H. Richard Niebuhr‘s social philosophy led him to become a leader in the civil rights movement and peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s. He also was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones. He went on to serve as senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City and President of SANE/Freeze, the nation’s largest peace and justice group, and prominently opposed United States military interventions in conflicts, from the Vietnam War to the Iraq War.

This man was worth emulating. My psychotherapeutic practice reflected that.

As a therapist, I often tried reframing a patient’s worldview when he was in distress, as Coffin did. His approach fit best when I faced a client suffering from self-doubt and wondering whether he could meet a towering challenge. I asked questions to do this—to flip his view of himself and what the future still had to offer.

To someone who contemplated suicide, a friend might say, “Oh, but you have lots to live for,” and then name some reasons why his companion should not end his existence.

Instead, I wished to know, “Why haven’t you killed yourself?” I pursued an answer that attached the individual to life. Perhaps it was his faith, affection for his children, and the goals he hoped to achieve. In evoking his motives rather than those I could have created for him, he took ownership of the worth of his existence and its purpose.

With those who doubted they could defeat their depression, get another job, or find love, my question was a bit different. “Tell me about the moments you felt like this before, when you thought you couldn’t overcome your sadness or whatever was bringing you down.

Before asking such questions, I was confident I would get the response I sought. I trusted the client’s words would reveal resilience, strength, and the man’s remembered episodes of triumph, affirming his ability to bounce back. When he gave me what I wanted, I said, “You just identified the things you’ve conquered, haven’t you?

Yes.

Do you believe you still have those capacities, those skills, that courage within you?

Yes.

He was saying yes to life — his own.

In the video above, Reverend Coffin tells a similar story about a well-known man of his time, a dying friend, Norman Thomas. Like his old comrade in arms, Reverend Thomas was also a social activist, but unlike Coffin, he was a presidential candidate on multiple occasions.

He had also lost his faith.

In the YouTube clip, Coffin doesn’t tell his ally why he should believe in God. Instead, he flips the question of whether God believes in him and shows him love. The response he gets from his dying colleague, a man he called Big Daddy, is worth the 65 seconds it takes to watch the clip.

I hope you do.

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The painting at the top is Easy Dark by Julie Mehretu, 2007. It was sourced from Wikiart.org/

January 26, 2025

On the Bravery of Women

You could say that this is a difficult time for women, or you might say it has always been a difficult time. But let’s just say that women have had to be courageous forever. 

Antigone, a 3000-year-old play by Sophocles, is perhaps our oldest example of a woman speaking truth to power. The protagonist defends the right to bury her deceased brother, a young man considered a traitor to Thebes by Creon, who is both her uncle and king.

Antigone believes it is her responsibility to her brother to perform the holy rites attached to his burial — an ancient religious act. Creon, however, decrees that this man should be prey for animals as he lies above ground where he was felled in battle.

When Antigone defies the king, she is put to death, as she knew she would by doing so.

There is more to a woman’s courage than this, however. Bearing children has always been associated with pain and the possibility of death. Raising those same little ones includes their defense, sometimes to the point of giving your own life to safeguard theirs.

Mating requires attachment to a man, historically stronger and capable of harming the female and her children. Rape remains a danger, a peril on every occasion women leave the home.

But there is more. Victims may endure verbal brutality in the questions they are asked when reporting the crime. Cross-examination in a court is not less harsh. Some defense attorneys claim the female provoked the attack.

Nor has the fair sex long been permitted the choice of a husband. Instead, the future wife had to accept the custom and control of parental matchmaking. The practice still exists.

A number of religions continue to characterize women as “less than” men — to the males they marry, in particular. They are told what to do, what is ladylike or brazen, and when to be silent.

Always by gents.

And yet, the partner must defend her husband without outshining him.

A tightrope walk.

Women are now firefighters and serve in wartime. They play hard in games that used to be the property of men. Rosey the Riveter might be a WWII fictional icon, but if brought to life, she would work in every available job today, even though wage discrimination exists. 

The dangers of factories and slaughterhouses do not block the necessity of making a punishing living any more than the agricultural industry.

All the while, members of the fair sex are still called foul words related to their sexuality and their appearance. They are derided by the likes of Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who recently claimed the USA is short on “masculine energy.”

Ladies have taken on “men’s jobs” and taken on males. Think of Greta Thunberg, a 22-year-old climate activist who began her crusade to save the planet and the human race at age 15.

Data from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) indicate that in 2022, adult females were more likely than men to be diagnosed as mentally ill. In addition, women were more likely to be characterized as suffering from serious mental illness.

Many reasons have been offered for these gender disparities, including a greater willingness among women to open themselves to treatment via drugs or psychotherapy. Some would say more significant challenges exist for women than for men in the course of life. Nonetheless, it is well known that life expectancy is longer for the females of the species.

