Very thoughtfully written piece. One would wonder what this has to do with HN, but the content is universally applicable, therefore not only in regards to children. Plus, we could suppose that the majority of HN's users consider themselves gifted :) Anyway, read the article folks, you won't regret your spent minutes.
Really? Here I thought HN mostly attracts white or East Asian mostly-male, mostly-20-30-something computer programmers who live in orbit around the Silicon Valley start-up industry.
A well written piece. The excessive use of "gifted" works against its intentions though. By referring exclusively to "gifted" children the author is throwing up a wall. Everyone has different levels of care and thought when it comes to the world around us.
The idea that the level of discourse on HN is high? Compared to say, Reddit? Or YouTube comments? No, not a joke. It's my perception that many of the folks participating on HN are, well, both gifted and engaged in the world. Do you disagree?
Not sure why the emphasis is on children especially. This seems to affect thoughtful people of all ages.
Or maybe, in that thoughtful, existentially-depressed way, the author is just understatedly asserting that adults are just big children. That would probably be overthinking it.
The issues described are dramatically worse for children since they don't have any agency over their own lives or the ability to actually grapple with these issues the way an adult can (emotional maturity really helps!)
> This seems to affect thoughtful people of all ages.
This affects everyone sooner or later, thoughtful or not. I think this is basically just a case of the fact that everyone goes through more or less the same set of internal experiences, just in different orders and to different extents. Obviously though if you hit the dark night of the soul at age 7 then that's going to be somewhat problematic, not that it's easy at any age.
Gifted children are intense? Has the author ever actually been around children? They're all intense. That's the nature of children!
Of course, they may simply all be gifted until they're hammered into their little social boxes; I've often thought that. Some of us weirdos just can't be hammered as efficiently, or break before bending or something.
(Also, the guy in the picture is probably not depressed due to nihilism, but because he forgot to put a dropcloth down before painting - I know I've cursed myself for that one before.)
I expect children to be intense about nearly everything. Small boo-boos and set-backs are devastating, and small wins create enormous excitement in 2 and 4 year olds. That, to me, is intensity.
It's perfectly normal for the majority of things in life to be intense in kids (and have more understanding for others' kids now), but it's entirely abnormal (and frankly inappropriate) in adults. Adults can have selective intensity and I look for that as a strongly positive quality in people I want to be around. Non-selective intensity is simply fatiguing, IMO.
Interuption: "Dude!!! Are you guys out of toilet paper in the upstairs bath?! Because if you are, I just wanted to remind you that there's a lot of it downstairs." (Silently: "No shit, I bought it and put it there; next, care to interupt my reading in five minutes to update me on the stock status of dish washing detergent?")
Ah, I had thought you were referring to unexpressed inner intensity rather than just outward loudness.
Of course, even that preference for outward "quietness" over "loudness" is quite cultural. I'm betting you're from a Northern European or Anglo culture?
No, I really mind how excited children can get about everything - it's the first time for them! Their highs are incredibly high, and their lows are incredibly low, partly because they have no experience to know that after the high will come a low, and after the low will come a high.
But when my point was that the author seems to think only gifted children are intense, why do you immediately assume I'm telling you you're not? And feel alone? That's really kind of sad.
But when my point was that the author seems to think only gifted children are intense, why do you immediately assume I'm telling you you're not?
No, I had thought you were implying that adults are emotionally less intense than children, which made me feel alone because that's very much contrary to my experience. The big thing that freaked me out about growing up was realizing it feels much the same as being a child, except for having learned how to maintain a facade that it's totally different and I'm somehow actually as calm as I act.
Interesting. I've noticed a lot of differences between the subjective experiences of childhood and adulthood. Part of it could be thought of as less intensity, but I think it has more to do with gaining the ability to accept things as they are. I also seem to have gained greater capacity for empathy. Frighteningly, I've also developed more discomfort with the unfamiliar.
The book that taught me to spiritually make sense of a world that is a constant let down was "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov. The author wrote it in secret while living with totalitarianism and meaninglessness in Stalinist Russia.
If you're not in the mood for a book, there's a great mini-series adaptation that was produced in Russia in the 2000s that takes about a week to watch. It does an almost perfect job of reproducing the book. I don't think it's available online.
I've often thought that in a warped, twisted way totalitarianism gives meaning to life for certain people. If it opression is so intense to make life worthless, then one has a cause dearer than life itself - to fight this opression. This struggle itself is meaningful. Many 'hero' movies are structured in this way, the 'good guys' have a cause, usually around defeating some kind of evil, that gives them ultimate purpose.
Likewise, I've found friends with far worse actual problems in the developing world to be existentially happier. They derive great pleasure in being able to go to a rock concert, etc. The game dynamics still work for the majority. Lots of intermediary issues to overcome, bosses to beat. Threat of destruction (socially or economically) seems to be wonderfully stimulating. Game dynamics still work.
What I find far worse is the banality of the first world. That seems to evoke and ferment existential concerns. Kind of along the lines of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LeLZ2crZE
In a way, it is the problem one faces once more basic things are taken care of. Hard to focus on existential angst when hungry.
At the end of the day, even though the universe itself may be arbitrary and doomed, I found that the only things that infuse durable meaning into us as humans is our love for each other, our desire to understand this universe, and our appreciation of beauty in all its forms.
> I've often thought that in a warped, twisted way totalitarianism gives meaning to life for certain people. If it opression is so intense to make life worthless, then one has a cause dearer than life itself - to fight this opression. This struggle itself is meaningful. Many 'hero' movies are structured in this way, the 'good guys' have a cause, usually around defeating some kind of evil, that gives them ultimate purpose.
An even more disturbing take on this is that totalitarianism also gives some people a more sinister cause: the oppression itself. I think many people in the various surveillance agencies in totalitarian states actually believed in what they were doing, and many even enjoyed it.
Man's Search for Meaning is about totalitarianism to the extreme; having no freedom except that in how you choose to react. The author was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp.
And about first world banality - the book of Ecclesiastes in the the bible addresses this also:
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun."
I had the existential depressions when I was 19 - 24. I dropped out of college and all my parents knew to do (and did) was put me in a psych ward and 'treat' me with electroshock. That didn't work.
I faced some of these issues during my early teens. It went away after that. Now I am 29 and facing the mid life crisis that the author has mentioned. It's a confused state of big dreams and crushing reality.
It is common that many of the "containment regimes" that are supposed to motivate children are more ruthlessly enforced on gifted children to "help them reach potential". And it is known that overly harsh rules induce depression too.
When I was in the third or fourth grade, I had an extreme form of this type of depression that lasted for maybe a year or longer. Instead of just reflecting on the meaning of life, I worried reality might not be real and understood even then at my young age there's no way to prove the people around me weren't constructs of my imagination. I came to these conclusions independently without ever hearing of Brain in a Vat, Evil Genius, or watching The Matrix, and it was very terrifying back then.
As I've grown up, I still realize there's no way to prove the world around me is real, but I'm glad I encountered this theory so young because I've had a good while to be motivated by the fact that it doesn't matter if it isn't real. What matters is what I do with this experience and how much joy I get out of it.
The only two real issues I've got with this article are that it limits itself in scope to the "gifted" and that it limits itself to children.
As for the latter issue, I suspect that this may fit into a broader work or area that the author presumes readers are familiar with--these issues are certainly seen in teenagers and afterwards.
As for the first point, a bit of a cliche but still accurate is the saying "The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike"; at some level, everyone I've met sharp or dull, gifted or not has run up against some version of the four issues (death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness). It may take until middle age and a house and a picket fence and seventy grand in debt, but it hits eventually.
One of the best realizations I've come to is that everyone, at some level or another, faces these problems in their own way and that I should try and respect their experience--because for them, their existential conflict is at least as severe as my own, their circumstances and stakes at least as dire.
What struck me as interesting was the author's specifically calling out touch as a mechanism for grounding and comfort--this struck a chord with me when I read it. It's part of the reason I have dogs: there is a very real touchable physical presence of pet, something to hold and hug and pet when you're mulling over some of the day's shittiness.
