Existential Depression - an article Goddard sent to me. My comments are in square and un-italicized parentheses. Also, I've colored them.
It has been my experience that gifted and talented persons are more likely to experience a type of depression referred to as existential depression[I don't know the extent to which I'm talented but I can vouch for the gifted part]. Although an episode of existential depression may be precipitated in anyone by a major loss or the threat of a loss which highlights the transient nature of life, persons of higher intellectual ability are more prone to experience existential depression spontaneously. Sometimes this existential depression is tied into the positive disintegration experience referred to by Dabrowski (1996).
Existential depression is a depression that arises when an individual confronts certain basic issues of existence. Yalom (1980) describes four such issues (or “ultimate concerns”)—death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness. Death is an inevitable occurrence. Freedom, in an existential sense, refers to the absence of external structure. That is, humans do not enter a world which is inherently structured. We must give the world a structure which we ourselves create. Isolation recognizes that no matter how close we become to another person, a gap always remains, and we are nonetheless alone. Meaninglessness stems from the first three. If we must die, if we construct our own world, and if each of us is ultimately alone, then what meaning does life have?
[Now, it is worthy to note that I grapple with the latter two existential issues far more than the first two. Why this is has a lot to do with love and you'll have to ask me (or wait for me to post about it) if you are curious.]
Why should such existential concerns occur disproportionately among gifted persons? Partially, it is because substantial thought and reflection must occur to even consider such notions, rather than simply focusing on superficial day-to-day aspects of life. Other more specific characteristics of gifted children are important predisposers as well. [Yeah, this sounds a lot like me]
Because gifted children are able to consider the possibilities of how things might be, they tend to be idealists. However, they are simultaneously able to see that the world is falling short of how it might be. Because they are intense, gifted children feel keenly the disappointment and frustration which occurs when ideals are not reached. [This is a really well-articulated explanation of why I can simultaneously believe in things like love and the happiness that stems from it despite abject FAILURE in that particular department] Similarly, these youngsters quickly spot the inconsistencies, arbitrariness and absurdities in society and in the behaviors of those around them. Traditions are questioned or challenged. For example, why do we put such tight sex-role or age-role restrictions on people? Why do people engage in hypocritical behaviors in which they say one thing and then do another? Why do people say things they really do not mean at all? Why are so many people so unthinking and uncaring in their dealings with others? How much difference in the world can one person’s life make?[Hey look, it's like this person's read my blog posts and taken notes...]
When gifted children try to share these concerns with others, they are usually met with reactions ranging from puzzlement to hostility. They discover that others, particularly of their age, clearly do not share these concerns, but instead are focused on more concrete issues and on fitting in with others’ expectations. Often by even first grade, these youngsters, particularly the more highly gifted ones, feel isolated from their peers and perhaps from their families as they find that others are not prepared to discuss such weighty concerns. [You know, this might be a reason why I didn't develop particularly strong bonds with people until fairly late in my teens]
When their intensity is combined with multi-potentiality, these youngsters become particularly frustrated with the existential limitations of space and time. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to develop all of the talents that many of these children have. Making choices among the possibilities is indeed arbitrary; there is no “ultimately right” choice. Even choosing a vocation can be difficult if one is trying to make a career decision between essentially equal passion, talents and potential in violin, neurology, theoretical mathematics and international relations. [See: badminton, music, writing, psychology, philosophy... the list goes on]
The reaction of gifted youngsters (again with intensity) to these frustrations is often one of anger. But they quickly discover that their anger is futile, for it is really directed at “fate” or at other matters which they are not able to control. Anger that is powerless evolves quickly into depression.
In such depression, gifted children typically try to find some sense of meaning, some anchor point which they can grasp to pull themselves out of the mire of “unfairness.” Often, though, the more they try to pull themselves out, the more they become acutely aware that their life is finite and brief, that they are alone and are only one very small organism in a quite large world, and that there is a frightening freedom regarding how one chooses to live one’s life. It is at this point that they question life’s meaning and ask, “Is this all there is to life? Is there not ultimate meaning? Does life only have meaning if I give it meaning? I am a small, insignificant organism who is alone in an absurd, arbitrary and capricious world where my life can have little impact, and then I die. Is this all there is?”[This, I suppose, is the reason why I wanted to write a book or create something that has a lifespan beyond that of my own]
Such concerns are not too surprising in thoughtful adults who are going through mid-life crises. However, it is a matter of great concern when these existential questions are foremost in the mind of a twelve or fifteen year old. Such existential depressions deserve careful attention, since they can be precursors to suicide.[Whew, dodged THAT bullet... figuratively AND literally]
How can we help our bright youngsters [why has no one ever referred to me by this term?!]cope with these questions? We cannot do much about the finiteness of our existence. However, we can help youngsters [actually, I've been referred to as "bright" before... reading the word "youngster" on its own has made me realize it's the latter word in the pairing that I have been missing in my life. I blame this on grandparents who live halfway around the world from me] learn to feel that they are understood and not so alone and that there are ways to manage their freedom and their sense of isolation.
