Seeing clearly hurts, that's why you see cloudily

At the end of the 1980s, two researchers (Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson) hypothesized that "depressed people tend to make more realistic inferences than non-depressed people." This phenomenon, which they called "depressive realism", in other words, means that those who perceive more clearly the way the world really works will have fewer benefits than they would expect. In short, according to this idea, the more realistic our perspective on the world, the more aware we are of how it works, the greater the risk of becoming depressed.

This hypothesis and its research have been and continue to be criticized, and many of them are solid and well argued. Despite this, the underlying idea could help us understand some phenomena that I observe, both in myself and in more and more people.

Given the state of the world today, it doesn't seem difficult to give credence to the hypothesis we've alluded to. To see clearly the atrocities we are doing to each other, in increasingly "close" conflicts (not necessarily in the geographical sense, but also); to know that the planet is getting worse every day, and that we are doing little or nothing to reverse the situation; to feel your wallet getting thinner every time you make a few essential purchases; to look around and see that the interest of people in positions of power to help reverse such situations is scarce or uncertain. The list could easily go on and on, without having to resort to imagination. Lazy observation will suffice.

Maybe that's why I've seen an increase in the number of people I know who say something along the lines of: "I've stopped watching the news. It's all doom and gloom!" However, when this hypothesis was investigated, the world was not as it is now. There's no point in comparing because, whenever perceptions are compared between different eras, there's an annoying tendency to say something like "it was good in my day" or, the opposite extreme: "this new generation is lost". In either case, there is a disregard for the present time that has tinges of complaining, victimization, impotence and conformism or submission, which are also irritating characteristics.

This phenomenon may even be a timeless trend, linked to our human condition and the subject of eternal reflection and philosophical discussion. For example, when we know with great clarity and mindfulness that we are going to die, or that "our people" are going to disappear, how can we not become depressed? In the same way, if we constantly bear in mind the many examples of the evil we do to each other - racism, xenophobia, misogyny, genocide, inequality - the scenarios that emerge will be something close to an ontological apocalypse.

For these reasons, seeing, living and feeling reality in a more opaque, cloudier, more superficial way seems to help our mental health. It could be a functional amnesia, an unconsciousness with vital force, which allows us to live day-to-day life in a tolerable way, without a constant storm. Perhaps even with a feeling of lightness or something resembling happiness? Ignorance is bliss, say the English-speakers, and it seems that this kind of willful ignorance is on the increase.

However unknown or wrong the conclusions of this research may be, it seems to me that more and more people are choosing less knowledge and more entertainment; less thought and more distraction. It will be worse if we don't even distinguish between them. I suspect that we will have already made great strides towards this confusion.

We live in times when there is a constant feeling of lack, which leads us on an incessant search for meaning, significance and purpose; which leads us to do more, to have more, to arrive first, to achieve a global scale in everything we set out to do, with messianic signs of salvation from the problems of the world and humanity. There is pressure, which is no longer invisible, to be ambitious, to do more, faster; to accumulate a lot so that we can finally rest. However, it is very typical to see that those who achieve the most, those who have the most, are the ones who move the fastest, without being able to stop. If we get used to rushing around, if that's what becomes normal and valued, why stop?

And, of course, all of this should be done with a smile on your face, because that way you can inspire others to do the same. This is the basic recipe for self-help, which is never really "self": it's always someone who has discovered a magic formula, having gone through some adversity, which others should adopt in order to transcend themselves, "designing the best version of themselves". Self-help is always an invitation to submit one's own thinking, critical thinking, to the thinking and experience of another. It's no wonder that one of the most sought-after "professions" today is that of "influencer". But critical thinking is the exercise of questioning one's own thinking. Only after that should you even think about directing your attention to someone else's thinking. Of course, this must be done in communion, thus removing the idea of "self", and assuming that others will be essential to building ourselves up.

Although we are easily charmed by energetic words and contagious smiles, our "souls" don't seem to be enjoying this trip. In short, we continue to value and prefer optimists over pessimists, the happy over the sad. If the idea we started with makes sense, we prefer the realists and praise the idealists-entrepreneurs. Today's heroes and heroines don't gain such status because of the quality of their ideas, which should result from the reflective depth and coherence that would be visible in the way they live their lives. They do so because of the technologies they invent, the products they create and sell, the money they generate and the noise they make.

The heroes we need take their time. They take their time because they can cope longer and better with the time it takes to find a good answer - which is not the same as the right answer. They take their time because they can bear not to be "happy" all the time, nor give in to the pressure to be so in front of others. They take their time to find solutions that don't only take their interests into account. They take their time because they need to clear up the blurred vision caused by demanding day-to-day life. They take their time because they are not in a hurry to use creativity only as a way of "getting" more, but as an end in itself. They take their time because they want to be the first to stop, consider, contemplate, reflect and manage not to give the first answer that comes along; they want to be the first to wait for the second or third version of the answer that seems good enough; to be the first to fall behind, on purpose, without the feeling of loss or the hypocrisy of being able to say "I told you that moving so fast would make you trip and fall".

And, as a final note, none of this has to be done when you're depressed or sad. None of this has to be fatalistic, aggressive, narcissistic or sensationalist. All this can only be done if we manage, individually and collectively, to find new forms and new objects of pleasure. Pleasure in the process and not just in the result. We need a new hedonism.

Written for Link to Leaders on December 10, 2023, published on December 18, 2023.