This post seems to be the definition of depression......I have never had any of those thoughts.....I get up in the morning and think,,,,what should I make for breakfast, then what should I do in the house or what should I plant in the garden (which needs a lot of attention) and so on,,,what book should I read now, what music is on the radio,,,,,etc. Of course, there are the days when my grandchildren come to take me to cardiac rehab, but other than that I get to do whatever interests me at the moment,,,,,life is good and I'm enjoying it a lot.

I believe it's a combination of high expectations and a culture that squashes real human feeling and connection. Impossible to live up to ideals of perfection, and believing that who we are as beautifully flawed human beings isn't enough.

My thoughts? - Warning looooong post, no compulsion to read it.

These are not problems of the individual, but problems of society. We worry about the treatment of animals, as we should. We promote free ranging of chickens for example. Yet we are continually standardising the whole of human life. (Pete Seeger "Little Boxes" )

Back in the early 90s we had the Brundtland Commission, (World Commission on Environment and Development - Our Common Future). I made a short (6 page) submission to our Secretariat which focussed on economic issues such as tax and welfare. Sadly this was made subject to Parliamentary Priveledge and embargoed for 25 years. Up until 2 years ago I was not permitted to publish any part of it and of course it is now completely useless. Others made submissions with similar content and thankfully many suggestions have been implemented, more so outside Australia but some within. In addition to the advice re not publishing, I was inundated with volumes of reports to respond to, from other countries as well. They were bland and uninspiring almost without exception. Though originally unintended, my submission suggested that we would face dramatic social problems and I tried to spell out why.

The following are some of the non financial comments extracted from that paper:

If man sets his hopes solely on changes in his social and economic environment, however indispensable these may be, he will only partially solve the problem of individual alienation.
Within society an individual needs to be treated and to see himself as a means to an end and also as an end in his own right. Just as individuals satisfy needs of society, society must satisfy the needs of the individual. It is when the norms and institutions cease to satisfy the individuals identity needs that he feels alienated and is convinced that the institutions are imposed on him.

Creativity is essential for society as a whole, a society whose maturity consists simply of acquiring more firmly established ways of doing things is headed for the graveyard even if it learns to do these things with greater and greater skill.
It is possible to have decent wages, live in new houses full of consumer goods but still be impoverished, if one is deprived in their work the chance to create something of their own, to exert their own personal influence, to give the world testimony of their own existence.

The spirit of industrialism is rapidly losing its' grip. The doctrine of material growth has signally failed to provide people with any lasting ideals or values. The social order is expending all its' creative energy on just maintaining the status quo.
When personal alienation feeds on ecological breakdown then all we have to look forward to is a veritable technocracy of ruins.

We are now an overpopulated and overconsuming society that is pressing the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem. Political parties invariably, if understandably, have difficulty in adapting themselves to conditions other than those which gave them birth. By clinging with growing desperation to the industrial paradigm, by supposing that the politics of plenty is still the only way to achieve progress, they condemn both themselves and us.

There is no connection between increased living standards (beyond sufficiency) and happiness/contentment. There can be no doubt that material living standards in Australia have increased since 1960. However consider the rate of murder and other violent crime, the increase in drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. It would appear that we live in a less happy society in 1991 than in 1960. It is difficult to draw a line between sufficiency and extravagance, however it is certain that in Australia we are dying of the stresses of abundance rather than the stresses of scarcity.

To change direction economics requires normative forecasting which uses insights gained to establish desirable goals and attempt to bridge the gap between the desirable and the possible.
What needs to be included in economics is a different concept of efficiency, one that goes beyond monetary indicators to take into account aspects such as sustainability of processes and resources and the satisfaction of human needs. The more a system allows for the satisfaction of these needs, the more efficient it will be; and the more sustainable a process is in terms of human and natural resources, the more efficient it will be, even in monetary terms.

Sad more people are not getting help they need.

The human mind is also our worst enemy too. my fish doesn't think about death at all, I'm quite sure about that.

Do you as an individual somehow feel responsible for this? I'm not sure what kind of response you're going to get here.

Welcome to life on planet earth.