The isolation is helped to a degree by simply communicating to the youngster that someone else understands the issues that he/she is grappling with. Even though your experience is not exactly the same as mine, I feel far less alone if I know that you have had experiences that are reasonably similar. This is why relationships are so extremely important in the long-term adjustment of gifted children (Webb, Meckstroth and Tolan, 1982).[Hey look, it says that relationships are important. And I agree!]
A particular way of breaking through the sense of isolation is through touch. In the same way that infants need to be held and touched, so do persons who are experiencing existential aloneness. Touch seems to be a fundamental and instinctual aspect of existence, as evidenced by mother-infant bonding or “failure to thrive” syndrome. Often, I have “prescribed” daily hugs for a youngster suffering existential depression and have advised parents of reluctant teenagers to say, “I know that you may not want a hug, but I need a hug.” A hug, a touch on the arm, playful jostling, or even a “high five” can be very important to such a youngster, because it establishes at least some physical connection.[Holy freaking god, THIS is probably the one element of which I've been particularly deprived. Hey, this probably explains why Rachel Manson and I hit it off so well in first year...]
The issues and choices involved in managing one’s freedom are more intellectual, as opposed to the reassuring aspects of touch as a sensory solution to an emotional crisis. Gifted children who feel overwhelmed by the myriad choices of an unstructured world can find a great deal of comfort in studying and exploring alternate ways in which other people have structured their lives. Through reading about people who have chosen specific paths to greatness and fulfillment, these youngsters can begin to use bibliotherapy as a method of understanding that choices are merely forks in the road of life, each of which can lead them to their own sense of fulfillment and accomplishment (Halsted, 1994). We all need to build our own personal philosophy of beliefs and values which will form meaningful frameworks for our lives. [Still working on this part...]
It is such existential issues that lead many of our gifted individuals to bury themselves so intensively in “causes” (whether these causes are academics, political or social causes, or cults) [I belong to the "inter-personal relationships are messed up and could probably be done better" cause]. Unfortunately, these existential issues can also prompt periods of depression, often mixed with desperate, thrashing attempts to “belong.” Helping these individuals to recognize the basic existential issues may help, but only if done in a kind and accepting way. In addition, these youngsters will need to understand that existential issues are not ones that can be dealt with only once, but rather ones that will need frequent revisiting and reconsideration.
Reading this had the same effect on me as doing a research project on Asperger's Syndrome. I love reading scientific research the explains my own behaviors and personality. On the other hand, sometimes it depresses me a little because it makes me realize how un-unique I am. I mean, if someone can publish a paper that pretty much sums up my existence without ever having known me, I feel like I am part of a pattern that I'm just too insignificant to see. Wow, writing about my thoughts on existential depression is sending me into existential depression. There must be a term for this.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
9:02 PM
Jon Wong on The Rules of Attraction
Before I begin this post, I would just like to mention that I realized, over the break, that my lack of posting has not been due to an inability to generate intellectual musings. This was something about which I was quite concerned until I realized that I had magically regained this ability over the break. I have thus concluded that being a first year teacher simply tires me out too much to engage in this exercise on a regular basis. I can't wait for next semester when I lose my prep and gain a course to teach. That should be fun (and self-destructive). Anyhow, onto the post...
In the first few days of my Christmas break, I saw The Rules of Attraction at the Wongstock Christmas gathering, pt. 1. I was fairly unimpressed with the film. About a week later, I was having a yarn with Goddard in an old British pub and we once again talked about the so-called "rules of attraction" and I thought that perhaps I should write a little about my thoughts on the matter.
We (along with Courtney, who was mysteriously M.I.A. for this particular yarn-fest) had discussed why we "like-like" some people and only "like" others. This became the fodder for the conversation Goddard and I had about the importance of the "spark" that initially jump starts relationships (or at least feelings of attraction) and whether or not it is an essential part of a long-term relationship. This is a rather unrealistic comparison but hypothetically, say you could start your car without actually having to start it. Say it magically came to life. In this rather unrealistic scenario, the actual starting of the car would be immaterial to the continued running of the car, i.e. whether or not this car is capable of running no longer depends on the ignition.
