Ways To Cope With The Depression Of The Dream Of Pandora Being Intangible.

[auroraglacialis]

Well, I think external changes START with internal changes. I know some people who out of impulse and with shortsight prioritized action over thinking and this ususally does not work well in the long run. You get results fast, but soon realize that this is not what you wanted and then you try other actions and so on, some of these actions may even be harmful to others or your own future.
So I think it is quite a good idea to at least clean out the worst patches of the mess inside as a priority. This of course does not mean, one cannot also at the same time be active on the outside, but this action is inevitably less structured or directed as the momentum behind it is still forming inside and the direction still sways back and forth.

I agree with the last definition of depression here - depression is a state of emotional numbness. I had severe depressions in my life and the state one is in at that time is one of not caring. Emotional stressors are blocked out, one cannot feel happy, but one also cannot feel sad. From that comes then a melancholy that roots in the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness and the conclusion is of course to ask, why not die now if this is the state of beeing forever. Now, for me to break out of these was usually painful and it involved sadness. Basically you have to confront the sadness and dispair first befor you can access the whole spectrum of emotions again. So after beeing truely depressed, feeling utterly sad and cry your heart out and feel a strong longing and lonliness and all that is actually a good sign. It means breaking out of the numbness.
So - Avatar - when I first saw it, I felt touched, moved and I felt the sadness welling up at the destruction of hometree etc. But I was still a bit caught, also by me going there with friends. Second time I downright cried with Mo'at at the destruction of the tree and felt the horror of the war and so on, so I had strong negative emotions, but at the same time I felt a longing for Pandora and the NA'Vi for their state of beeing. Still, even thinking of Pandora made me sad, as I knew it is fiction, I cant go there, this is so sad... Of course this feeling is still there a bit, but what happened later on was, that by opening up to negative emotions, I also opened up to the positive ones. For the first time in a while I would feel surges of happiness when sitting alone at a river or in the forest. And the last time I saw Avatar I noticed the difference. I did not just cry and weep, but I also laughed out loud many times.

So baseline - and basically what I think may be the misunderstanding between HMN and caveman here: True depression is a state of emotional numbness. Feeling sad about not beeing on Pandora is a strong emotion that actually has the ability to break out of it. It opens the way to beeing more happy and positive. But of course you cannot have only positive thoughts, there is no light without darkness, so both will be present at some time - happiness and sadness. So in a sense, to keep a longing for Pandora in your heart, also with the negative emotions attached to the realization that you cant go there, is a counterbalance for feeling happy at other times. To feel both extremes of emotions means to become one again.

And not to something completely different

Originally Posted by Human No More

I see the majority of technology as neutral - it's how you use it, how you apply the knowledge gained, what you do with the ability that matters. Not what is developed.

This definitely is off topic, so I answered here: http://www.tree-of-souls.com/debate/...html#post96688

Greetings