Argentine history offers a striking illustration of female bravery by the mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza del Mayo. Wikipedia tells us this:

Women had organized to gather, holding a vigil, while also trying to learn what had happened to their adult children during the 1970s and 1980s. They began to gather for this every Thursday, from 1977 at Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in public defiance of the government’s law against mass assemblies.[1] 

Wearing white headscarves to symbolize the diapers (nappies) of their lost children, embroidered with the names and dates of birth of their offspring, now young adults, the mothers marched in twos in solidarity to protest the denials of their children’s existence or their mistreatment by the military regime.[1] Despite personal risks, they wanted to hold the government accountable for the human rights violations which were committed in the Dirty War.[2]

The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde is the latest model of uncommon dauntlessness. The cleric speaks with quiet strength in delivering her pleas for the unfortunate in her church and elsewhere in this country. Three thousand years after Sophocles, she inherits Antigone’s example of speaking truth to power.

Budde echoed the Hebrew Bible when she spoke to the new President at the National Cathedral in Washington:

“Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 22:21
 
Thus, in her words:
 
I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we all were once strangers in this land.

Mariann Budde’s sermon, which was part of the recent Inauguration ceremonies, has gone viral and is on YouTube. Rather than offer it here, you will find an older speech by the Bishop above, describing how she found courage in a difficult moment in 2020.

This woman says that she still experiences anxiety every time she preaches. She further states that “we are all called to be brave.” Indeed, she wrote a book about it in 2023: How We Learn to be Brave.

Very few of us are without fear. To be brave we overcome it. May you be brave. Perhaps you already are.

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The top photo is a Woman Operating a Turret Lathe by Howard R. Hollem in 1942, courtesy of the Library of Congress. It is followed by a picture of a Woman Firefighter taken by Spapa003. Norman Rockwell’s 1942 Saturday Evening Post cover of Rosie the Riveter comes next. The first and last of these are sourced from Wikipedia.org. The second comes from Wikimedia Commons.

October 13, 2024

Fragile Masculinity: Understanding Angry White Men


Masculinity is a fragile thing.

Where in the Western World is there a fitting place for a man who feels he is not quite a man?

Young men strive to be real men—successful, tough, and admired. Women are expected to recognize them. Their children must respect, honor, and praise them and their ideas rather than ignore or mock them.

We live in a moment when grievance is widespread. A man who doesn’t meet the cultural standard for maleness shies away from publicly feeling sorry for himself. Instead, he blames others, who, he states, have taken his place or gotten an edge that eludes him. The fellow has been displaced from the spot he deserves, or so he believes.

All of the above is consistent with Masculine Discrepancy Stress. Whether conscious or not, when a man falls short of societally expected manliness or his own sense of what he should be, he is ripe for unhappiness and anger. While this syndrome is not yet well-researched, it does fit into our current moment.

Politicians play on this. They identify with such an individual’s sense of unfairness and fuel his rage, maintaining that it is just.

Promises follow. Their anointed defender says he will put things right for this otherwise unseen group of men. Indeed, these politicians recognize the vulnerability of those men who want to be seen and sided with, but without saying so.

He might be your father, brother, uncle, friend, or neighbor. He might go off like a roadside bomb or sit and simmer. He could also be you: a grumpy, irritable, angry old white man or a younger version who diminishes women and “others,” including members of minority groups.

He needn’t be the kind of creature whose head revolves like a searchlight, looking for something or someone to piss him off, the guy who yells, “Get off my lawn!” But he could be.

Endocrinologists point to low testosterone as a possible cause, especially past 60, when some males begin the hormonal decline. I’ll focus on the human rather than the chemical equation: what it feels like to be a disadvantaged white male. Don’t discount the hormonal changes, but research them elsewhere.

Let’s start with what constitutes a young man.

Males pass through a stage of feeling almost invulnerable and immortal, at least on occasion. They rush to fight wars, compete for mates, and try to climb higher than others. Women perform a selection of these tasks, but few teenage girls believe themselves indestructible.

I was neither a great athlete nor the most intelligent person I knew at any point in life. Yet, I know of which I speak. There are moments when many young men believe they can do almost anything.

For some, hubris comes in athletics or academics. The babe-magnets fancy themselves as sex machines.

Kids I knew took pride in intimidation, rocket-like racing, placing first in fierceness, or towering over classmates as regents of recklessness. Even those who broke the rules grew in foolish conceit. Boasts were heard about consuming the most beer in the bar.

This silliness seems built-in, tied to the need of early men to attract females and save their skin from beasts and enemies. Ambition and power fed your chance of spreading your genetic seed, an evolutionary but unconscious imperative. From a survival standpoint, wars wanted winners, and trees needed climbing for their fruit.

Among my youthful acquaintances, I’m sure much of this was already present in the watery womb. But I am not talking about angry kids; instead, the sense of immortality and competitiveness necessary in youth sets some men up for disappointment when the contemporary world offers few places where a big man can dominate a small pond.

If a man lived through injustices and disappointments early or late, his rage—once bottled up or transformed into ambition—would now go nowhere productive, at least to no meaningful arena for a staged competition.