So how does this tie into relationships? Well, we talked about this phenomenon that occurs when we start to move away from the initial "honeymoon period" of a relationship and into long-term commitments (let's say anything more than 1 year). One of the hurdles most couples have to face is the realization that the original feelings of falling in love (the butterflies in the stomach, the crazy neurological chemical releases, the mind-blowing sex, etc...) fade after awhile and you have to learn to readjust your understanding of the relationship in order to make it last. So the question was, since the initial falling-in-love bit seems to act more like a spark rather than an everlasting component of your relationship, can we do without it? Mind you, this is not the same as saying "can we do without love?" (that would be inane, IMO), but rather, "can we rationalize the way we choose our partners based on the understanding that the original spark won't always be there?"
To add a further layer of complication to all this, the entire conversation also stemmed from my... disgust (or some other disapproving term) that certain people who are fundamentally kind and good have to struggle with being single because their personalities lack the force required to produce the original spark that gets the whole relationship ball rolling. In a way, I was going back to my age old dissatisfaction of the phenomenon that is "(certain kinds of) nice guys finish last". So the original idea was, isn't it kind of stupid that some people lose out on the whole relationship scene because they're not naturally gifted at being slick/flashy/spark-making, when we all KNOW that there are fundamental good qualities that are far more important to the long-term success of relationships than the original spark? Or in other words, if presented with two choices:
A: Someone we're initially attracted to, but has fundamental flaws that we recognize and choose to ignore in light of said feelings of attraction. B. Someone we're not initially attracted to, but is a fundamentally good person with qualities we could easily learn to love
Shouldn't we, with maturity, recognize that choice B actually has far more potential for long-term happiness?
That is not a rhetorical question, by the way; that is the question that Goddard and I set out to tackle: whether or not maturity teaches us to look past the importance of an initial spark because we understand its fleeting/transient nature/effect on the overall health and success of a long-term relationship.
I cited a mutual friend we once had who saw a few of her relationships as "why not?" scenarios, i.e. someone asked her out and she was like, "Well, I don't know that I'm crazy about you, but I don't really have anything against you so why not?" The implication here, perhaps, being that here was someone who was willing to learn to love without requiring the original spark of attraction in order to invest the necessary time and energy. We then also agreed that this person was an oddball who couldn't feel (this pretty much gives the identity away to anyone who knows anything about the girls I've known) so maybe she isn't exactly the best example from which to extrapolate evidence.
Goddard offered the idea that perhaps we need at least one (possibly more) relationship(s) in order to figure out what exactly it is we need in a long-term relationship. Call them non-negotiables or what you will - the basic idea being that until we are in a relationship, it's hard to say what qualities we can learn to love and what qualities don't turn out to be as important to us as we thought. Once we have gone through this weeding process, we will better be able to say, when the next potential for a relationship comes along, what kind of qualities someone must have if a relationship is to have potential.
My take on the matter was strangely at odds with my frustration at the idea that certain nice guys have such a hard time with relationships. So I guess I'm just a mass of contradictions. I said that when I really think about it, most of my rationalizations go out the window when it comes to attraction, even as I am aware of how irrational I'm being. And this is the really curious thing about attraction. I gave Goddard an example of two girls: one girl I knew in high school and one girl I know now. The first girl was someone who - by all rational considerations - was a great girl; all the makings of a wonderful girlfriend. She was kind, funny, caring, artistic, sentimental, clean, etc... and she liked me. By the way, the reason why I am going all the way back to high school to cite her as an example rather than pick a girl I know now is because this kind of thing hasn't happened to me since high school. Could it be because I've become progressively less awesome since then? Quite possibly...
At any rate, I was quite aware of this girl's awesomeness, but as I told Goddard, the simple fact was that in her immediate company, I didn't have butterflies in the stomach or any feelings of being infinite. And at the end of the day, rationalize her awesome traits as I might, I simply did not feel strongly attracted to her when I was around her. By the same token, when I think about the second girl, part of me knows that I don't actually know enough about her to be able to say if she possesses all the non-negotiable traits that would make a long-term relationship work. Here's the kicker though: the quality of her immediate company is unparalleled. You just want to be with/around her because you're attracted to her, long-term potential be damned. And you'd feel this way even if you reminded yourself about the rational impracticalities of your feelings until the cows came home.
This is why people keep saying that you don't fall in love with your head. It is ALSO the reason why people have a hard time learning to love someone after the initial feelings of attraction wear off. It requires a conscious (i.e. head-centered) decision to look at the good traits, which really, haven't changed at all, and love in spite of the flaws that you are suddenly far more aware of (like an IDIOT, you probably chose to ignore them when you jumped into this whole relationship thing).
My use of "IDIOT" in capital letters was facetious for those of you who are easily offended.
So in the end, I pretty much just explained away my own frustrations with the laws of attraction. I still annoys me, but I guess there isn't too much we can do about it. STILL, I believe in giving chances - if the girl from high school had asked me out, I probably would have given her a chance. I think you owe people that much. I think you owe them a chance to create a spark, just... I don't know... give them a warning? This was as far as I got in the conversation.