> 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.
This paragraph explains why it is relevant to focus on gifted children.
I can attest to that as I still have rather vivid memories of standing on the edge of the roof berating myself for not having the guts to actually jump.
If you're knowledgeable of something, you may not know what it's like to be ignorant about it, but you do recognize the ignorance itself. But this doesn't go both ways, it's rather like a big circle contains the area of a smaller one, but not the other way around. You can see "blind" people, but they can't really see you. They hear and feel some things, and think that's all there is to it, but you know there is more. That is, after you found out about their blindness by them walking over paintings you made, maybe even made as a gift for them. Or even worse, you see them falling into manholes every day, and each time you tell them about it, especially in the blunt way of kids, they attack you for "thinking you see something they don't, thinking you're better". This is even more true for adults being showed up by kids; the people who can deal with that are rare, most use their position or power to shut the kid up, or eave it at a stupid, patronizing, insulting response.
Needless to say, this can be very confusing and painful. It's not like anyone ever tells you "I'm acting this way because I feel threatened by you", it's always some stupid mind fuck and always your fault. I still would never say it hurts more than being stupid, and let's not forget the perks that come with being gifted, either... I don't disagree with what you said, but still: "just as dire" does not mean "exactly the same".
There are, by definition, more people who can understand the most stupid, than those who who can understand the most gifted, and the sadness of seeing how the world could be, and how it is, and how third-hand many of the excuses many people make are, that is not a feature of the other extreme. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. And just consider the likely very different reactions to "I'm sad because I'm more stupid than the people around me" and "I'm sad because the people around me are more stupid than me". Both are perfectly valid reasons to be sad, but only one of them tends to get a hissy-scratchy response, especially when it's true.
I really enjoyed reading that--especially the poem at the end (I remember mentally rolling my eyes the first time I read it, thinking the message was self-evident. But in this context it's just wonderful).
I do wish this sort of message could be part of an effective, formulaic prescription that could be doled out to web surfers who are suffering. "Depressed about things? Just keep scrolling down...watch this TED talk, heed this advice, read this article..." My friend who surfs the web all day and who tells me he has his suicide all planned out--I wish he could stumble on these things more often. Maybe instead of a "CSS Site of the Day Award" badge there could be a "Contemplating Suicide?" badge...
Another example, I wish I had learned before I became a film major that imagery is powerful, and that our brains can confuse on-screen trauma with real trauma. I suffered needlessly--and that sounds ridiculous and maybe funny, thinking about a film major with wide eyes wondering just what he signed up for--but I watched things that I will never forget, and that have become part of a mental burden I work to release now that I'm a bit more experienced in discerning what I can and can't handle.
I guess it pains me to think that while there are things we can do to ease others' pain, there are many extremely simple, almost thoughtless ways by which that existential depression worsens. Watch the wrong film. Read the wrong book. Make the wrong song lyric your mantra. (Wrong...well, maybe inappropriate is a better term; something that takes into account one's personal state) Traditions, cultures, microcultures...transcending that sort of thing is harder than most people realize, and certainly doesn't happen on autopilot.
While I've read a fair bit of existentialist works I've never seen this term, but I think I know what it means. I also think the article would be improved by just titling itself "Existential Depression". The narrow focus is odd, even if true, and might serve better as a footnote.
There's the strangest feeling I come across from time to time, and I think "come across" is the only good way to describe it. Everyone has bouts of doubt and melancholy, I think or would like to think, but there's something much larger that creeps up that becomes harder to relate. In spite of the difficulty to describe, I could imagine anyone might feel this way, not just gifted children.
I always called it "The Cosmic Sadness", which is a name that I came up with after experiencing the feelings while I was reading about heat death of the universe (and associated articles) on Wikipedia[1]. This feeling ends up upsetting (not quite right, maybe disquieting) me much more than things like the death of a pet or a family member.
It doesn't only have to do with cosmological things, but I think it addresses the scope of the feeling, where you get this sensation of being so zoomed out, so encompassed by (perhaps) all that might be, that you have a hard time coming back down to being you.
It's like when you ponder the plight of some character in a novel you're reading, and you empathize enough to get a little upset, then you remember that none of that is real and its OK you've gone one level up now back to real life, no one is suffering like the character in the novel. You "snap out of it" - There's de-escalation, and some relief. But with the cosmic sadness there is no going up one level, it's all there to ponder and still real. No snapping out of it.
I was shocked by how this article ended because the only way of coping I have (other than mere time), to de-escalate this feeling, is literature and poetry. I tend to read several poems a day[2] as a kind of cathartic ritual, and poetry brings a comfortable way to remember (or re-realize) the very meaningful and concrete parts of experience, so I end up surrounding myself with it, finding the most comfort in it.
Du Fu is a favorite of mine because he lived during a time that experienced one of the largest losses of human life on the planet (an lushan rebellion), so a lot of his poetry dithers between bleakness and hope. Somehow this makes it easy for me to reflect (perspective) and draw some inner sympathy for everything.
A similar idea is the Japanese concept "mono no aware", or roughly "the awareness of things passing" -- a central, inevitable poignancy that comes from the impossible contrast of ourselves against the universe.
You said you've read a lot of existentialist literature so this might be redundant, but I'd check out Haruki Murakami's work if you haven't already: I can't think of an author who more immerses in -- and emerges from -- a sense of cosmic loneliness.
Interesting; somehow reading someone like Camus didn't provide a convincing enough argument to get out of the existential crisis like depression. Do you have suggestions on any specific Murakami work to read?
edit: to answer your question, I suggest The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami is overrated. Once you've read that one, you've essentially read them all.
Yeah, I finally got out of the existential crisis by doing the mundane; jogging, living, cooking. Things that I know cognitively have no meaning in answering the ultimate question. Later, I realized that Camus's sense of rebellion although unsatisfactory was what I was doing. I was aware of the meaningless nature of existence and still progressing. That is hard; somehow it gave me more hope than it should.
Thanks for putting it into words, and for the term “Cosmic Sadness”. A similar feeling hits me periodically, never expected. Happens for as long as I remember myself, from early years, but is consistently rare.
Has a bit different effect on me. Somewhat like going ‘one level up’ per your literary example. The troubled character is myself—but Cosmic Sadness elevates me (other part of me? complicated!), giving an odd feeling of unreality and remoteness.
The Sadness, indeed, comes from the inability to move up completely. Continuing the analogy, you remember that the novel is not real, but you're trapped in its reality.
Myself, I treasure these moments, they are calming and meditative, and happen very rarely to me. I wish I could trigger them voluntarily.
The article focus on gifted children because it is a particular problem since they can't share their thoughts and questions about it with friends. These questions are somehow comming up "too early" in life wrt to their capacity to cope with them. As adults we have collected enough data to be able to readjust our understanding of life in a sound way. The depression is the phase that follows the anger from not being able to cope with it. Helping these kids to go through this phase is important because risk of suicide is also higher.
I don't want to diminish the problem of existential depression in adults. I just want to point out that the problem is probably more accute and troublesome in gifted children as I think the author tried to explain.
I had exactly what was described in the article in response to a car accident (being hit while biking) that 'should have been fatal' at age 15.
The author's recommendation of a daily hug also resonates with me since if I had to describe, 15 years later, what happened I'd say that the accident caused my mind to retreat from my body and that it wasn't until I learnt to enjoy physical touch again 7 years later that I felt I had recovered.
While my experience probably was a bit more intense than the article describes, my guess is that it points to a failure mode in gifted (or let's say 'mentally oriented') children in which they focus on their mind to the exclusion of all else and lose track of their (physical) connection to the world.
I acutely remember this issue when I was maybe 10 - 14. I tried to talk to my parents about the sadness I was feeling in these areas, but I couldn't make them understand. I had no-one around me who understood what I was saying, no-one who could guide me through. It was a very difficult time and it took me into my late teens to really put these issues to bed.
> But with the cosmic sadness there is no going up one level, it's all there to ponder and still real. No snapping out of it.