If he is retired, the battles he fought at work and on the athletic field are foreclosed. You can still be an award-winning bodybuilder at 65, but all the comparisons are with people your age. A real man of the old school knows the difference.

The indignities of aging seem to cause women less trouble or at least less public aggravation. They are better sports and, ironically, superior at manning up to the depredations of time. The suicide rate of old bucks skyrockets. Data from the CDC indicates that in 2022, males committed suicide four times more often than females. While males make up 50% of the population, they account for 80% of suicides.


Unless you are a rare man, you’ve lost a step, an edge, a bit or more of your balance and grace by middle age. The IQ and neuropsychological tests display the results; so does the mirror. Even the beer-drinking boaster takes longer to recover from his hangover.

Some domains are uniquely problematic for the male. My physician tells me there are only two categories concerning an enlarged prostate: those men who have one and those who are going to get one. Nor does the sexual trigger work as dependably. A 55-year-old male former patient proclaimed: “I’m not the man I once was, but once I’m the man I was.”

I could go on to infinity about aches, pains, loss of hair and color, sun damage to the skin, and more frequent urination. The sixty-something male is sexually less relevant (his studly days having passed), evolutionarily irrelevant for the same reason, invisible to almost everyone (including young women), and gets called “sir” much too often for comfort.

The twenty-first century adds to this list: frustration over mastering the exponential growth of technological change, the supreme domain of youth. You are probably sick of reading my catalog of slow decline, so just imagine the poor guys who are living the descent and whose age-related sleep problems give them more time to stew.

Retirement or unsatisfying employment is perhaps the most significant loss and driver of a man’s ire.

Concerning the former, job site friendships tend to fade unless he is extroverted and has nurtured intimacy outside his family. Too many men lack an identity beyond labor. Women suffer labor pains in childbirth, but men suffer them by the absence of meaningful work. By 60, unless you are so grandiose as to run for public office or be a significant CEO, your working future is foreshortened. Perhaps even sooner.

The situation is different (but no less frustrating) if you remain on the career treadmill due to financial necessity or a failure to accomplish long-term goals. Few of us are like Warren Buffett, Picasso, Stravinsky, or Frank Lloyd Wright, producing wonders late in life.

Voltaire said, “Work saves a man from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.” He is in trouble once his formal working life ends or declines unless the old man possesses enough cash, interests, and friends. A narrow vocational focus sets him up for a painful retirement or unemployment.

Labor provides a sense of worth and accomplishment. A man needs to be useful. A job normalizes and distracts him, keeps depression at bay while dissipating the “fight” in the surly chap we are describing.

There is considerable data linking an early retirement to an earlier death: Retirement kills. A vocation orders any life, providing a timetable and a list of tasks.

Retirement or unemployment can be disorienting and frustrating without the scaffolding that structures perhaps 50 hours or more a week (if we include travel to and from the job). It is only a short step to depression, alcohol abuse, anger, or all three. Think again about the place of vice on Voltaire’s list of “three evils” and remember: one of the “seven deadly sins” is wrath.

Time is a cruel and ironic jester to the angry old white male. The latter is idle during the day and imagines too little of a lifetime ahead. Moreover, the years pass with a psychological rapidity unknown to the young. Three-hundred-sixty-five days still make a year, but somehow, the revolutions around the sun go faster.

The irrelevant elder must either reinvent himself or suffer an internal upset that has eyes: it looks for a target. Neighbors, politicians, friends, relatives, children, young people, and minority groups are the usual suspects.

The partisan broadcast media stirs the political pot and fuels the sense of unfairness. Their incentives, whether a genuine belief in how to right the lopsided world or the lure of big money and influence, spell trouble for those whom they transfix.

Exasperated white men are their white bread and butter, regardless. The bunch admires those running for office who carry the Y chromosome, project masculine authority and toxic certitude, and disparage women. Female candidates need not apply for their approval.

Once king of his castle, he finds his loyal subjects (his children) have their own lives. Perhaps his proud and mighty fortress is both emptier and shabbier over time. Since it is not manly to weep, he rants.

None of this is good for blood pressure or happiness. Nor is the irritable and ancient buck likely to read this or anything else for advice. His anger seems righteous. The problem is perceived to be elsewhere. A spouse hesitates to complain or utter worries about the mental state of a man who resembles Caligula, the insane Roman tyrant.

Still, a family intervention might be needed, with relatives and friends reinforcing each other’s concerns about their kinsman. A trusted physician is another possible source of advice, diagnosis, and treatment of any contributory medical issues.

