Sad and Depressed

We are living in a time when much of the world (human and other-than-human) is in pain. The phrase tears of the world has been applied to this time. The first use of this phrase seems to be by Samuel Beckett, in his renowned play Waiting For Godot. In that play Beckett has a character stating that ‘The tears of the world are a constant quantity.’

In his 1976 song Tears of the World, George Harrison applies this phrase to seeing warfare and pollution yet ‘All warnings fall on deaf ears.’

If we notice this constant pain and observe the unheeded warnings then we may respond in a couple of ways: prolonged periods of depression and despair or brief, albeit intense, bouts of sadness.

Each of these possible reactions offer quite different psychological and responsive pathways. Etymology helps to illuminate the difference.

Depression has Latin roots and literally means to press down. The image of someone pressed down, their face in the mud, possibly a knee on their back illustrates depression. In such a situation the person finds it difficult to move. It is utterly disempowering. Despair has a different lineage yet ends with the same outcome. Old French gives us de (meaning without) and the second part of the word arrives from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word spes meaning prosperity. Hence despair applies to someone without prosperity which has come to mean without hope in our modern-day language. Again the image of a person pressed down in a hopeless situation comes to mind. Neither depression nor despair leave any room for an active response.

The word sad however has a far more intricate and interesting lineage. The PIE word seto (meaning to satisfy) became the word sæd in Old English and originally meant to be sated, to have ones full. It sounds like an unlikely ancestry for our modern word sad doesn’t it? Following the chain of changes in meaning is revealing. The Old English meaning morphed into firmly established, set, and hard in Middle English. These meanings in turn gave way to ponderous, heavy, and full (both physically and mentally) all of which implied a sense of weariness. By the 1300s seto, sæd, and sad had come to be identified with unhappy, sorrowful, melancholy, and mournful.

But, critically, even though it contains a heaviness the word sad never suggested being pressed down and without hope.

With this exploration of the lineage and meanings of depression and sad we can begin to piece together the different responses we have to the tears of the world that each provides us with.

Pressing us down and making us immobile, depression closes in on us and collapses our circle of concern inward. All our energy and attention becomes focussed upon ourselves and may cause us to implode and become self-destructive.

Periodic sadness, on the other hand, widens our circle of compassion and empathy, and we recognise that our pain and sadness connect us to our common humanity and intimacy with the totality of life on this planet.

In 2015 two of the most notable spiritual leaders on the planet, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, met in Dharamsala (the Dalai Lama’s Indian residence) to explore the meaning and expression of joy. The meeting was recorded and published as The Book of Joy.¹ During that meeting much attention was paid to the emotion of sadness. Archbishop Tutu argued that rather than viewing sadness as being a challenge to joy, ‘it often leads us most directly to empathy and compassion and to recognizing our need for one another.’ The Dalai Lama referred to psychological research which showed that those ‘in a sad mood had better judgment and memory, and were more motivated, more sensitive to social norms, and more generous than the happier control group.’

It was also noted that sadness often lingers longer than fear and anger and hence may provide a more lasting basis for acting with compassion.

So, the next time you feel tears begin to slide down your cheek for no apparent reason it may be that you are shedding the tears of the world and mirroring the pain of many upon this planet.

Use this time of sadness to listen to the messages those tears hold. They may contain and fortify your compassionate response.

Notes:

1. Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy, Avery, New York, 2016

Get Over It or Let It Go

A friend of mine sometimes tells the story of his father returning from naval service after WW2. His father and a friend of his father were affected emotionally, mentally, and psychically by their experiences during the war. Upon their return after the end of the war, they were often told to “Have a beer and get over it.”

How many people suffering from PTSD or some other painful situation are told the same thing: “Get over it”?

Being told this does not help, in fact it tends to make the condition worse. The statement implies that the person in pain is to blame for the experience leading to their pain.

An example may help clarify this. Suppose a soldier on a battlefield is continually bombarded with the sounds of crashing bombs, the whizzing of bullets all around, and witnessing the death (sometimes horrendous) of their comrades. They are likely to experience PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). During WW1 this was known as shell-shock, and at that time was only just starting to be recognised as a wound as debilitating as a physical wound. These men and women did not create those events, but they certainly felt the pain.

