Floating on a sea of sadness

This harm is essentially genocide. Environmental, social and cultural genocide. Across the planet indigenous cultures are dying out, languages are being lost, people are in transition, they are not supported to develop sustainable industries, economies and communities.

In a world without competitive equality, smaller economies, nations and communities are merely collateral damage in the stampede to maximise profits and to expand markets. The necessary relationship between cultural heritage, and the physical environments where they have developed is ignored - as is the cultural and human rights that are trampled on in the process.

The dominant western culture (largely US culture as it is promulgated globally) may have a rich past - but it’s a cultural heritage that very few people understand or value. Humanities are neglected in our tertiary institutions, and what passes for “culture” in the mainstream media is little more than consumer preferences. In this perverse world we all suffer to greater or lesser extents. In the third world it is often, as stated previously, little more than cultural genocide. In the affluent world it is loss of community connectedness, cultural degradation and withering social capital.

As we sit in our energy guzzling homes located in our urban sprawl, with a poisonous meal of fast-food balancing on our ever-expanding waistlines, watching our wide-screen, flat-screen monitors we can - between the “infotainment” and “entertainment” - catch fleeting images of third world misery. A 1,000 dead in Guatemala; 60,000 dead in Pakistan; a quarter of a million in Indonesia ... If these people aren’t all potential Islamic terrorists plotting to sabotage our airplanes, they are like busy ants whose nests are occasionally disrupted. If we’re feeling compassionate we may donate the price of a box of Crispy Crème Donuts to some international relief program, but only once a year … our generosity has been exhausted in 2005. No more international human tragedies please, not until after we’ve paid off the Christmas shopping bill by March next year.

It is barely surprising, given this rather woeful tale of cultural and environmental decline and inconveniently repetitive international tragedies that you, me, us … we all feeling a bit overwhelmed. There are only just so many equivalent boxes of confectionary that we can sacrifice for the greater public good!

As members of a first world economy we are being pulled in all directions: too much information about human misery - we’d rather not know; too much fear of the different - we’d rather exclude them; too many global threats - we’re all helpless to make a difference; too much change required to put our society on a sustainable footing - its too difficult to do … and its all too late anyway. No wonder we are depressed.

This was supposed to be an article about culture and depression. And it is actually meant to be one. We are all humans, together, on this spinning ball of rock suspended in space. We are all so different, so individual, and our uniqueness is informed by culture. Who we are, what makes us “us”, is all formed by our cultural identity. Despite the diversity, there is also the human similarity. Being sentient creatures our sense of well-being, our mental health, our capacity to cope, to grow, to build a better world, are all shared. Living with depression is about living - no matter who we are or where we live.

Seeing the burden of depressive illness at a whole-of-population level, there are forces at work in our world that can be changed so that we can reduce the impact of depression in our lives. These are changes we all can make. Whether it means smiling at a woman you pass in the street who is wearing a hijab, making a careful product selection from a supermarket shelf or doing voluntary community work, our individual actions and choices do make small differences. You never know, it might help one of your neighbours feel less depressed.