Therapy or retirement coaching is indicated, but only if you can get this injured soul to submit with an open heart. The odds do not favor a trip to a counselor. Regardless, our subject has a selection of possible tasks to complete for a better life:

  1. Develop hobbies if they are absent.
  2. Join community organizations or volunteer for causes he believes in.
  3. Serving as a mentor to the young can give value to the experience of a little time or a lifetime.
  4. Erect a new structure for his days to keep him focused away from his grievances and on something to give him meaning.
  5. If possible and necessary, get back to work part-time or start a new business.
  6. Learn cognitive-behavioral methods to control rage.
  7. Make new friends or search out old companions, especially if they can make him laugh.
  8. Learn to take the aging process as a less personal affront. Life has not singled anyone out.
  9. Go back to school. Take a free MOOC (massive open online course) like those at Coursera, join a lifelong-learning program (Osher Lifelong Learning), or something like the University of Chicago Basic Program. The latter two examples stimulate learning and face-to-face interaction with same-aged peers who might become new friends.
  10. Limit exposure to the news stories or political pundits whose job is to fan the glowing, incendiary embers inside.
  11. Join a story-telling group. Old men with a gift for performance can deliver some beautiful reminiscences, so they might as well be put to good use with a receptive audience.
  12. Stretch and exercise regularly. Take good care of the body.
  13. Any excavation underneath the anger of an elderly person’s hurt is a dangerous business. Grieving is the work of the young and middle-aged. The old rarely have enough future time or opportunity to redeem the past. Some can handle grieving the failure to achieve early goals and life’s losses, but many can’t. For those carrying too much disappointment, age dictates a more supportive therapy rather than one to search the depths of the soul.
  14. Learn to appreciate what remains.
  15. Consider antidepressant medication.

Lost time, diminished abilities, and the realization of mortality drive a few people mad — mad in both senses of the word.

There is no time to waste. Most men are offered two opportunities for heroism: the risk-taking of a robust youth and a walk into the twilight of life.

Dylan Thomas’s recommendation to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (listen to him below) doesn’t serve most of us well.

Twilight can be beautiful or terrifying, depending on luck and attitude. Since we control only one of these, the only realistic choice is to change the latter from terror and anger to gratitude for what we still have, acceptance of what we don’t, and pride in a life well-lived.

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The image of the Angry Man is by Emery Way. It is followed by two dazzling photographs of Laura Hedien: Sunset with Train Tracks, S. Texas, May 2024, and Sunrise in August 2024 in Utah. They are offered with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first cartoon is Grumpy of the Seven Dwarfs. The second is the Ensign of the 21° Gruppo (Angry Wasp) of the Italian Air Force by F l a n k e r. The Angry Man and the Angry Wasp are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

August 25, 2024

Is Therapy a Search for the Truth?

Movies characterize therapy as an effort to unveil the repressed memories of a troubled life. The counselor is portrayed as a wise, empathic, trustworthy Sherlock Holmes, trying to uncover what has been buried, denied, or misunderstood.

In other words, as portrayed in films, a psychoanalyst’s goal is to know his patient better than the patient knows himself—what blocks his happiness—and guide him to a more rewarding life.

How much of the unknown should be known? Therapists would use a lie detector if knowledge, truthfulness, and fact were the aim. At the least, they would probe and dig until everything knowable became known.

Truth, however, is not what most patients want from a clinical psychologist. They want relief or an end to depression and anxiety, for example. Coming to know themselves better is often required, but not the revelation of every dark place in the heart.

The psychologist must determine what is helpful, not judge an inventory of his client’s moral choices and mistakes. Before long, if their work together leads to a newly hopeful story, both parties have done their job.

With luck, the patient is on his way to living a satisfying life.

The parable might include endurance, overcoming challenges, and triumph. The tale might involve mourning, the release of profound emotional pain, and the patient’s recognition of his value. 

Despite his ups and downs, mistakes, injuries, and harm done, the new slant on his life history would require acceptance of what is behind him. At that point, counselors hope the client understands that the game of life isn’t over and visualizes the possibility of unshackled accomplishment, blooming relationships, and joy ahead.

Not every knot must be untied. We are vulnerable creatures—brave, creative, and imperfect—and psychotherapy is unlikely to make us superheroes or saints.

We humans help, and we sometimes wound others. We are honest but lie on occasion. We shop for things we don’t need, use, or keep — and walk home without stopping for a homeless woman requesting money for her next meal.

We love our spouses but display unkindness and are tempted to cheat on them. We rationalize our unfaithfulness but teach our children to be noble and good.

Therapists are trained to accept you as you are, not to scold you. Sometimes, your imperfections, moral or otherwise, contribute to your problems, but they do not always.

The transfigured world has been more challenging in recent years, and some pursue treatment to find the capacity to manage their own lives when corporations, climate, and congressmen can’t be counted on.

The late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman spoke of that uncertainty:

“What is novel (today) is not uncertainty. What is novel is the realization that uncertainty is here to stay. The task is (therefore) to develop an art of living in uncertainty.”

The ancient Stoics advised us to focus on what we can control, but our newer world allows many of us less sway and influence than our elders had. It is, therefore, our responsibility to help change not only ourselves but the community of man in small but necessary steps, hand in hand with others. 

Successful counseling puts us on the doorstep of making more of our lives, even though repairing the world is not why people search for a therapist.

One of psychotherapy’s benefits is opening the unexpected treasure chest of the patient’s hidden strength. The gift can be used in many ways.