There are two mechanisms to cope with this without discarding or distorting it. Both are linked to accepting and expanding the comical (and cosmic) smallness of our existences.
The first one I actually learned recently from reading Stephensons Anathem (which made me wonder if I'm reading that into his work or whether it was put in there from the same urge to cope). It's a bit hard to relay it without spoiling the book too much, but let's say it's related to the fact that even our understanding of the heat death of the universe is based on and limited by our human brains. There is hope in understanding it as a field that may still be ripe for discovery (top-of-my-head exmples: quantum immortality, parallel universes etc.) and that, as per usual, reality is always more fascinating, weird and grand than our brains can even begin to imagine. (And maybe these short term sprints of depression stem from being unable, for a short while, to muster an appropriate sense of wonder.) We're along for a ride and that ride is awesome.
While the first one is going one step ahead, the second is taking one step back: Even the fact that we are able to form thoughts about the heat death of the universe means that we are incredibly gifted and that it's a gift we should not waste on despair. We are part of a universe that is to all appearances without inherent meaning or even sense. Fine. It's up to you to decide whether you want to dwell in and facilitate the static and the cold, or whether you want to pump your energy into showering it with the most fantastic entropy that the universe hasn't seen yet. You are here because thousands of generations of humans have found ways to cope and carry on and make today into a better tomorrow. If they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too.
> accepting ... reality is always more fascinating, weird and grand than our brains can even begin to imagine ... We're along for a ride and that ride is awesome.
Sounds like defeatism and resignation. Why resign yourself to the "ride" and pretend that there's something nice about the long, arduous journey when you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination, or if you believe that everyone is riding in the wrong direction?
> If they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too.
Sounds like conformism. What if all those people gave lots of damns about things that actually aren't worth a damn? Perhaps we should not waste our precious CPU cycles on caring about worthless things.
How do you convince a mind that thinks on the scale of trillions of years to care about a few thousand years of human idiosyncrasy at all? I don't think it will be that easy. Daily hugs might actually work better, because a hug doesn't even attempt to engage the intellect and therefore doesn't need to respond to counterarguments.
I absolutely guarantee that nobody, especially not someone depressed, is actually thinking on the scale of trillions of years. At that scale we stop being able to think and have to switch to mere computation instead.
Existential despair is when your brain decides to think up some Profound Issue instead of just admitting it needs some exercise and a hug.
I know you're doing devil's advocate. I liked this part of your comment:
kijin>"What if all those people gave lots of damns about things that actually aren't worth a damn?"
Because I certainly don't know if these things are worth a damn or not, and I generally don't trust people who believe that they do know.
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But this uncertainty about whether "any specific thing matters" cuts both ways, and I'm not sure it is clearly stated in another part of your comment:
kijin>Sounds like defeatism and resignation. Why resign yourself to the "ride" and pretend that there's something nice about the long, arduous journey when you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination, or if you believe that everyone is riding in the wrong direction?
I think that there are 2 defeat/resignations in your hypothetical. The first defeat/resignation happens at the point where you become convinced that "you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination". The second defeat/resignation is the one that you pointed out, when you make the decision to pretend that here's some destination.
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skore>>it's related to the fact that even our understanding of the heat death of the universe is based on and limited by our human brains.
Skore is raising the question that maybe we DON'T "know very well that there's not much to see at the destination."
Some people believe that there is no way to know that "there is not much to see at the destination", and some people believe that there definitely is a worthwhile destination that is worth struggling towards. Religious people, anyone believing in transhumanism or "the singularity" to name the vast majority of humans.
Some people would lump everyone who doesn't commit suicide into this category: "If you aren't getting off the train, you're moving towards station."
Uhm. "Not giving a damn" doesn't cause depression I think. It's kinda the other way around? You know, caring too much and whatnot, or caring about things you can't change in a way as if you could.
Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever. Those who "become one with the dust" cannot loose, those into accumulation of power and posessions can't win. That's kinda neat, after all, like a fail-safe. It's also the only real solid argument for things like compassion and irony I know.
You are here because thousands of generations of humans have found ways to cope and carry on and make today into a better tomorrow.
You could also say I'm here because hunger feels bad and fucking feels good. "Better tomorrow" sounds so self-righteous, and while maybe people in the past were that high-minded, I'm currently not seeing it. The US can't even close Gitmo because the people they abducted and tortured might take it out on them, wtf? We still live in the stone age in so many ways, and that's the supposedly advanced west. A few years ago in Germany, a girl was raped in the inner city of a small town while people just walked by. And so on. It could be argued that even one look at a flower justifies all suffering in the world, but it could also be argued that just one kid dying in terror and pain does not justify existence of life on the planet. It really depends on the mood, and for me on wether I had breakfast yet.
Remember when TV was thought to bring culture and information to people? Hah, me neither, but I take it there was a time when you could express such hope with a straight face. Then came the internet... yet the way 99% of the people talk on the web would get one hellbanned within 5 posts here. For every person with a book I see, I see 20 with their dumbification phone out. In the economy we consider shifting money to those who least deserve, but most desperately want it, as making money and admirable, and watch helplessly as our media, our food, just about fucking everything gets more and more consolidated into fewer and fewer trees of corporations and the corporations they own. All most people care about is what they need to do to get along, they just accept everything as given and go from there.
And yeah, then there's the people dreaming of actual immortality in all this mess. Just look at them. They've been creeping me out since I was a kid, not once have I seen a scientist talk about this who seemed to be a balanced human being.
Anyway, as Kafka wrote in his notebook, "Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made." But then again he also wrote this: "You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."
But that's not what you're talking about, children dying in Africa, is it? Or people who just want to feel like they have some agency in their life playing Farmville? No, the universe is oh so exiting, it's an awesome ride... bleh. Don't get me wrong, I sometimes still stare at clouds or my hand or whatever and am simply amazed. But a sense of wonder is only one part of the story, the other part is human society, which is nowhere near the awesome complex miracle the universe is, but often rather banal, predictable, suicidal on good days and murderous on bad ones, with ads everywhere, just in case someone has an actual thought in a quiet minute.
I still agree that one should not give up, if that can be avoided. But I disagree that "if they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too." -- so many people didn't figure anything out (how many natives are basically dying from depression in reservations?), ...
Your [excellent] post was essentially written over 2000 years ago in the short old testament book of Ecclesisates. "Everything is meaningless, there is nothing new under the sun, nobody is completely righteous, etc." It is the height of folly to think that people a hundred generations ago didn't have the same frustrations.
Thanks, I was aware I was rambling more about being frustrated about society than existential depression, and probably being unfair to the poster I replied to, but I couldn't help myself. I love me some cherry picked OT, there is so much wisdom in it! I also love this:
When people no longer fear the power of government,
a far greater empowerment appears,
the Great Integrity,
which never needs to enforce itself.
Then, we will never again be driven from our homes
or be compelled to labor for the benefit of others.
We will all work naturally to fulfill ourselves,
and to meet our community needs.
In the Great Integrity,
we will all love ourselves and all others,
not as compensations for ego deprivations and defilements,
but as natural expressions of our humanity.
Laozi, "Tao Te Ching", Verse 72
"work naturally to fulfill ourselves", or "ego deprivations and defilements", those are very few words for a whole lot of issues. When I was younger I was scared out of my wits of the idea that we might lock ourselves into them via technology without even realizing it, and now I do find consolation in two facts, that even if we do, it won't be forever, and that if we manage to get out of the solar system, given enough distance, at least diversity might once again flourish, that the dice will be rolled again so to speak, and more than once.
>I was aware I was rambling more about being frustrated about society than existential depression
Actually, I think you were more on target than not, as it is very difficult to delink the two. The article discusses frustration about society or the "less-than-ideal" state of things as some of the preconditions leading up to the existential depression that some gifted kids experience.