The psychology surrounding PTSD and other painful experiences has been widely studied since WW1. The research does not support a practice of “getting over it.”

Buddhism – often referred to as “less a religion and more a psychology of mind” – has some useful insights into how to deal with psychological pain. The first of these insights is to distinguish between pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable, it is a feature of being alive. Pain can be physical, mental, biological, and/or social. Suffering is different. Suffering is our reaction to these pains. So, there are two parts to the experience of, say PTSD. The first part is the incident or event that gave rise to the pain. The second part, following the first, is the various emotions that arise in response. These may be anxiety, anger, confusion, fear, grief, frustration.

The second insight is to recognise that continuous suffering results from attempting to push away the pain and trying to con ourselves into believing the pain does not exist. Buddhists call this aversion. This is what others mean when they say, “Just get over it.”

The opposite of aversion is craving. The opposite of “just get over it” is “just be happy, have a beer.” Both states, at best, are fleeting.

If aversion and craving do not work, then what does?

Buddhism suggests to simply “let it go.” I say “simply” but it is much harder than that, as it involves reconfiguring our mental, emotional, and psychological states. The concept is simple. It is rather like watching a cloud (your suffering) slowly pass by overhead, drifting on the wind, with no active involvement by you at all, aside from simply watching the cloud pass away. Getting into this frame of mind takes time, practice, and (yes) some effort. Even once this frame of mind is achieved, it is possible that the cloud could take a long time to pass by. Simply letting go is not simple.

Notice too, that the exhortation to “get over it” is often uttered by another person, not yourself. “Letting go” however, is something you do, not the instruction of another person. “Letting go” permits you to hold onto your power, rather than allowing someone else to take it from you.

So, how do we get to a state of mind that allows us to “let it go”?

The classic Buddhist response is meditation and mindfulness. This blog will not go into detail on these practices. There are numerous articles, videos, and books around teaching these.

There are many other ways to get to this state. Here are a few possibilities.

·       Spending time in nature. Take a slow, deliberative, walk in a forest. Notice what you hear, see, smell.

·       Physical exercise, especially aerobic exercise: jogging, swimming, cycling, or similar.

·       Enjoy time with a dog, or a horse, or other animal.

There are also some things to refrain from that otherwise would hinder getting to this state, for example:

·       Refraining from harmful pursuits: alcoholism, smoking, gambling, and other forms of addiction.

·       Reducing time in stressful situations. Much of our time in modern society keeps us hyper-vigilant, constantly alert, and on time deadlines. All of these keep us well removed from a “let it go” state of mind.

·       Beware of the trap of consumerism. Consumerism is one of the forms of “getting over it.” A beer is just one of the multitudes of consumer options. The phrase could just as easily be “Go buy a new car and get over it,” or “Add an extension to your house and get over it.”

Thus, next time you hear someone tell you to “Go have a beer and get over it,” let them and their message drift away as would a cloud.

Shattering The Clock

In 1609 Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer, mathematician, and natural philosopher published Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy) in which he outlined the first two laws of planetary motion. It was a significant advance on how we understood the movement of the planets.

Four years earlier, in a letter to a friend, Kepler wrote, ‘My aim is to show that the celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism, but to a clockwork.’ The metaphor of the cosmos as a clock was promoted at the time by many of his contemporaries.

In his Astronomia Nova he, no doubt, considered that he had achieved that aim.

Sadly he, and many other pioneers of the Scientific Revolution, by introducing this mechanistic metaphor into the world helped to entrench our perceived disconnect from nature. Nature was no longer an organism, but was now a mechanical, automated, and lifeless machine.

And, being mechanical and lifeless, nature could be exploited and open to another of the disturbing metaphors to come out of the Scientific Revolution – misogyny and rape. Francis Bacon, for instance, avowed that the scientific method allowed him to uncover ‘the secrets still locked in (nature’s) bosom… (so that) she can be forced out of her natural state and squeezed and moulded.’ Descartes too, was emboldened by this metaphor, asserting that science could ‘render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature.’

With such metaphors and the attendant worldviews, it is little wonder that today we are exploiting nature and extracting every little resource we can.

