There is no joy while being down and depressed and/or anhedonic. This is a fact of life. Joy is the incentive to live and to pursue your goals and dreams. Our thoughts alone cannot give us this incentive. For example, if someone falls in love with an anhedonic and/or depressed person, then this anhedonic and/or depressed person would not be able to love his/her soulmate at all.
The term “love” has been defined through science as being a pleasant emotion. The pleasant emotion that urges us to bond with people. If you are experiencing this pleasant emotion, then you are said to be experiencing love. So in that same sense, joy, care, compassion, and happiness are also pleasant emotions as well and can only be pleasant emotions.
Having an incentive in life to live for others or to pursue our goals and dreams always increases heartrate. For example, if someone is experiencing intense love, then that would increase his/her heartrate and such. Same thing applies for joy, care, compassion, and happiness. Therefore, it goes to show you that a depressed and/or anhedonic person cannot have any love, joy, care, compassion, happiness, or any incentive to live and pursue his/her goals and dreams since him/her having the thought of him/her having those things in his/her life does not increase his/her heartrate or anything else of the sort which would of been features and characteristics that would of otherwise been present through his/her pleasant emotional experiences.
So if you can’t love, care, have compassion, or have any incentive to live for someone and for your goals and dreams, then there is just no point in living for anyone and for your goals and dreams. So that is the reason why depressed and/or anhedonic people have no reason for living. That is the reason why being the moral individual who puts his/herself through depression and/or anhedonia for others and such is a useless endeavor.
Living instead solely by the pain/pleasure principle in avoiding pain and misery and living to experience your pleasant emotions is all there is to life and is all there is to being human.
Even a sociopath who derives pleasant emotions from harming others and such would be more human than someone depressed and/or anhedonic who chooses to help others. Because at least the sociopath has the incentive to live in his/her life whereas the depressed and/or anhedonic person does not.
I will say it here again one last time. Having an incentive in our lives always increases heartrate. If you experience the unpleasant emotion known as “fear” from being in a dangerous situation, then that increases heartrate. This is because it is an incentive for you to get out of that dangerous situation. You cannot just have the behavorial responses alone in order for it to classify as having an incentive in your life. You need the physiological response.
Without that, then it is not an incentive to live since your brain is not triggering the physiological response of an increased heartrate and such. So that is the reason why you cannot experience any motivation, inspiration, love, joy, fear, rage, happiness, etc. through your thoughts alone if you struggle with depression and/or anhedonia. You would have no reason to live if you are depressed and/or anhedonic. Since I struggle with depression and anhedonia, then I have no reason to live or to pursue my dream of being a composer.
Therefore, I just can’t possibly think that there really is a moral version of good and bad that gives good and bad meaning to our lives without our pleasant and unpleasant feelings/emotions. Since we have no reason to live without our pleasant feelings/emotions, then it can only be our pleasant feelings/emotions that give good meaning to our lives. So that is the reason why I am really thinking here that there is instead a scientific version of good and bad.
Our pleasant feelings/emotions are the experience of the scientific version of good since they are what allow us to perceive a scientific (non-moral) version of good meaning in our lives while our unpleasant feelings/emotions allow us to perceive a scientific (non-moral) version of bad meaning in our lives.
The incentive to live is habit. This only becomes a problem when you lack the mental strength necessary to endure your conflicting multiplicity of habits.
Joy is only one of the habits. Though we need joy we also need other emotions, such as sadness.
There is no joy in it, only depression, and yet, I like it.
The problem aren’t emotions per se but the difficulty involved in feeling them. Once you learn how to feel your emotions, they become easy, no longer problematic.
Turning against emotions, such as sadness and all other so-called “negative” emotions, is turning against yourself, it is self-destructive. We need to feel them, lest we become dishonest with ourselves.
What we call “strange feelings”, the sort of emotions that give us quite a bit of difficult feeling them, is a multiplicity of feelings we know how to feel individually but are incapable of feeling in combination. This is because they are disjointed, not flowing one into another, but fighting each against the other. The job of the brain should be to endure this fighting, not to interfere with it, until it gathers enough resources to bridge the gaps between the feelings, to fuse them into an organic whole, into a brand new emotion.
If one really can still have good meaning in one’s life despite his/her depression and/or anhedonia, then good. That all works out for these people then. Them having no pleasant emotions and them being all down and depressed is nothing important to them and does not take away any good meaning in their lives.
These people are able to find good meaning since they are still living, still choosing to pursue their goals and dreams, still choosing to focus on and do things in their lives, and are not giving up on life and committing suicide. So that is all fine and dandy for them. How anyone can still find good meaning in their lives living like that is far beyond me though.
But as for people like me, it is drastically the opposite situation. I absolutely need my pleasant emotions in my life. My life and composing dream are an utter waste to me if I don’t have them. Even if I was a composer who had a genius talent and was the next greatest composer who changed the world, even that would be an utter waste to me without my pleasant emotions.