Sure, there remain issues of our smallness, purpose, etc. However, I have often wondered what the Laozi quote you referenced crystallizes so well: what if we weren't all induced to participate in this "Matrix" of a society that pushes many of us into a life of subsistence while others profit from our efforts? What if instead we were more community than competitors and were more free to pursue what fulfills us and betters humankind? Would we feel as small and hopeless? Or would we be empowered and enlightened by our hand in creating and participating in a just society? And would the discoveries and progress that ensue as a result of so much effort and brainpower dedicated to causes other than personal economic benefit actually offset at least some of our sense of lostness and insignificance? That is, would we be more evolved and literally more significant or aware of our significance? Perhaps we humans are actually far, far more powerful and significant than any of us presently realize.
The world's resources would surely support such an arrangement if our mechanisms for allocating them were more evolved than "mere economics".
Surely, when gifted kids have such thoughts but are instead forced headlong into the Matrix, the temptation towards a more hopeless state and subsequent existential depression becomes highly possible if not probable.
But neither is there a reason to believe they will be.
Yes, I agree with that, I just didn't know how to put it.
But still, the idea of complete autocratic slavery for a million years is such a bad scenario for me, that even just a small likelihood would be enough for me to welcome the fact that nothing lasts forever. Having that idea in a world where chickens are stuffed into dark rooms and have their beaks singed off so they don't peck each other to death doesn't help.
Maybe the universe doesn't tend towards evil, but power sure does. And newborns don't change; that is, humans get born as blank slates, but are faced with and molded by structures that can be arbitrarily old, complex and twisted. We no longer know what our parents know by the time we're 10; most of us wouldn't find out half of what is going on if we lived to be 1000. And it really only takes one sufficiently isolated generation to rewrite history into anything you want. And those who would want to do that, will make sure it's nasty and sticky. That doesn't mean it will come to that, but it really only takes one singularity event, doesn't it. So if it came to that, chances might be good it will not come to anything else ever again.
The Roman Empire didn't collapse because they thought "let's do something else instead, this is really petty and dumb", but because there was an outside, and because communication got slow as it grew in size. That communication changed a lot is obvious, and I would argue if you consider it from a class perspective, not from a nation perspective, there is no outside either, it's one huge blob. There may be an "outer lower class", but plenty of it identifies with and loves big brother dearly, and when push comes to shove, you don't really need that many faithful, you don't even need the smartest, they just need to be really dedicated and obedient and have the best weapons money can buy. And then there is robotics. I really fear that in a few hundred years tops it'll be _over_, if we keep on sleepwalking like we do.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, and surely I read and watched too much dystopian science fiction; but I kinda think the reason we don't live on conveyor belts in a world made out of cast iron is because we're still building that world; but not because that's not exactly the world power wants, must want. Of course, such a blind lust for power is also by definition lacking in awareness, if not to say stupid. So there's that hope always, too, that it might trip over itself.
Not so much of the universe, but of human history, yes. We have increasingly bigger and supposedly smarter structures we are embedded in, and the individual people move into the opposite direction. We are for the most part petty, alienated and deluded, and as long as we can inject other humans to numb ourselves from seeing that, I think we will.
No need to thank me for indulging myself, thanks for reading it, and even more importantly, for getting something positive out of it :) And to be fair, HN is also the first place I've personally experienced on the web where breaking out into rather large ad hoc rants that go all over the place does not lead to eye rolling automatically. So instead of being frustrating and pointless, letting out a bunch of associated and bottled up thoughts in this way actually feels good, and helps me order my own thoughts as well. So I'm not just being polite when I thank you instead; I have these thoughts either way, but actually being heard means more to me than I would have thought.
"So I'm not just being polite when I thank you instead; I have these
thoughts either way, but actually being heard means more to me than I
would have thought."
Well, it's like a hug, having someone that really sees you and shares
your feelings. :)
The narrow focus is odd, even if true, and might serve better as a footnote.
Not odd at all. The concentration or severity of existential depression in gifted children is well documented if not well known. And Jim Webb, the author, has devoted a good deal of his life (30+ years) to understanding the needs of and helping the gifted, with a focus on gifted children [1]. He also founded SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) [2].
The concentration or severity of existential depression in gifted children is well documented if not well known.
Where is there any evidence WHATEVER that the severity of existential depression is any different for gifted people than it is for anybody else? I know Jim Webb, and I'm pickled in the writings of the gifted education movement. (I'll be spending the following two weeks presenting parent seminars on gifted education at Epsilon Camp 2013, so I keep up with all the latest literature on this subject.) I think "existential depression" is a euphemism used for "depression" among some but fortunately not all families who have gifted children--nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.
Yes, it is crucial to help people who feel depressed, and I applaud anyone on HN who does so when depression comes up in submitted stories or comment threads from time to time. But I see utterly no evidence in the professional literature on depression that the manifestation of depression is much different in gifted people from its manifestation in all other human beings. Everyone who experiences depression needs to feel connected with fellow human beings who show compassion.
"Existential depression" is not a euphemism, it has a specific meaning. While, I do not have the primary references to back up my point [so I guess you may take me to task for that] I too am very much immersed in the gifted field. There is most definitely a consensus among the people who deal with gifted children, especially their emotional needs, that existential depression hits earlier and more often in these kids than in the general population of children. I do not know about giftedness in general, including adult giftedness.
The author gave a quick nod to the fact that it exists in adults in the form of things like mid-life crises, however, suggested that adults have a much better framework for dealing with it. I tend to agree with him, however, like you, I also found much of the author's advice applicable.
I also believe that as we get older, we understand that there are so many others out there with whom we might relate. In our teen years, it seems that all the world is monolithic and that there is only on acceptable way to "be". It is also a time when we are constantly smacking up the pressure to conform. In some ways, this reminds me of what we know of gay kids struggling with their sexuality. Many face feelings of isolation and despair. A key message to them from adult members of the community has been "Hold on. It gets better".
With regard to what you write about "cosmic despair", and especially with concepts like "having a hard time coming back down to you", I noticed that some of it seems to flirt around the edges of depersonalization. Perhaps it may be worth having a look at that and how it intersects with your experiences.
Existentialism, could be viewed as modern, Western Buddhism. They have arrived to almost the same conclusions, rejecting any "religions" first. (absurd, lack of any meaning, life as a projection of ones mind, etc. One more step - and there is Eastern notion of Emptiness, void).
I'm so happy to see that I'm not alone. I've fought off depression through sheer willpower, but I frequently get anxiety attacks thinking about "Cosmic Sadness (I like your term for it)." I wrote about this a little while ago (don't mind the ramblings in the beginning) [1]. I think I could use some advice.
"The tendency for entropy to increase in isolated systems is expressed in the second law of thermodynamics — perhaps the most pessimistic and amoral formulation in all human thought."
— Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley, Principia Discordia [1]
As I understand, over the centuries, the usual coping mechanism for existential dread has been belief. Religion is often cynically thought to be a means to control the masses, but I think its central purpose is serving as a mental safety valve. I've chosen to believe in the power of technological progress.
"Yes, we did it, we killed the dragon today. But damn, why did we start so late? This could have been done five, maybe ten years ago! Millions of people wouldn't have had to die."
— Nick Bostrom, The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant [2]
I believe it's our duty to conquer death and bring heaven to earth, by fixing aging and developing machine intelligence. [3] [4] Once this is done, there will be time to think about reversing entropy, or breaking out of the universe.
"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
I believe it's our duty to conquer death and bring
heaven to earth, by fixing aging and developing machine
intelligence. [3] [4] Once this is done, there will be
time to think about reversing entropy, or breaking out
of the universe.
That is a beautiful thought, and a good way to overcome and deal with this 'existential crisis'.
I so know this feeling! I still remember exactly how I first felt it; I was six, pondering the universe and mentally zooming into a tear in a wallpaper, down to the subatomic particles level, then I zoomed out, but for the first time didn't stop until my mind has encompassed the entire spacetime, the entire, timeless universe, with me but a infinitesimal speck in it. Interestingly though, I quite liked that feeling, in a bit perverse way perhaps; I learned to invoke it almost on demand and did it quite often, especially when I was upset with the world around me. It brought serenity uncomparable to anything else I've experienced, and, at times, welcome detachment. I have recognised it as sad, but it was serene sadness.
