What's your explanation for this?
Whatever the reason, I think this is a good reminder that our government shouldn't be solely concerned about creating material wealth. We have plenty of it and apparently 30% of people are seriously depressed.
Work has a lot to do with it. Right now I have a real job in my field and I feel terrible all the time. Before this job, I had a bullshit job making close to minimum wage but I was a lot happier.
Some key differences
-My real job has
horrible indoor
air quality. It becomes much harder to breathe the second I walk into the office. The air is dry and it causes stuff noses somehow. My bullshit job was a retail place where the doors were always opening and letting fresh air in.
-My real job has terrible
lighting. It's all fluorescent and very white. It's the most unnatural light in the history of the world and much of it shines directly into my eyes. The lighting in my retail job was much better; they had broad spectrum halogen lights that were high up and you couldn't see them directly unless you tilted your head back to look at them.
-My real job creates a very unnatural
sleep pattern. No human should be awake at 6:30am, but I am. In order to get 8 hours of sleep, I would need to be in bed by 10pm, but the god damn sun is still up at 10pm (in summer). How the fuck am I supposed to sleep when the sun is still up?@#$@#%?
Also, the sun is still down at 6:30am in winter. It feels like I'm waking up in the middle of the night just to go to work. What kind of retarded shit is that? Who created this system? It's the worst system one could possibly design. I can't think of a single thing that would make it worse.
My retail jobs in the past were evening jobs so I would wake up and go to bed at a much more natural time. If I get off work at 9pm, it'll be a lot more like midnight or 1am by the time I bike home, take a shower, cook some food, and watch a bit of TV. The sun is long gone, it's dark outside, it's quiet outside, and going to sleep is much easier. When you go to bed at 1am, guess what time you wake up. Around 9-10am, when the sun is shining! What a novel idea that is - sleep when it's really damn dark outside then wake up when the sun is shining. Why didn't anyone in the world think of this before!?!?!
-My real job involves me
sitting on my ass, getting no exercise at all. Sometimes the work stops flowing and I'm stuck trying to stay awake (because I had a terrible sleep, see above) even though there's nothing to do. There's no blood going to my legs because I'm not doing anything, no blood in my arms because I'm not lifting anything, no blood in my brain because I'm not trying to solve a puzzle at this time. It's like some kind of torture the KGB would think of. At my bullshit jobs, there was always stuff to do. Even when there are no customers, there's stuff to do. Move this over there, prepare this, unload these boxes, etc. At the end of the day at my real job, I fall asleep on the bus while riding home. At the end of the day at my bullshit jobs, I was energized and I would call people to see who was available to do stuff.
So there's your answer. Modern societies are fucking retarded. Instead of using lights that vaguely resemble the sun (incandescent), we use lights that vaguely resemble arc welding (fluorescent). Instead of breathing fresh air, we breathe recycled air because it saves energy and we don't need to heat up more of this cold outside air (or cool more outside air in summer). Instead of waking up when the sun is up and going to bed when the sun is down, we go to bed when the sun is still up then we wake up when it's dark; the exact opposite of what every other animal on the planet does.
If you are busy trying to survive, you don't have time to be depressed.
True that. I remember a few camping trips where we were plagued with shit like too many bugs and not enough bug spray, we got burned because we didn't use enough sunscreen, we were hungry, thirsty, tired, couldn't sleep well because tents turn into ovens when the sun shines on them. Despite all of that crap, I can't remember being sad. I was pissed off, but I felt ok. I know what sad feels like, and being sad in a palace feels a lot worse than being pissed off in a cold tent with slightly wet blankets.
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