Comments on: No, joyless fundamentalism isn’t an awesome way to cure my depression, but thanks for playing

By: WordsOfAFeather

WordsOfAFeather — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:38:39 +0000

Kick ass link, I remember that part when he was pretending to be human. Perfection.

“There’s a reason why you’re you, and not the guy who sells you your cigarettes at the kiosk. ”

This other person that none of us has met is insignificant. Who you are today is who you should remain to be. Mainly because its awesome.

By: magpie_seven

magpie_seven — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:44:22 +0000

There’s actually an interesting new perspective arising in some areas of research about depression- that rather than “intelligent people are prone to depression because they are so clever”, more “people with depression are more likely to be intelligent, because being prone to depression means your brain is wired in a different way”. It’s an interesting idea- that a propensity towards depression is not a side effect of intelligence, but in some ways a cause of it, and that a tendency to depresison should not be looked at as a condition to be cured, but more as a perfectly valid neuro arrangement which just requires better upkeep than the neurotypical brain.

By: Natalia Antonova

Natalia Antonova — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:44:24 +0000

Hahahaha! I’d forgotten all about Van Douche!

a tall glass of “shut up and stop asking questions”.

You’re so much cleverer than I.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:29:36 +0000

It strikes me that the appeal of fundamentalism is the ability to pour yourself a tall glass of “shut up and stop asking questions”. I guess some people like the taste.

By: belledame222

belledame222 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:31 +0000

Are you sure this person wasn’t Van Douche?

By: Poeschl

Poeschl — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:20:48 +0000

“You can’t change who you are. What matters is what you actually do with who you are.”

Your second sentence is absolutely brilliant.

Your first sentence is a little troubling. If, by “who you are,” you mean how you define yourself at any given moment — well, you actually can change how you define yourself. That’s partly what growing up is all about — i.e., in growing up, you learn how to intelligently set your own boundaries and how to intelligently change how you perceive yourself. It’s the work of a lifetime, to be sure.

It strikes me that the phase “You can’t change who you are” implies a personal feeling of absolute powerlessness which is not always justified. At least in certain environments, able-bodied, able-minded men and women are not always absolutely powerless. I would say that one goal would be to create environments where people can test their limits and maybe even extend those limits.

I could also add a few words about how male-dominated authoritarian religions (e.g., evangelical/fundamentalist Protestantism) deliberately try to identify and convert women who feel absolutely powerless, but I’ll stop here. Your own post already makes that point eloquently.

Congratulations on a great essay.