Years later I've found out that I'm clinically depressed and perhaps that's why I don't feel the sadness so deeply - it's not much lower than my mood set point. BTW, comparing this feeling to the sadness of a close being passing away is like apples and oranges - they both have a completely different flavor to me.
I still invoke it from time to time; for the serenity, sometimes for the detachment, and oddly, sometimes get sad to get angry and gain some motivation to change the world. I've found that attaining the state is now harder than it was when I was a child.
BTW, interesting tip about the poetry; I've been wondering why it's not as alluring as it used to be, and perhaps I don't spacetime out that often anymore.
> 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.
Really? I read it nodding, thinking of how many of my friends/family/cow-orkers, and if I'm being honest with myself - me a lot of the time, could be described perfectly as "simply focusing on superficial day-to-day aspects of life."
1/4 of middle aged women in this country are on antidepressants. Is that 'existential' depression or some kind I don't know about, I don't know, but that's a pretty sad stat.
I'm 18 and since 3rd grade I was in a special class for gifted children. I know this feeling so well, from my experience and from those of my classmates and friends, it literally hurts.
I'm no psychiatrist but from my nonobjective personal experience depression in gifted children and your regular "normal" teenage depression are completely different, in symptoms as well as in cause, which I think the article illustrates nicely.
I think the people criticizing the article for focusing on children and on gifted children specifically don't understand it's a whole different world. There are whole fields of study in psychology, psychiatry, education studies and other fields that focus on gifted children because they need a completely different system to thrive. People, especially family and educators, need to know about this.
I was diagnosed as "gifted" in third grade, but switched back into "regular" school in sixth grade in response to bullying, a short temper, and a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome with Seasonal Affective Disorder.
I think the only reason I got through high school was because of the immense amount of support I got when I was placed in a partially self-contained class with roughly ten other students with Asperger Syndrome and Autism.
The thing that always bothered me (and my "gifted" classmates) is that lumping all such children together is a Bad Idea(TM). We had unique strengths and weaknesses, and having us march in lock-step in a traditional Prussian-style school at double speed just made our weaknesses that much more apparent.
Just don't get too used to thinking being gifted is particularly rare and requires a different system to thrive. Many acquaintances of mine at a certain crimson ivy university grew up with similar notions, and got into a different kind of depression once being surrounded by other 'gifted' individuals - due to having the 'world view' they've internalized so far, around the notion of them being special, getting totally crushed. Many also got used to explaining away their flaws as somehow being related to them being brilliant. This notion of specialness being crushed, they also saw those thing for what they are - failings, i.e. that they fail to connect with young people their age due to poor social skills, and not due to them gifts; and this becomes obvious now that others around them are also smart, etc. They realized that even if you're 1/1000 this means Facebook could staff the entire company with even more gifted Americans, and you'd still not make it, and so on.
These people are also crushed to learn upon graduation that people don't automatically revel in their obvious greatness, and that they need to earn their place by actually delivering / 'executing' on some of that potential.
TL;DR: Smart teenagers tend to not realize they are still 99% teenager, 1% smart. That itself is a teenager like habit.
Humans have roughly similar meta-emotional makeups and thrive in environments that cater to this. Gifted or not, children and teenagers thrive where they can expand their social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual boundaries and capabilities in a trusting, safe, encouraging environment. Thus the 'system' is the same, the gifted merely require a different mix of 'content'. They may be advanced in certain ways but normal or behind in others.
Unfortunately, people don't learn that kind of thing from reading (or being told).
Maybe we shouldn't delay the real world lessons of "there are plenty of people better than you, just in different ways" and "yeah you are great, you'll still have to earn it" until they grow up. In my view, that's another one of the failures of modern schools.
I agree that the system makes us think we're a special little snowflake and I've had the whole "I'm not that special" crushing experience, but I do truly believe that gifted children need a different environment to thrive. I wouldn't have lasted long among my peers, socially and academically.
No doubt, but unfortunately it's probably not as simple as placing the 'gifted' ones in one room and the 'ungifted' ones in another. Surely its a spectrum?
Since you're still 18, I'll give you the advice I wish someone had told me 13 years ago:
You are not a head in a body. Your mind is intertwined with your body and your body is what connects you to reality. Keep in touch with your body.
It's easy for you to focus on things to the exclusion of everything else and it's very easy to forget about your body. Don't.
I'm fairly sure that's also why the article mentioned hugging. Just let your canary in the coal mine be that if you no longer enjoy physical touch; you're out of contact with your body.
I blame Descartes and his mind/body dualism for much of the "brain-centric" view of consciousness :)
The human organism needs lots of physical exercise, movement, breathing, stretching, etc. to function properly. Along with proper sleep habits, your body's environment must be taken care of if you expect to feel "good" and expect proper brain functioning.
The most demanding cognitive activities require support of all the rest of the body's systems (mood, temperament, stamina) which can be kept in shape through proper physical conditioning and nutrition.
I wish I became of this earlier as well! Great point. Somewhere in high school I lost touch with this, and it took a lot of effort in my twenties to consciously realize this & bring it to my life.
(2) Gifted kids have difficulties because adults don't talk to them as equals, and their concerns and thought processes are difficult for their peers to comprehend.
TIL: Children can be Nihlists too? Does it really take a gifted child to see the futility in the majority of life or to understand our insignificance? This is something that should be fairly obvious to anyone without privilege, not only children.
184 comments
[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 84.1 ms ] thread- high potential for development - innately aware of problems in the world - over-exciteable - drawn towards 'escapes' that help them grow
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10269.aspx
The link I posted was a re-blog on a website with a nicer reading experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
Or maybe, in that thoughtful, existentially-depressed way, the author is just understatedly asserting that adults are just big children. That would probably be overthinking it.
He's also probably assuming the reader has some background on PD and knows what it is a psychological theory not at all correlated with age.
This affects everyone sooner or later, thoughtful or not. I think this is basically just a case of the fact that everyone goes through more or less the same set of internal experiences, just in different orders and to different extents. Obviously though if you hit the dark night of the soul at age 7 then that's going to be somewhat problematic, not that it's easy at any age.
Of course, they may simply all be gifted until they're hammered into their little social boxes; I've often thought that. Some of us weirdos just can't be hammered as efficiently, or break before bending or something.
You mean adults aren't intense?
Wow, now I feel lonely.
I expect children to be intense about nearly everything. Small boo-boos and set-backs are devastating, and small wins create enormous excitement in 2 and 4 year olds. That, to me, is intensity.
It's perfectly normal for the majority of things in life to be intense in kids (and have more understanding for others' kids now), but it's entirely abnormal (and frankly inappropriate) in adults. Adults can have selective intensity and I look for that as a strongly positive quality in people I want to be around. Non-selective intensity is simply fatiguing, IMO.
Interuption: "Dude!!! Are you guys out of toilet paper in the upstairs bath?! Because if you are, I just wanted to remind you that there's a lot of it downstairs." (Silently: "No shit, I bought it and put it there; next, care to interupt my reading in five minutes to update me on the stock status of dish washing detergent?")
Of course, even that preference for outward "quietness" over "loudness" is quite cultural. I'm betting you're from a Northern European or Anglo culture?
No, I really mind how excited children can get about everything - it's the first time for them! Their highs are incredibly high, and their lows are incredibly low, partly because they have no experience to know that after the high will come a low, and after the low will come a high.
But when my point was that the author seems to think only gifted children are intense, why do you immediately assume I'm telling you you're not? And feel alone? That's really kind of sad.
No, I had thought you were implying that adults are emotionally less intense than children, which made me feel alone because that's very much contrary to my experience. The big thing that freaked me out about growing up was realizing it feels much the same as being a child, except for having learned how to maintain a facade that it's totally different and I'm somehow actually as calm as I act.
If you're not in the mood for a book, there's a great mini-series adaptation that was produced in Russia in the 2000s that takes about a week to watch. It does an almost perfect job of reproducing the book. I don't think it's available online.
