Why Compassion And Depression Don’t Mix
I’m the first to admit that I’m not the most empathic person. And I understand that there is a place for empathy and compassion. In one sense, I’m very compassionate. I care very much that everyone I come into contact with, gets the most from their life.
But what I see, so often, are people wanting to shield others from the harshness and unfairness of the world. Our society has developed a complex system of many interacting elements , including the welfare state, political correctness and charities, that is well meaning and intended to save people from the harshness of our world. But it is often misguided and can actually hold back people’s development.
photo credit: Daquella manera
Buddhists tell us that all of life is suffering. To suffer is an unavoidable side effect of humanity. We are human and so because we perceive from a place of attachment, we are bound to misperceive. All suffering is rooted in misperception and so our suffering is a result of our inaccurate view and understanding of the world.
You only have to look at an optical illusion to realise how easily our eyes are fooled. Equally our other senses can be just as flawed. The world is completely illusory. It appears to be one thing on the surface, but seen through different eyes or heard through different ears or felt through a different touch it changes.
Life is to experiences, as a supermarket is to food. It is possible to make thousands of dishes and recipes from the same basic raw ingredients, but each will have a very distinct end result.
In the same way, our experience of life depends not on the objective reality, but on where we focus our attention and the recipe we use the raw ingredients around us to make.
Put differently, life is a story and some stories are heartwarming and inspiring, while others are cold and heartless. Whichever story you tell, determines how you feel and so the quality of your life.
To summarise where we’ve got so far, life is suffering because we misperceive and how much we suffer depends on how deeply and which misperceptions we believe in. So hopefully now, we can agree that we are fallible in our beliefs?
The obvious next step then is to understand how we misperceive.
Why We Don’t See The Truth
I recall from my days studying Sociology that one of the founding Fathers of that field, Auguste Comte, believed that Sociologists were uniquely placed to understand and govern society. This really encapsulates the problem with perception.
We see, hear, feel, smell and taste the world through our bodily senses. And so we identify with our physical sense of self enormously, often completely. Emotionally, we desperately need to feel a sense of belonging, a sense that we matter, that we make a difference and that people care about us. So our ego’s job is to make a story out of the raw materials all around us that places us at the centre of the universe.
As a result, Psychologist’s think all of life is based around what we think. Nutritionist’s believe we are what we eat. Physician’s believe we are a machine that they can engineer. Likewise, our view of what is valuable and important is based on placing what attributes we hold at the centre of the universe.
About 400 years ago Galileo Galilei was given an ulitmatum; recant his observation that the world was not the centre of the universe or be put to death for blasphemy. Stephen Hawking says that, “Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.” Because whilst every piece of physical data led to the logical conclusion that we were at the centre of the universe, Galileo went beyond perception to discern the truth.
It is this impersonal scientific approach of hypothesise, test and refine, over and over again, that can free us from the prison of perception.
So why was Galileo such a threat to the religion of his time and place?
Because if he was right and people believed him, the Guardians of the Church would have to change their viewpoint and so no longer hold their source of power, status and authority.
So now, let’s relate this to the topic of depression.
When people make up, not consciously of course, their interpretation of what life is and why it matters, they value certain attributes. Businesses strategise and call this a Unique Selling Proposition. It’s the reason why you buy a $50 item from one Vendor over another at $45 or $75. Individual’s do this too, but mostly without realising it. Without a personal USP, how would you ever feel that someone would be interested in you or care about you?
So if someone is slim and attractive, they will value physical beauty and see someone overweight as negligent in not caring about their appearance. If fat or unattractive they will look at physical beauty as superficial and a sign of narcissism.
photo credit: Chesi – Fotos CC
If they are rich, they will value the acquisition of wealth and believe it to be a sign of status, intelligence and positive attributes. If poor they may see the rich as selfish, manipulative and possibly criminal.
If clever, they will highlight the importance of intelligence, believing it makes them better. If less bright, they may look for absent-minded Professors or talk up the value of practicality and common sense.
If they believe themselves to be spiritually evolved, they may downplay worldly concerns and materialism to highlight their other worldliness. If believing they lack spirituality they might see it as airy fairy nonsense and an escape from the realities of the here and now.
In other words, people have to find a way of bolstering their self worth by either seeing themselves as positive, or by downplaying the importance of others.
If they are sick and/or depressed they may make suffering and persecution the way in which they get to stand out from the crowd.
So whenever you identify and attach yourself to a certain attribute and reality, and the world shows you that this is only a misperception, it feels much like someone is rocking your world and shifting your sense of importance from the centre of the world to the periphery. It feels like someone is trying to eliminate you. Therefore it feels as if you must fight to stand your ground or you will no longer matter or exist even.
No plant will ever hide or shield itself from the light, but that is exactly what the depressed do. They shrink and avoid contact with the truth. For they fear that if the truth were revealed, they would be revealed as worthless, or evil, and cast out and therefore they must hide from it. That was the point of my post on the secret behind stress and depression.
Yet it is only the truth that will ever save them from the prison of their own mind.
So now we need to examine what is compassion?
What Is Compassion?
Superficially compassion seems to mean understanding that the Individual has had a hard time or is lacking the development of certain skills and qualities. Therefore we should be understanding of the difficulties and obstacles they face and expect less of them. In short, it seems we should accept, it is unreasonable to expect that they can ever be as happy or well adjusted as we can be.
To me, that’s just another way of slanting the universe to put ourselves at the centre and so make ourselves feel superior. It is the patronising attitude of many Idealists and Politicians, that in essence say,
‘I, who am more capable than you, will do this for you, because you cannot do it for yourself’.
To me, that is not truly compassion. The person is trapped in a prison of illusions and to agree with their misperceptions is to make their illusions seem more real and so bind them even further in their self made prison.
photo credit: __pereztonella
I do not care where you have been, what you have done, or where you are right this minute. I believe that all of us are equal and despite different starting places, I believe in the power of the human spirit to transcend any, and all, circumstances. I believe know you can be happier and live to a far greater extent than you have demonstrated up to now.
No-one needs to hide behind excuses. They hide only from the fullness of what they could be.
Yes, it is harder for some people than others. But I did not make it harder for those people. The forces of life, or if you prefer God, did. Therefore there must be some greater purpose behind the disparity in starting points than we see. The world we encounter is our interaction with Life, or God. Therefore for another to mediate between that connection is to distance the Individual from their source.
I share the truth as I see it. Obviously it is inherently flawed and biased through my own perceptions, but only words nonetheless. They have no power to hurt, in and of themselves. So if they cause offence, as did Galileo’s it is only because they threaten a viewpoint you are attached to.
My writings are for the purpose of sharing quicker ways to live with less stress and more happily. I can only say the steps that need to be taken or the dynamics that hold us back. I cannot change what must be done in order to reach a place of happiness because someone feels it is too hard for them to achieve. I can only share the quickest and easiest path that I can see. That does not change because of the person wishing the world were different than it is.
My intention is to point out the light, that someone might become aware of it and so have the option to move towards it when they are ready to. And if that makes me seem offensive, uncaring, unfair and unreasonable then so be it.
To me that is true compassion.
But of course, as with all things it is a temporary view based on perceptions that may be flawed to value my perspective other others. So what do you think?
Share your comments and together we can develop a better understanding and definition of compassion than we have used to date.
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