It can enable finding the place where the best of him can be put to constructive use—use beyond selfishness, use beyond the accumulation of wealth, and acquisition of unnecessary things.

There is more to life than the self and its desires—more that creates a sense of worth. If healing the Earth and all its forms of life and beauty is a responsibility, it is also a privilege. Though the therapist’s job is not to point you in that direction, it is nonetheless the truth.

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The first image is Mental Health by Tumisu. The second is The Truth Was Revealed by Egon Schiele (1913). The final photo is The Blue Marble, by Apollo 17, December 1972. The first was sourced from Wikimedia.org, while the second is from Wikiart.org. The image of the Earth comes from NASA.

March 27, 2024

Healing “The Anxious Generation”

Changes in our children’s lives do not come with a full-blast announcement. The seeds of a mental health crisis in the young can be traced to the early 2010s: the emergence of the virtual world on phones in the hands of children.

According to Jonathan Haidt, an internationally praised social psychologist, the result has substituted play for “a great rewiring,” with alarming consequences.

He writes:

The result was a new “phone-based childhood,” which altered the developmental pathways of children and adolescents, bringing them minimal benefits while reducing the time spent on beneficial real-world activities such as sleeping, playing with friends, talking with adults, reading books, focusing on one task at a time, or even just daydreaming.

He elaborates on this in his just-issued book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

Haidt calls special attention to social media’s particular harm to girls. More generally, mental illness has risen dramatically among adolescents. Depression, social withdrawal, anxiety, suicide, and self-harm are among the consequences.

To the good, Haidt is at the forefront of working to remedy many of the unfortunate results he describes. He proposes solutions to reduce the damage and improve our children’s chances of flourishing.

On The Anxious Generation website, Haidt provides extensive information about his findings and the steps to take going forward. Unlike too many volumes that are better at telling you what’s wrong than what to do, this one includes suggestions for collective action, parents and educators, and what government and tech companies can do.

Links to organizations already pursuing reduced phone dependency and more free play are listed.

I hope you will take the opportunity to learn more. This is a mission for parents, grandparents, teachers, and those who wonder how to free children to be the children and future adults we all hope for.

Pass it on.

December 24, 2023

Triumphing Over Holiday Depression

It is that time of year. TV offers happy families and smiles around the Christmas tree or turkey dinner. Festive window displays adorn your local department store. Greeting cards proclaim good cheer and the value of family and fraternity. And there you are, alone or lonely, wondering how you missed the boat.

The media often overstate the happiness quotient of the average person, at least in my country. It is difficult not to believe that many, if not most, people are having a better time than we are; they are more loved, more popular, and have more fun.

First off, don’t be fooled. You are not alone. Just because you are not represented in the media ads doesn’t mean you are solo in your suffering. Many keep a low profile at this time of year, fearful they will be judged losers if they proclaim their isolation; few want to be objects of pity, and that is precisely what they expect if it should become known that they have nowhere to go and no one to be with on Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s Eve.

But countless people are alone: many of the divorced, widowed, and childless; many who live at great distances from their families; many who have recently broken up with someone; many who are estranged from family or friends; many who have recently moved; and many of the unemployed, who have lost the connectedness to co-workers that was an emotionally sustaining source of support.


Holidays can also be difficult because of the haunting memories of better times. This is especially true if the loss of loved ones is fairly recent. The first festive occasion or two after a divorce or death is especially difficult, so great is the contrast between the focus on family that past holidays brought and the fact of being bereft. Moreover, holidays tend to rob the lonely of the distraction of work, generating significant expanses of empty time, filled only by reflections on one’s sorry state as the time moves with a dull, clumsy, funereal tread.

On top of all this, there is the problem of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Typically, the pattern is one of onset of a depressive episode in the fall or winter, with remission coming in the spring. Additionally, the cyclical condition is not due to some external event (such as the beginning of school in the fall) but instead is thought to do with the relative unavailability of “bright visible-spectrum light” characteristic of the dark months.

What do you do then if you are suffering from the holiday blues? Here are a few possibilities:

1. Although your unhappiness presupposes the absence of satisfying social contact, at least consider whether there is someone you can reach out to who might welcome being remembered by you and invite you over. Social withdrawal tends to feed on itself, only making us feel worse. While it is true that rejection is painful, many people are more than usually welcoming at this time of year; the risk might be worth the reward.

2. Keep busy doing something productive or distracting — ideally active. Clean your house, build, exercise, or learn to play chess online. Do a task that will take you outside yourself.

3. Consider volunteering at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen. Not only is this important work, but it will fill the time and might even make you aware that, however bad your situation is, it is better than others. Another benefit is the human contact such volunteerism provides, including the possibility of making new friends, among whom might be those who also find themselves alone on the holidays.

4. Make a list of the things about which you are grateful. Most of us take much for granted. Perhaps there are still things in your life that you can count as blessings and look forward to. Such reminders are often helpful in boosting a sagging spirit.