Likewise, I've found friends with far worse actual problems in the developing world to be existentially happier. They derive great pleasure in being able to go to a rock concert, etc. The game dynamics still work for the majority. Lots of intermediary issues to overcome, bosses to beat. Threat of destruction (socially or economically) seems to be wonderfully stimulating. Game dynamics still work.
What I find far worse is the banality of the first world. That seems to evoke and ferment existential concerns. Kind of along the lines of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LeLZ2crZE
In a way, it is the problem one faces once more basic things are taken care of. Hard to focus on existential angst when hungry.
At the end of the day, even though the universe itself may be arbitrary and doomed, I found that the only things that infuse durable meaning into us as humans is our love for each other, our desire to understand this universe, and our appreciation of beauty in all its forms.
An even more disturbing take on this is that totalitarianism also gives some people a more sinister cause: the oppression itself. I think many people in the various surveillance agencies in totalitarian states actually believed in what they were doing, and many even enjoyed it.
And about first world banality - the book of Ecclesiastes in the the bible addresses this also:
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."
I had the existential depressions when I was 19 - 24. I dropped out of college and all my parents knew to do (and did) was put me in a psych ward and 'treat' me with electroshock. That didn't work.
(sorry, to prevent spam)
It is common that many of the "containment regimes" that are supposed to motivate children are more ruthlessly enforced on gifted children to "help them reach potential". And it is known that overly harsh rules induce depression too.
As I've grown up, I still realize there's no way to prove the world around me is real, but I'm glad I encountered this theory so young because I've had a good while to be motivated by the fact that it doesn't matter if it isn't real. What matters is what I do with this experience and how much joy I get out of it.
As for the latter issue, I suspect that this may fit into a broader work or area that the author presumes readers are familiar with--these issues are certainly seen in teenagers and afterwards.
As for the first point, a bit of a cliche but still accurate is the saying "The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike"; at some level, everyone I've met sharp or dull, gifted or not has run up against some version of the four issues (death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness). It may take until middle age and a house and a picket fence and seventy grand in debt, but it hits eventually.
One of the best realizations I've come to is that everyone, at some level or another, faces these problems in their own way and that I should try and respect their experience--because for them, their existential conflict is at least as severe as my own, their circumstances and stakes at least as dire.
What struck me as interesting was the author's specifically calling out touch as a mechanism for grounding and comfort--this struck a chord with me when I read it. It's part of the reason I have dogs: there is a very real touchable physical presence of pet, something to hold and hug and pet when you're mulling over some of the day's shittiness.
tl,dr; life's a bitch, get a dog.
I think that can be entirely attributed to where it is published -- the website of a 501(c)3 that solely focuses on "gifted children".
This paragraph explains why it is relevant to focus on gifted children.
I can attest to that as I still have rather vivid memories of standing on the edge of the roof berating myself for not having the guts to actually jump.
Needless to say, this can be very confusing and painful. It's not like anyone ever tells you "I'm acting this way because I feel threatened by you", it's always some stupid mind fuck and always your fault. I still would never say it hurts more than being stupid, and let's not forget the perks that come with being gifted, either... I don't disagree with what you said, but still: "just as dire" does not mean "exactly the same".
There are, by definition, more people who can understand the most stupid, than those who who can understand the most gifted, and the sadness of seeing how the world could be, and how it is, and how third-hand many of the excuses many people make are, that is not a feature of the other extreme. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. And just consider the likely very different reactions to "I'm sad because I'm more stupid than the people around me" and "I'm sad because the people around me are more stupid than me". Both are perfectly valid reasons to be sad, but only one of them tends to get a hissy-scratchy response, especially when it's true.
I do wish this sort of message could be part of an effective, formulaic prescription that could be doled out to web surfers who are suffering. "Depressed about things? Just keep scrolling down...watch this TED talk, heed this advice, read this article..." My friend who surfs the web all day and who tells me he has his suicide all planned out--I wish he could stumble on these things more often. Maybe instead of a "CSS Site of the Day Award" badge there could be a "Contemplating Suicide?" badge...
Another example, I wish I had learned before I became a film major that imagery is powerful, and that our brains can confuse on-screen trauma with real trauma. I suffered needlessly--and that sounds ridiculous and maybe funny, thinking about a film major with wide eyes wondering just what he signed up for--but I watched things that I will never forget, and that have become part of a mental burden I work to release now that I'm a bit more experienced in discerning what I can and can't handle.
I guess it pains me to think that while there are things we can do to ease others' pain, there are many extremely simple, almost thoughtless ways by which that existential depression worsens. Watch the wrong film. Read the wrong book. Make the wrong song lyric your mantra. (Wrong...well, maybe inappropriate is a better term; something that takes into account one's personal state) Traditions, cultures, microcultures...transcending that sort of thing is harder than most people realize, and certainly doesn't happen on autopilot.
There's the strangest feeling I come across from time to time, and I think "come across" is the only good way to describe it. Everyone has bouts of doubt and melancholy, I think or would like to think, but there's something much larger that creeps up that becomes harder to relate. In spite of the difficulty to describe, I could imagine anyone might feel this way, not just gifted children.
I always called it "The Cosmic Sadness", which is a name that I came up with after experiencing the feelings while I was reading about heat death of the universe (and associated articles) on Wikipedia[1]. This feeling ends up upsetting (not quite right, maybe disquieting) me much more than things like the death of a pet or a family member.
It doesn't only have to do with cosmological things, but I think it addresses the scope of the feeling, where you get this sensation of being so zoomed out, so encompassed by (perhaps) all that might be, that you have a hard time coming back down to being you.
It's like when you ponder the plight of some character in a novel you're reading, and you empathize enough to get a little upset, then you remember that none of that is real and its OK you've gone one level up now back to real life, no one is suffering like the character in the novel. You "snap out of it" - There's de-escalation, and some relief. But with the cosmic sadness there is no going up one level, it's all there to ponder and still real. No snapping out of it.
I was shocked by how this article ended because the only way of coping I have (other than mere time), to de-escalate this feeling, is literature and poetry. I tend to read several poems a day[2] as a kind of cathartic ritual, and poetry brings a comfortable way to remember (or re-realize) the very meaningful and concrete parts of experience, so I end up surrounding myself with it, finding the most comfort in it.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
[2] For example Where to Live, by Du Fu: https://gist.github.com/simonsarris/5472121
Du Fu is a favorite of mine because he lived during a time that experienced one of the largest losses of human life on the planet (an lushan rebellion), so a lot of his poetry dithers between bleakness and hope. Somehow this makes it easy for me to reflect (perspective) and draw some inner sympathy for everything.
浣花流水水西头， 主人为卜林塘幽。 已知出郭少尘事， 更有澄江销客愁。 无数蜻蜓齐上下， 一双鸂鶒对沉浮。 东行万里堪乘兴， 须向山阴上小舟。
[edit] The English translation is excellent.
You said you've read a lot of existentialist literature so this might be redundant, but I'd check out Haruki Murakami's work if you haven't already: I can't think of an author who more immerses in -- and emerges from -- a sense of cosmic loneliness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware
edit: to answer your question, I suggest The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami is overrated. Once you've read that one, you've essentially read them all.
Has a bit different effect on me. Somewhat like going ‘one level up’ per your literary example. The troubled character is myself—but Cosmic Sadness elevates me (other part of me? complicated!), giving an odd feeling of unreality and remoteness.
The Sadness, indeed, comes from the inability to move up completely. Continuing the analogy, you remember that the novel is not real, but you're trapped in its reality.
Myself, I treasure these moments, they are calming and meditative, and happen very rarely to me. I wish I could trigger them voluntarily.
I don't want to diminish the problem of existential depression in adults. I just want to point out that the problem is probably more accute and troublesome in gifted children as I think the author tried to explain.
I had exactly what was described in the article in response to a car accident (being hit while biking) that 'should have been fatal' at age 15.
The author's recommendation of a daily hug also resonates with me since if I had to describe, 15 years later, what happened I'd say that the accident caused my mind to retreat from my body and that it wasn't until I learnt to enjoy physical touch again 7 years later that I felt I had recovered.
