@schopenhauer1 what do you think?

@TheMadFool and you?

To exist in this dichotomy of, I am depressed, therefore I must be more happy.

Seems like torture, eh @unenlightened?

Yup. The medical model fails again. Mind can just about operate on the body as an externality. It's mad, but cosmetic surgery and body-building can be done. But the very idea that misery can, let alone ought, to transform itself into happiness is ridiculous. The effort of trying to lift oneself off the ground by pulling hard on the bootlaces, is not even amusing to watch any more.

But this is the condition of the depressed in any case; they are busy not feeling how they feel. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to be focussed on, and highly vigilant of one's feelings, and I suppose one does this by making an external identification of what m(other) or 'the neighbours' approve and disapprove. Only from outside can one bestow on oneself the identification 'depressed'. *

The miserable (fragmented) family/society is thus recreated as identifications; from the alienated place one contrasts what one 'is' with what one 'ought to be', and demands that the bootlaces be pulled harder, because one hasn't quite left the depressed ground and floated into the fantasy of one's 'potential'.

And the final irony, that this non sense becomes entrenched to the point where one longs for an authentic self, one seeks to reach the ground one never managed to leave.

* This is the case with every identification; one see's oneself from the outside, and so psychologically, identity is duality. In pointing to myself, I inevitably reverse my hand so that it comes as if from outside. The duality of identifier and identified is implicit in every identity.

What is wrong with (either) me or other people? — Shawn

If you do no harm to anyone and are content with your life, then just tell them to fuck off.

But if you make statements of unhappiness or other negative feelings then people will tend to give you advice.

Again, if you disagree with them you can still tell them to fuck off.

Try to live life without unnecessary complications is my motto. Unless of course something can be gained by a bit of extra complication of course.