5. If you have the means, travel can be a good and beneficial use of your time during the holidays. Fares are often cheaper on the holiday itself. Going to a warm climate or a new place might break up your routine and, once again, give you a chance to do new things and meet new people.

6. Internet social networking sites may be worth investigating. While not usually as satisfying as face-to-face human contact, this relatedness can lead to friendship for some and reduce one’s sense of complete isolation.

7. If you’ve been on the planet for a while, remember the past difficulties you have overcome and how you did so. Likely, the same human qualities that enabled you to overcome other tough times will get you over the holidays.

8. If you have been diagnosed with seasonal depression (SAD), consider obtaining a light box that provides a full light spectrum for your own in-home therapy. These can be found easily by googling “lightbox,” “happy lamp,” or “happy light.” These are not enormously expensive.

9. Music can be a balm, making it, or listening to it.

10. Psychotherapy and/or anti-depressant medication are always available should you wish to take on your sadness in the most direct and consequential way.

11. My dad’s favorite expression was, “Every knock is a boost.” Reminding himself that he would learn and grow from hard times enabled him to get through the Great Depression as a young man with only sporadic work opportunities. The Stoic philosophers would have applauded him. If you can reframe your suffering as something that will enable you to strengthen your character, it might assist you in getting well into the future. The diary of the most famous stoic, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, will likely be found in every library.

12. You will be welcomed in almost any house of worship. They hope to provide you with solace and joy.

With all my good wishes for a better year.

Peace.

GS

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All the paintings are the work of George Frederick Watts. They are Love and Life, Hope, and The Creation of Eve, in order from top to bottom.

November 12, 2023

What Begins as Mourning Ends?

The sadness of loss usually fades. Is mourning then finished?

How does one know?

The positive news is that grieving past a human’s departure can open doors you believed were forever closed.

The danger of unfinished grieving is how much it captures us, holding hostage our present and future as ransom to the past.

At the end of our most important relationships, many realize they held the unspoken fantasy that the departed would always be there. The idea persisted because of how much we depend on and hope for secure possession of a stable, warming presence nearby.

A death mocks the innocence we maintained. We are without the loved one we could not live without. The earth underneath us gives way, and “the winter of our disconnect”* appears endless.

The one who abandoned us was present for many of our efforts to meet challenges, triumph over adversity, and achieve fulfillment. What will happen now?

Psychotherapy raises this issue and more. How will I get along? Where is a cure for a broken heart? I need permanent support; who else will give me happiness and the pleasure we shared?

Even when the most acute phase of distress ends, the psychotherapy patient often hides from the world. Reaching for attachments, he thinks, invites another blow.

Giving up on possibilities, fresh relationships, and self-reliance goes nowhere productive. The retreat to safety is unsafe, promising only solitude.

The death of a beloved pet offers an example of the problem. Not everyone chooses another gentle companion, fearful this animal, too, will pass.

To complete bereavement, treatment helps the suffering individual recognize he is responsible for himself and the creation of his further existence. 

Any hidden, barricaded adaptation must be set aside to allow horizons to widen and new meaning to enter. Taking responsibility for personal satisfaction is the sole path to revitalization.

Remembering and honoring those who meant so much often includes lighting memorial candles and grave site visitation. We are left with such reminders, but even these demonstrate that the place of those who have left us has changed.

It is essential to admit the departed had imperfections lest we create an altar to them frozen in place, a false object of worship. Any such icon remains silent, failing to offer us the solace and joy of another living human, imperfect as we all are.

Our task is to allow the memories a space for transformation. This includes laughing at the dead’s peculiarities and foibles while respecting their guidance, wit, affection, and wisdom. Openness, enlarging over time, enables memory to move from a source of pain to a blessing.

This can be unimaginable immediately after the excruciating loss, but the work of grieving progresses for many — an outcome that the absent one most likely would have wished for us.

The best individuals of our acquaintance are irreplaceable. Yet, we replace them via our work, creativity, travel, spirituality, helping those in need, or another leap into the uncertainty of human contact.

Flourishing remains possible with enough courage to begin a more artistic and expansive view of what the world can offer despite everything.

The world waits for us to reenter. To move ahead comes with the knowledge that change cannot be wished away, and we will be unsettled in ways sizable and small.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote, “We are thrown into the world.” Sometimes, we land badly, but fulfillment depends on getting up, however long it takes.

Humanity has never been without the fading of those closest to them. For most of our history, disappearance came with speed, often overnight and almost always at home. The wheat fields still needed harvesting, and the animals required transport to market. We wouldn’t be here if our ancestors had not gotten on with life.

Those who wrote the Egyptian Book of the Dead lived an average of 35 years. At the beginning of the 20th century, men could expect to see 50 summers.

At first, it is almost impossible to enjoy gratitude for the gift of lengthy periods with our darlings, a circumstance our ancestors would have marveled at. And yet time works its strange magic and may save room even for this.

The imperfect solution to our emptiness requires searching for joy, attachment, and delight. Desire need not die with the another’s departure.