So if I had to live most or my entire life anhedonic or even worse, down and depressed, then there would be no doubt about it. I would end my life right then and there on the spot. Some people would say to me that would be a waste of life for me to end my life since I could of still done great things. But like I said before, to these people it is meaningful for them to live their lives despite their depression and/or anhedonia while it is meaningless (a waste) to me to live my life down and depressed and without my pleasant emotions.
Think about it. Not too many people are fine and nor can they find good meaning in their lives living most or their entire lives depressed and/or anhedonic. Even Robin Williams ended his life and he was the type of person to find meaning in his life despite all his struggles, pain, and misery. So it really goes to show you here that hardly anyone can find good meaning in their lives living most or their entire lives depressed and/or anhedonic.
As a matter of fact, I think it would be a mental disorder for someone to find good meaning in their lives living most or their entire lives depressed and/or anhedonic. It is only natural for us as human beings to live by the pain/pleasure principle. That is, for us to find good meaning in our lives living for our pleasant emotions and avoiding pain and misery. Although we do find good meaning in sacrificing our pleasure to help someone else out and to pursue our goals and dreams, it gets to a certain point where it is a mental disorder as I will now explain below.
Just as how a sociopath would have a mental flaw/disorder for finding good meaning in harming innocent living things and people since that is not how we normally function as human beings, it would also be a mental disorder for us to find good meaning in our lives living most or our entire lives depressed and/or anhedonic. I don’t have that mental disorder and nor would I ever have it. Therefore, you cannot possibly expect me to be fine and live most or my entire life depressed and/or anhedonic.
Just as how an empathetic person cannot possibly see and understand how a sociopath can find good meaning in his/her life torturing innocent people and living animals since this empathetic person does not have the mental flaws and defects that this sociopath has, I am also unable to see and understand how a depressed and/or anhedonic person can find good meaning in his/her life while depressed and/or anhedonic since I am not that type of person either.
Just as how the empathetic person will never find good meaning in his/her life from torturing innocent people and living things, I will never find good meaning in my life being depressed and/or anhedonic. Neither would I be someone who would choose to not commit suicide in the event that I had to live most or my entire life depressed and/or anhedonic. It’s just not who I am. I would choose to save myself from all the meaninglessness and pain/misery of my depression and anhedonic by ending my life. But, of course, I am choosing to live for a possible recovery of my pleasant emotions and nothing more.
This is instead who I am. I am someone who lives solely by the pain and pleasure principle. That is, I live to avoid pain and misery and live to pursue experiencing my pleasant emotions (good moods) from living and being a composer. We have moral people and then we have people such as myself who solely live by the pain/pleasure principle. The moral individual would put his/herself through pain and misery for others and for his/her goals and dreams and would find good meaning in that. He/she would still fully continue to live on while hardly or not being suicidal at all despite his/her agonizing pain and misery.
There is the difference between being in a vibrant, “alive,” joyful, happy, transcendant, etc. mindstate due to your experience of your pleasant emotions (good moods) as opposed to having good meaning in your life. Having good meaning in one’s life is subjective and would even come from living a life of pain and misery in which you are in a hopeless, “dead,” and bland mental state due to your depression and/or anhedonia.
So if that is what they call having good meaning in one’s life, then count me out. It is instead me being in the vibrant and vigorous “alive” mental state of my pleasant emotions (good moods) that gives me every reason to live, carry on in life, and to live for my family and my composing dream. My good moods are my one and only incentives for living and in being a composer. They are the one and only things for finding true good meaning in my life and composing dream. Me just focusing on and living for people and things in my life such as my composing dream is all meaningless to me. I need to actually enjoy doing that in order to give my life good meaning.
Now even Robin Williams who was a highly moral individual who found good meaning in his life towards helping others despite his pain and misery, even he committed suicide due to his depression. Even his depression rendered him perceiving no good meaning in his life which is the reason why he ended his life. So I think it honestly goes to show you here that people who do find good meaning in their lives despite their depression and/or anhedonia have a mental disorder.
Now the only meaningful relationship there is to me in life would be a relationship that I can experience pleasant emotions from. For example, the one and only reason why my family brings my life good meaning would be because I am able to derive pleasant emotions from them. But without my pleasant emotions, then nothing including my own family can bring my life any good meaning.
But then there are those types of people who actually live for others and find good meaning in living for others despite their pain and misery. I am not that type of person at all as I said before. So, let’s pretend that you fell in love with someone in which you derived pleasant emotions from that relationship, then I would view that as you having a meaningful relationship. But the moment where you had to struggle most or your entire life with depression and/or anhedonia is the moment where you should just give up on that relationship and end your life regardless of how much grief you would cause your soulmate.
Therefore, I am just simply the type of person who meets others such as my family and develops a meaningful relationship only based upon my pleasant emotions. But without my pleasant emotions, then that is it for me and that is it for that relationship. It would all end right then and there for me.
Now if, let’s pretend, there were an awesome hardcore villan who obtained high status and power in his/her life and did so many awesome villanish things that got him/her so far in life and he/she ruled and dominated this planet, then would he/she find any good meaning in all of this while down and depressed and/or anhedonic? Would such a villan find good meaning ruling the world while being in such a hopeless and bland mental state? I think not!
