Good public opinions
Note: This one is in english, so that the best Starcake that ever was can read it, judge it, and never speak a word about said judgement.
The human being is, by definition, unsustainable. That is, we’re the only species that, throughout it’s existence, doesn’t reflect the need to maintain the environment in which it lives. Sure, we are quite concerned about the environment now, but it’s an unnatural conviction. We, as a species, haven’t been wired to care about nature for a while now, because our intelect has taken care of that concern for us. Ran out of fertile land to grow a farm ? No problem, just use your fast transportation device to go somewhere else, or bring the farm, already grown, rinsed and packaged to you. Yep, that’s basically humankind in a nutshell, so to speak.
But that’s not really my concern. I find that this relationship of unsustainability we keep with good old mother nature, transcends to our daily life and the rest of our relations, specifically with other human beings. Most of our social interactions are unsustainable. The proof of this fact stands on it’s own, just ask yourself: with how many of the people you met 3 years ago, did you speak today ? Last Week ? Last month ? The answer will probably not leave your fingertips, and that’s just fine. We are not really social beings. We are more of the selfish kind, and therefore, our social interaction depends on the value that any other being gives us. And that other being feels the exact same way. This transaction takes place throughout our whole existence and, since very few people remain valuable as the years go by, that’s the main reason for the «subpar» number of long time friends you just found out you really have.
This leads me to what I call, social value. It’s quite simple. We subconsciously value people based on what our interaction with them will yield us. Funny beings are always accompanied by a lot of people, because they add a lot of value to the life of others (laughter is quite important). Smart, interesting people work the same way, just a bit more selectively. Beauty, strength, and most socially accepted qualities work this way, but what happens with inadequate transitions or time frames ? What happens when you get depressed ? Through our whole social value logic, it would be quite simple. Most people will leave you, because your social value will run low. Sadness is the one thing which most human beings fear the most, because it is hard to bear, and most of us aren’t really strong enough to go through it, accept it, embrace it and take all the necessary steps to conquer it. Those people that will stick by you, will do so based on 1 of 2 reasons: You have given them a lot of value before, and they have an overflow of it, so they can’t hang around for a while even if you’re not in a position to really give anything back (also, helping people creates value for the helper, just most times not enough to carry someone through just helping). The second reason is that they will go into a «value debt» with you. This case is quite problematic, because they will most likely believe that, after you’ve been through your sad time, you will be up and running perfectly and will be so grateful with them, that you’ll overflow them with value, in any way or form imaginable. That will create overgrown expectations about what you can actually give them later and, needless to say, those expectations are almost never met.
This is why depression sucks. Not only do you feel like shit, but other people will perceive your value as if it’s periodically growing smaller and you will end up alone if you can’t control it.
When seen this way, it’s easy to understand now, why people who suffer from chronic depression feel as if their relationships have deadlines. People tend to drift apart from them because, usually, you just don’t enjoy a huge wave of sadness to the face on a daily basis. It’s really tiring, and depression’s «I can help you» value grows stale fast. This is just a logical step forward. Being near individuals who constantly bring you down with their issues, and whom you can’t help, no matter what you say or do is just a bad situation. The value you get out of these relationships is a negative one, and goes against any kind of logical way of live. That said, a contradiction to this train of thought is the concept of love, but that’s just a whole different topic.
On a bright note, there are sustainable relationships, but they depend more on external stability of both parties than the actual relationship. And love can also be sustainable, through a whole different, and potentially unexplainable, process.
P.S: There’s people that get value out of depressive conversations. They’re called psychologists. Everyone should use them so as to avoid unnecessary loses of social value.