Death and other losses are the ultimate denial of control. They challenge us to be imaginative and pursue life ravenously, aware that anything can happen in a fleeting, unprepared instant.

Without our persistence and courage, no bliss will enter to pull us out of a chosen, lightless cavern. A singular attempt at reshaping ourselves and our prospects moves us from the past into the here and now, from which we can envision a liveable future. With time, perhaps even more.

Personal resilience will be tested. Contentment — for as long as it lasts and as often as we can achieve it — requires us to raise our hand and volunteer for the search for renewed meaning and love in whatever form.

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*This quotation comes from Shakespeare’s Richard III.

The three outdoor photos are courtesy of the gifted Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first is A Sunrise in the Italian Dolomites, in Late October 2022. The second image was taken at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2023. Finally, a vision of the Milky Way in New Mexico, October 17, 2023.

June 18, 2023

The Strange Choice of Self-Isolation

Nothing satisfies me, nothing consoles me, everything–whether or not it has ever existed–satiates me. I can be neither nothing nor everything: I’m just the bridge between what I do not have and what I do not want.

The writer describes an impossible dilemma. He has no faith in achieving satisfaction by pursuing what he doesn’t have. That much of his statement, though unfortunate, is not remarkable. Many believe they lack something and doubt their capacity to obtain it, whether what escapes them is internal or external.

But the voice of the speaker declares something else. All the rest of what is contained in the peopled world is worthless. He chooses to have none of it. Only the unobtainable things are of interest.

As he states at the beginning, nothing satisfies or consoles him. This poor individual lives between giving up on one side and disdain for what is within reach on the other.

Every dream, as soon as it is dreamed, is immediately embodied by another person who dreams it instead of me.

How did he or she get this way? One can imagine he lost more than he won. Rejection caused permanent hesitation and giving up. He concluded that his lack of personality, strength, sexual appeal, material goods, status, a satisfying career, and friendship or love were beyond him.

The path he chooses is surrender, a road without destination or hope, but not entirely. He preemptively rejects others and turns away from the aspects of their lives that engage and fulfill them. In doing so, he escapes much of the rejection he anticipates.

A self-fulfilling prophecy exists. He is alone whether others reject him or he pushes them away.

This gentleman has chosen to live in solitary confinement, like a quarantine without a disease. No one incarcerated him. His cell door is unlocked, the jailor is absent, and the prisoner stays because he cannot think of a purpose for leaving.

By abstaining internally from action, taking no interest in things, I can see the outside world, when I look at it, with perfect objectivity. Since there is no point, no reason to change it, I do not.

Mathematicians tell us the multiplication of two negatives makes a positive, but such a person stretches this rule too far. In fact, he fools himself into believing his life stance is not only objective but superior to others. He thinks he knows better than they do. Thus he justifies avoidance of his fellow man.

Such a person’s angry state of loneliness and exclusion has morphed into a sense of superiority over those individuals who will not invite him into their social circle or, if they do, inevitably cast him off.

Let us not forget to hate those who take pleasure in things because they take pleasure in them, to despise those who are happy because we ourselves do not know how to be happy.

And let us despise those who work and struggle and let us hate those who trustingly wait.

The self-imposed limitations press down. The solitary man has renounced everything. What is left for him? What step forward exists when loneliness, sadness, avoidance, and inertia accumulate, leaving passive-aggressive anger toward humankind?

I find the slightest action impossible, as if it were some heroic deed. The mere thought of making the smallest gesture weighs on me as if it were something I was actually considering doing.

I aspire to nothing. Life wounds me. I feel uncomfortable where I am and uncomfortable where I think I could be.

Not knowing what life is, I do not even know whether I am the one living it or if my life is living me …

Early treatment is preferable, but nothing inside of him argues for it. Indeed, shirking from social encounters and his self-protective stance risk making him appear unusual or stuck up.

Time’s passage and more suffering might be motivating. The beginning of insight can arrive in response to a therapist’s question: What does your way of living cost you?

Other queries follow if he stays in treatment. Have you ever had any success or joy? What did it feel like? How did it come about? Might you enjoy the experience again?

Tell me why you haven’t killed yourself? This question is not intended to encourage suicide but rather to discover what still attaches the patient to a life he claims has no value. There is always a reason, and if the client tells the therapist, they then have something to build on together.

The pain of human existence begs for compensation, whether the reward comes in heaven or on earth. We only know of the latter with certainty, and such life as we possess is ours to make.

If we are to flourish, there are always questions. The stricken creature described above doesn’t change because he doesn’t reconsider his “solutions.”

To some degree, mankind is defined by the questions we ask and those we don’t.

Hillel the Elder, a Jewish religious leader, proposed these over 2000 years ago:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am only for myself, what am I?

And if not now, when?

The protagonist discussed in this essay is not for himself, and he knows it, at least to some degree. Since his imperfect solution to the problem of life is isolation, he is unlikely to act on behalf of others, as the second question suggests he should.

To the extent that he wishes to change nothing, the passage of time referred to in question three doesn’t matter. Without a sense of urgency to take action for himself or someone else, counting off the days has little meaning.