While my experience probably was a bit more intense than the article describes, my guess is that it points to a failure mode in gifted (or let's say 'mentally oriented') children in which they focus on their mind to the exclusion of all else and lose track of their (physical) connection to the world.
There are two mechanisms to cope with this without discarding or distorting it. Both are linked to accepting and expanding the comical (and cosmic) smallness of our existences.
The first one I actually learned recently from reading Stephensons Anathem (which made me wonder if I'm reading that into his work or whether it was put in there from the same urge to cope). It's a bit hard to relay it without spoiling the book too much, but let's say it's related to the fact that even our understanding of the heat death of the universe is based on and limited by our human brains. There is hope in understanding it as a field that may still be ripe for discovery (top-of-my-head exmples: quantum immortality, parallel universes etc.) and that, as per usual, reality is always more fascinating, weird and grand than our brains can even begin to imagine. (And maybe these short term sprints of depression stem from being unable, for a short while, to muster an appropriate sense of wonder.) We're along for a ride and that ride is awesome.
While the first one is going one step ahead, the second is taking one step back: Even the fact that we are able to form thoughts about the heat death of the universe means that we are incredibly gifted and that it's a gift we should not waste on despair. We are part of a universe that is to all appearances without inherent meaning or even sense. Fine. It's up to you to decide whether you want to dwell in and facilitate the static and the cold, or whether you want to pump your energy into showering it with the most fantastic entropy that the universe hasn't seen yet. You are here because thousands of generations of humans have found ways to cope and carry on and make today into a better tomorrow. If they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too.
> accepting ... reality is always more fascinating, weird and grand than our brains can even begin to imagine ... We're along for a ride and that ride is awesome.
Sounds like defeatism and resignation. Why resign yourself to the "ride" and pretend that there's something nice about the long, arduous journey when you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination, or if you believe that everyone is riding in the wrong direction?
> If they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too.
Sounds like conformism. What if all those people gave lots of damns about things that actually aren't worth a damn? Perhaps we should not waste our precious CPU cycles on caring about worthless things.
How do you convince a mind that thinks on the scale of trillions of years to care about a few thousand years of human idiosyncrasy at all? I don't think it will be that easy. Daily hugs might actually work better, because a hug doesn't even attempt to engage the intellect and therefore doesn't need to respond to counterarguments.
Existential despair is when your brain decides to think up some Profound Issue instead of just admitting it needs some exercise and a hug.
Because I certainly don't know if these things are worth a damn or not, and I generally don't trust people who believe that they do know.
----------------------
But this uncertainty about whether "any specific thing matters" cuts both ways, and I'm not sure it is clearly stated in another part of your comment:
kijin>Sounds like defeatism and resignation. Why resign yourself to the "ride" and pretend that there's something nice about the long, arduous journey when you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination, or if you believe that everyone is riding in the wrong direction?
I think that there are 2 defeat/resignations in your hypothetical. The first defeat/resignation happens at the point where you become convinced that "you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination". The second defeat/resignation is the one that you pointed out, when you make the decision to pretend that here's some destination.
----------------------- skore>>it's related to the fact that even our understanding of the heat death of the universe is based on and limited by our human brains.
Skore is raising the question that maybe we DON'T "know very well that there's not much to see at the destination."
Some people believe that there is no way to know that "there is not much to see at the destination", and some people believe that there definitely is a worthwhile destination that is worth struggling towards. Religious people, anyone believing in transhumanism or "the singularity" to name the vast majority of humans.
Some people would lump everyone who doesn't commit suicide into this category: "If you aren't getting off the train, you're moving towards station."
Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever. Those who "become one with the dust" cannot loose, those into accumulation of power and posessions can't win. That's kinda neat, after all, like a fail-safe. It's also the only real solid argument for things like compassion and irony I know.
You are here because thousands of generations of humans have found ways to cope and carry on and make today into a better tomorrow.
You could also say I'm here because hunger feels bad and fucking feels good. "Better tomorrow" sounds so self-righteous, and while maybe people in the past were that high-minded, I'm currently not seeing it. The US can't even close Gitmo because the people they abducted and tortured might take it out on them, wtf? We still live in the stone age in so many ways, and that's the supposedly advanced west. A few years ago in Germany, a girl was raped in the inner city of a small town while people just walked by. And so on. It could be argued that even one look at a flower justifies all suffering in the world, but it could also be argued that just one kid dying in terror and pain does not justify existence of life on the planet. It really depends on the mood, and for me on wether I had breakfast yet.
Remember when TV was thought to bring culture and information to people? Hah, me neither, but I take it there was a time when you could express such hope with a straight face. Then came the internet... yet the way 99% of the people talk on the web would get one hellbanned within 5 posts here. For every person with a book I see, I see 20 with their dumbification phone out. In the economy we consider shifting money to those who least deserve, but most desperately want it, as making money and admirable, and watch helplessly as our media, our food, just about fucking everything gets more and more consolidated into fewer and fewer trees of corporations and the corporations they own. All most people care about is what they need to do to get along, they just accept everything as given and go from there.
And yeah, then there's the people dreaming of actual immortality in all this mess. Just look at them. They've been creeping me out since I was a kid, not once have I seen a scientist talk about this who seemed to be a balanced human being.
Anyway, as Kafka wrote in his notebook, "Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made." But then again he also wrote this: "You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."
But that's not what you're talking about, children dying in Africa, is it? Or people who just want to feel like they have some agency in their life playing Farmville? No, the universe is oh so exiting, it's an awesome ride... bleh. Don't get me wrong, I sometimes still stare at clouds or my hand or whatever and am simply amazed. But a sense of wonder is only one part of the story, the other part is human society, which is nowhere near the awesome complex miracle the universe is, but often rather banal, predictable, suicidal on good days and murderous on bad ones, with ads everywhere, just in case someone has an actual thought in a quiet minute.
I still agree that one should not give up, if that can be avoided. But I disagree that "if they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too." -- so many people didn't figure anything out (how many natives are basically dying from depression in reservations?), ...
"work naturally to fulfill ourselves", or "ego deprivations and defilements", those are very few words for a whole lot of issues. When I was younger I was scared out of my wits of the idea that we might lock ourselves into them via technology without even realizing it, and now I do find consolation in two facts, that even if we do, it won't be forever, and that if we manage to get out of the solar system, given enough distance, at least diversity might once again flourish, that the dice will be rolled again so to speak, and more than once.
Actually, I think you were more on target than not, as it is very difficult to delink the two. The article discusses frustration about society or the "less-than-ideal" state of things as some of the preconditions leading up to the existential depression that some gifted kids experience.
Sure, there remain issues of our smallness, purpose, etc. However, I have often wondered what the Laozi quote you referenced crystallizes so well: what if we weren't all induced to participate in this "Matrix" of a society that pushes many of us into a life of subsistence while others profit from our efforts? What if instead we were more community than competitors and were more free to pursue what fulfills us and betters humankind? Would we feel as small and hopeless? Or would we be empowered and enlightened by our hand in creating and participating in a just society? And would the discoveries and progress that ensue as a result of so much effort and brainpower dedicated to causes other than personal economic benefit actually offset at least some of our sense of lostness and insignificance? That is, would we be more evolved and literally more significant or aware of our significance? Perhaps we humans are actually far, far more powerful and significant than any of us presently realize.
The world's resources would surely support such an arrangement if our mechanisms for allocating them were more evolved than "mere economics".
Surely, when gifted kids have such thoughts but are instead forced headlong into the Matrix, the temptation towards a more hopeless state and subsequent existential depression becomes highly possible if not probable.
Interestingly, besides that verse, Kohelet was considered too depressing for the Judaic Sages to canonize.
But neither is there a reason to believe they will be. If the universe has no teleology, that means it does not inevitably tend towards evil.
Yes, I agree with that, I just didn't know how to put it.
But still, the idea of complete autocratic slavery for a million years is such a bad scenario for me, that even just a small likelihood would be enough for me to welcome the fact that nothing lasts forever. Having that idea in a world where chickens are stuffed into dark rooms and have their beaks singed off so they don't peck each other to death doesn't help.