But, is the clock beginning to shatter?

The sciences of the 20^th and 21^st centuries are overturning the outlook of the Scientific Revolution of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Perhaps we could say that these sciences represent a Second Scientific Revolution. The sciences of ecology, quantum physics, biology, systems theory, and theories of Emergence, Chaos, and Complexity are all reasserting the cosmos as an organic wholeness.

Throughout the world there are groups of people, small communities, and especially indigenous societies challenging the mechanistic view of the world. Workshops, seminars, retreats, and vision quests are all being utilised to return to an organic outlook.

Although small, these enterprises and experiences are important. Our belief systems and worldviews are built upon the stories we tell ourselves and the metaphors we use. When we contest these, we open up to new, refreshing, possibilities, including the potential to return to an acknowledgement that we live in, and are part of, a divine organism.

All that is exciting. It reconnects us with a sense of wonder at the mysteriousness of life, the universe, and all it contains.

(The) Hidden Life of Trees - Book Review

(Note that this review is late in coming - this book was published nine years ago)

Go for a walk in a forest. When you get back home read The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.¹ The chances are high that the next time you go walking in that same forest the experience will be wholly different. You will see things you hadn’t noticed before. You will hear things you hadn’t heard before.

Chances are, too, that you will stop and want to linger. You may want to get closer to the trees and examine the bark. You might want to dig your fingers into the earth, or peer high into the canopy.

Not only will you see and hear things differently, after reading Wohllenben’s book you may also be able to visualise the vast network of roots, fungi, and mycelium that exists underground, out of sight.

Wohllenben’s book has certainly gained wide attention – it has sold more than three million copies worldwide and been translated into more than twenty languages.

Whilst it has gained an appreciative lay readership, it has not been without its critics in the scientific community. Some have criticised the book for its use of anthropomorphic language. For example, some of the book’s chapters are titled, Tree School, Community Housing Projects, Hibernation, Street Kids, Immigrants etc, all as epithets for aspects of forests and/or trees.

Although it is possible to understand this criticism, it is, in this reviewer’s mind, unfair, or at least misplaced. This book is undoubtedly written for the layperson, a person who may know little or nothing about the workings of forests. It is clearly not written as a scientific treatise. Had it been written in scientific, unemotional language it would not have been bought by three million readers.

Wohllenben outlines in the first few pages his intention in writing the book. He states, ‘This book is a lens to help you take a closer look at what you might have taken for granted. Slow down, breathe deep, and look around. What can you hear? What do you see? How do you feel?’ He’s upfront. This is written for those unused to analysing what is going on in a forest. It is written to evoke an emotional response. And – it works.

By writing in the way he does, using what we understand to be human feelings, behaviours, and functions, Wohllenben helps the reader associate with forests and trees. In one sense the criticism of anthropomorphism becomes a two-edged sword. Can we really say that trees do not have feelings, do not behave in ways that humans might, or that trees do not communicate with and look after one another? To say that they do not and try to write of trees and forests in neutral terms is itself an anthropocentric rendition. Many indigenous languages and cultures worldwide do not name trees, streams, mountains, and other living creatures in the third person – i.e. as it. For many, these entities are imbued with the same energies and sacred attributes as are humans.

In the final few pages Wohllenben addresses the divide between humans and non-humans. He states, ‘I, for one, welcome breaking down the moral barriers between animals and plants. When the capabilities of vegetative beings become known, and their emotional lives and needs are recognized, then the way we treat plants will gradually change as well.’   

Perhaps the sooner we come to appreciate trees and other entities in the same ways we value ourselves, the sooner we might desist in destroying nature and the planet in which we live.

So, my suggestion as reviewer, is to ignore any criticism you may have heard, go with the flow and recognise you in the trees and the trees in you.

For myself, as someone who had previously come across some of the concepts Wohllenben writes of, I found this book illuminating and enjoyable. I learnt a lot more about trees and forests than I knew before I read page 1. I learnt something of myself also.

The final words I will leave to Peter Wohllenben himself, they are also the final words he writes in the Acknowledgments section.

‘Only people who understand trees are capable of protecting them.’

Note:

1. Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees, Black Inc., Collingwood VIC, Australia, 2016