How would you answer Hillel’s questions? The quality of your life depends on it.

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The top two photos are the work of Laura Hedien, with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first is a Low Precipitation Supercell Storm at Sunset, Near Hartley, TX, on June 11, 2023. The second is a Great Plains Sunset, Kansas, on June 8, 2023.

All quotations come from The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition by the Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa. The final image is the cover art for the book.

May 14, 2023

Of Love, Hate and the Love-filled Joy of Children

My grandson got married, but I wasn’t invited.

Amazing, isn’t it? All I did was show him love and buy him things. OK, he just turned four years old, and his parents weren’t invited either. Nor, from what I hear, were the parents of the bride.

I’ve seen photos of him holding hands with his “wife,” even in preschool.

Shameless!

Who knows what they do when no one is around?

But if this is how love starts, I approve. Fill your hearts full, children, because life will drain them, too — then, with luck, refill them again. Kind of like going to the gas or petrol station.

As to anger, let me say a little about that.

Anger is like a multi-blade knife with blades sharpened to a keen edge, mindless of who it cuts and capable of slicing both ways.

Where does such intense dislike come from?

First comes love, then rejection, then reaction to the dismissal from the life of another. A whisper saying you’re fired, no matter how delicate the voice.

Or, perhaps the starting point of antagonism is a failure to win respect, approval, and acknowledgment. Loathing can grow from the absence of caring parents or the simple difficulty of achieving success, however you define it.

Therapists have all heard the conventional wisdom that depression is anger turned inward. Don’t forget, however, that anger can result from disappointment in life turned outward.

We live in a competitive world, including competition for mates. Someday these two kids will seek consolation for a broken heart.

Someone will say, “Oh, you are better off without him,” or “He isn’t right for you,” but such statements rarely console.

Neither do they provide solace when the words are, “Oh, you are better off without that job — it wasn’t right for you.” Of course, both the young ones are far from the job market.

As we witness a world with more than its share of anger beyond romantic and professional disappointment, many of us are triggered by something less tender than lost love.

Some feel displaced from their spot in the world, their previous role as a worthy breadwinner, or as a person known for giving good advice and helping a neighbor fix his car.

Populist politicians and their allies play on this sense of injury, fomenting anger upon anger like a giant test tube full of bile with daily inflammatory statements, addictive but strangely validating.

Yeah! He gets it. It’s not my fault. I’ve been screwed! It’s THOSE people. They don’t look like us, don’t believe in our god, and steal our birthright.

My grandson and the love of his life don’t know about any of this. They only know about respect, affection, friends, and toys. Maybe an occasional “enemy,” meaning a minor league bully or two, but nothing serious.

We all want love, don’t we? We all hope for applause, a job that pays well enough, status, and an appreciative mate. We all hope to be well thought of, praised, and admired by those to whom we are close. 

In a different world perhaps this wouldn’t be much to ask for, but these days we are too often replacement parts that have been replaced.

Confronting a sense of disappointment in life, too many hunger to pay back those they think are responsible. They only need a model and some encouragement. When all the guys are whining, somehow whining is OK, not as shameful as it used to be.

Still, we search for someone loveable. If politics enters that pursuit, it can be contaminated by opinions that tend to be unloving.

We are not as companionable as we were a few years back. Now we grind our teeth or laugh at the ones “ruining” our country, whoever they are, however preposterous the claim.

We lack the innocence of my grandson and his companion. Indeed, when she was ill and away from school for a week, he missed her and worried about her, dear boy.

Lucky for them, they are not on the internet, an occasionally monstrous place. Many of our interactions with fellow humans come electronically, where plenty of anonymous hatred can be found.

Despite all its wonders, metaphorical bombs are easily thrown by those who are literally out of sight.

If one imbibes the toxic message of anger now widely distributed, I doubt one will become more tender or charming. The four-year-olds have innate wisdom and sweetness, qualities not characteristic of those addicted to TV’s political anger-fests.

Nor will the Rageaholics have much reason to approach those of different races, nationalities, ethnicities, or religions, perhaps even those who pray to no god.

Trust me — one of them might be “the one.” Or, at least, a friend not so different from you as you thought.

We live in a time of loneliness, the anonymity of cities, and the solitary pursuit of “being your own person,” however worthwhile that may be.

Though the small ones don’t know it yet, the time of our lives walks and whistles quickly past the clock, especially if one desires to be loved.

Companionship begins with a decision to pursue it, knowing armorless vulnerability places the heart at risk. The kids haven’t learned that yet, either.

Bless them.

The second decision is this one, made by a wise man over 2500 years ago:

I don’t have time to hate people who hate me because I am too busy loving people who love me.*

An ancient Chinese man said this, but the kids I’m talking about live it.

————-

*Laozi, also known as Lau Tzu (the “Old Master”) born in 604 B.C.

The first image is a 1957 photo of Two Children Holding Hands by Irvin Peithman, sourced from Wikiart.com.