This grand moment absolutely calls for him/her to be in a good mood. So in that same sense, if I wish to pursue a great dream in my life and do something great in my life which would be my composing dream, then there is no possible way I would find any good meaning in any of that while being down and depressed and/or having anhedonia. It would all just be a worthless and meaningless endeavor for both me and that villan.
So really, it is only the good moods themselves that are important here in life. They are the only things that make your goals and dreams and other people something important to you (have good meaning to you). Without that, then nothing and no one will matter to you in your life regardless of what you tell yourself otherwise.
Therefore, the one and only life worth living to me would be an eternal blissful life of no more pain, suffering, and misery. If science were to somehow create such an eternal blissful life in the future and resurrect people such as me who have missed out on life, then I could then live and compose the one and only way I wanted to which would be through me being in an eternal good mood.
But if no such life can be created and if there is no eternal blissful afterlife either (which I don’t think there is since I am an atheist), then this one and only life I will ever have was all wasted and meaningless. As long as I have to live my life depressed and/or anhedonic, then it is all a meaningless wasted life to me regardless of how great of a composer I become and regardless of how much I live for and help/inspire others in my life.
So artists, poets and philosophers don’t love, nor get loved? In some cased don’t you think they are loved more? Perhaps there is something in the dynamic of being ‘not the thing’ that love wants, that makes it more desirable. This could be why such affairs are overtly dramatic, passionate while also being majoritively melancholic.
Actually, I think the user Magnus Anderson already addressed and might of refuted my OP. So instead, go ahead and address and talk about the previous post I just made here instead.
People who are capable of enduring pain endure pain in a different way than those who are not. You are of the latter, which is why you consider people who affirm pain to be mentally ill (mental illness is precisely the opposite.)
Optimists fight for the best while being ready for the best. Pessimists do not fight, they merely expect the worst.
I fight for the best while being ready for the worst. (That’s over-simplified: the best and the worst are extremes, one has to be ready for everything in between as well.)
I don’t think that would be referred to as “optimism.” Since our reward system (pleasant emotions) are the only rewarding experiences we can have and since optimism is always a rewarding experience for us as human beings, then optimism can only be our pleasant emotions themselves and not our attitudes alone or anything else. The term “rewarding experience” has been defined through science as only being our reward system (pleasant emotions) and not our thoughts or anything else alone since our reward system is the only function of our brains that can give us a rewarding experience. Therefore, optimism can only be our pleasant feelings/emotions while pessimism can only be our unpleasant feelings/emotions.
Optimism is love, joy, happiness, etc. while pessimism is depression, rage, hate, despair, etc. Therefore, love, joy, and happiness can only be our pleasant feelings/emotions while depression, rage, hate, despair, etc. can only be our unpleasant feelings/emotions. To have good meaning in one’s life is always an optimistic statement which would mean that would have to be a rewarding experience as well. Therefore, our pleasant feelings/emotions are the only things that can give good meaning to our lives. To say that something can be of good value and worth to you even though it is not a rewarding experience for you would be no different than saying that something can be a rewarding experience to you even though it is not a rewarding for you. Therefore, that would be a false (contradictory) statement.
When you set a goal and achieve it, that’s a reward. When you set a goal to endure pain and you endure pain, that’s a reward. It’s not pleasant, but it’s a reward, because it is in alignment with your will.
Why do we fear pain? What do we exactly fear? Do we fear death or do we fear loss of control?
What is loss of control but behavior misaligned with our will?
What is loss of control but drives controlling our will instead of our will controlling our drives?
Isn’t that what we fear more than we fear physical damage?
Joy and happiness are actually feelings, not emotions. An emotion is an urge to act, to commit to motion, to e-mote. Joy and happiness are states of mind/heart which yield a pleasant feeling, but do not necessarily inspire any action.
A bit of a “cart before the horse” there. Heart rate isn’t “always” affected, but when it is, the cause of it is the stimulus trigger (whatever was the reason for feeling good). Depression lacks that reason to feel good and thus lacks the corresponding heart rate reaction.
Well, if your brain has been reduced to that degree.
The Perception of Hope and/or Threat, PHT, is what guides all conscious behavior. When a person cannot perceive hope, they respond only to threat. But when they see no escape from threat, they lose the ability to decide what to do. That state brings on the emotional response called “depression” as the subconscious strives to subdue itself into accepting the truth of its seemingly fatal situation. It strives to get itself to give up. That common response often leads to a complex reaction to commit suicide in the effort to get the bad (the feeling of threat) to go away (perceiving that nothing else would work).
In a true state of anhedonia, neither hopes nor threats can be perceived and thus there is no guide for the conscious mind. On a lower level, the principle still applies and thus the body doesn’t merely die. Life continues as a “Zombie”, with no strong concern in any direction, although usually the perception of boredom or ill health will eventually break through and lead to negative reactions (frustration, depression, shooting sprees,…).