Maybe the universe doesn't tend towards evil, but power sure does. And newborns don't change; that is, humans get born as blank slates, but are faced with and molded by structures that can be arbitrarily old, complex and twisted. We no longer know what our parents know by the time we're 10; most of us wouldn't find out half of what is going on if we lived to be 1000. And it really only takes one sufficiently isolated generation to rewrite history into anything you want. And those who would want to do that, will make sure it's nasty and sticky. That doesn't mean it will come to that, but it really only takes one singularity event, doesn't it. So if it came to that, chances might be good it will not come to anything else ever again.
The Roman Empire didn't collapse because they thought "let's do something else instead, this is really petty and dumb", but because there was an outside, and because communication got slow as it grew in size. That communication changed a lot is obvious, and I would argue if you consider it from a class perspective, not from a nation perspective, there is no outside either, it's one huge blob. There may be an "outer lower class", but plenty of it identifies with and loves big brother dearly, and when push comes to shove, you don't really need that many faithful, you don't even need the smartest, they just need to be really dedicated and obedient and have the best weapons money can buy. And then there is robotics. I really fear that in a few hundred years tops it'll be _over_, if we keep on sleepwalking like we do.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, and surely I read and watched too much dystopian science fiction; but I kinda think the reason we don't live on conveyor belts in a world made out of cast iron is because we're still building that world; but not because that's not exactly the world power wants, must want. Of course, such a blind lust for power is also by definition lacking in awareness, if not to say stupid. So there's that hope always, too, that it might trip over itself.
Well, it's like a hug, having someone that really sees you and shares your feelings. :)
Not odd at all. The concentration or severity of existential depression in gifted children is well documented if not well known. And Jim Webb, the author, has devoted a good deal of his life (30+ years) to understanding the needs of and helping the gifted, with a focus on gifted children [1]. He also founded SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) [2].
[1] http://www.greatpotentialpress.com/authors/james-t-webb-ph-d...
[2] http://www.sengifted.org/
Where is there any evidence WHATEVER that the severity of existential depression is any different for gifted people than it is for anybody else? I know Jim Webb, and I'm pickled in the writings of the gifted education movement. (I'll be spending the following two weeks presenting parent seminars on gifted education at Epsilon Camp 2013, so I keep up with all the latest literature on this subject.) I think "existential depression" is a euphemism used for "depression" among some but fortunately not all families who have gifted children--nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.
Yes, it is crucial to help people who feel depressed, and I applaud anyone on HN who does so when depression comes up in submitted stories or comment threads from time to time. But I see utterly no evidence in the professional literature on depression that the manifestation of depression is much different in gifted people from its manifestation in all other human beings. Everyone who experiences depression needs to feel connected with fellow human beings who show compassion.
The author gave a quick nod to the fact that it exists in adults in the form of things like mid-life crises, however, suggested that adults have a much better framework for dealing with it. I tend to agree with him, however, like you, I also found much of the author's advice applicable.
I also believe that as we get older, we understand that there are so many others out there with whom we might relate. In our teen years, it seems that all the world is monolithic and that there is only on acceptable way to "be". It is also a time when we are constantly smacking up the pressure to conform. In some ways, this reminds me of what we know of gay kids struggling with their sexuality. Many face feelings of isolation and despair. A key message to them from adult members of the community has been "Hold on. It gets better".
With regard to what you write about "cosmic despair", and especially with concepts like "having a hard time coming back down to you", I noticed that some of it seems to flirt around the edges of depersonalization. Perhaps it may be worth having a look at that and how it intersects with your experiences.
[1] http://nickdesaulniers.github.io/blog/2013/04/29/the-persist...
"The tendency for entropy to increase in isolated systems is expressed in the second law of thermodynamics — perhaps the most pessimistic and amoral formulation in all human thought."
— Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley, Principia Discordia [1]
As I understand, over the centuries, the usual coping mechanism for existential dread has been belief. Religion is often cynically thought to be a means to control the masses, but I think its central purpose is serving as a mental safety valve. I've chosen to believe in the power of technological progress.
"Yes, we did it, we killed the dragon today. But damn, why did we start so late? This could have been done five, maybe ten years ago! Millions of people wouldn't have had to die."
— Nick Bostrom, The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant [2]
I believe it's our duty to conquer death and bring heaven to earth, by fixing aging and developing machine intelligence. [3] [4] Once this is done, there will be time to think about reversing entropy, or breaking out of the universe.
"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
— Isaac Asimov, The Last Question [5]
[1] http://principiadiscordia.com/
[2] http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
[3] http://www.sens.org/
[4] http://intelligence.org/
[5] http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
Years later I've found out that I'm clinically depressed and perhaps that's why I don't feel the sadness so deeply - it's not much lower than my mood set point. BTW, comparing this feeling to the sadness of a close being passing away is like apples and oranges - they both have a completely different flavor to me.
I still invoke it from time to time; for the serenity, sometimes for the detachment, and oddly, sometimes get sad to get angry and gain some motivation to change the world. I've found that attaining the state is now harder than it was when I was a child.
BTW, interesting tip about the poetry; I've been wondering why it's not as alluring as it used to be, and perhaps I don't spacetime out that often anymore.
What elitist garbage.
If you don't believe in qualitative differences in thought, then we might as well just abandon education as a whole.
I'm 18 and since 3rd grade I was in a special class for gifted children. I know this feeling so well, from my experience and from those of my classmates and friends, it literally hurts.
I'm no psychiatrist but from my nonobjective personal experience depression in gifted children and your regular "normal" teenage depression are completely different, in symptoms as well as in cause, which I think the article illustrates nicely.
I think the people criticizing the article for focusing on children and on gifted children specifically don't understand it's a whole different world. There are whole fields of study in psychology, psychiatry, education studies and other fields that focus on gifted children because they need a completely different system to thrive. People, especially family and educators, need to know about this.
I think the only reason I got through high school was because of the immense amount of support I got when I was placed in a partially self-contained class with roughly ten other students with Asperger Syndrome and Autism.
The thing that always bothered me (and my "gifted" classmates) is that lumping all such children together is a Bad Idea(TM). We had unique strengths and weaknesses, and having us march in lock-step in a traditional Prussian-style school at double speed just made our weaknesses that much more apparent.
These people are also crushed to learn upon graduation that people don't automatically revel in their obvious greatness, and that they need to earn their place by actually delivering / 'executing' on some of that potential.
TL;DR: Smart teenagers tend to not realize they are still 99% teenager, 1% smart. That itself is a teenager like habit.
Humans have roughly similar meta-emotional makeups and thrive in environments that cater to this. Gifted or not, children and teenagers thrive where they can expand their social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual boundaries and capabilities in a trusting, safe, encouraging environment. Thus the 'system' is the same, the gifted merely require a different mix of 'content'. They may be advanced in certain ways but normal or behind in others.
Maybe we shouldn't delay the real world lessons of "there are plenty of people better than you, just in different ways" and "yeah you are great, you'll still have to earn it" until they grow up. In my view, that's another one of the failures of modern schools.
You are not a head in a body. Your mind is intertwined with your body and your body is what connects you to reality. Keep in touch with your body.
It's easy for you to focus on things to the exclusion of everything else and it's very easy to forget about your body. Don't.
I'm fairly sure that's also why the article mentioned hugging. Just let your canary in the coal mine be that if you no longer enjoy physical touch; you're out of contact with your body.
I blame Descartes and his mind/body dualism for much of the "brain-centric" view of consciousness :)
The human organism needs lots of physical exercise, movement, breathing, stretching, etc. to function properly. Along with proper sleep habits, your body's environment must be taken care of if you expect to feel "good" and expect proper brain functioning.
The most demanding cognitive activities require support of all the rest of the body's systems (mood, temperament, stamina) which can be kept in shape through proper physical conditioning and nutrition.
(1) Existential depression, and
(2) Gifted kids have difficulties because adults don't talk to them as equals, and their concerns and thought processes are difficult for their peers to comprehend.
http://theboostbook.com/2013/01/link-between-intelligence-an...