When Faced With Depression, Choose Freedom Instead

How embracing the concept of Freedom can bring hope and gratitude back into your life

In my last post I offered a technique for dealing with anxiety, and in this one I'd like to give people a tool for dealing with depression. I've been writing these posts because I've noticed that a great number of people are suffering from unhappiness and grappling with existential issues, and I'd like to help if I can. How am I qualified? Well, first of all, I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, and given the failures of those disciplines I am at least not tainted by association with them. Additionally, I've faced plenty of adversity in life and still do, but I manage to stay happy and feel that my life is both purposeful and enjoyable. This follows eight years of fairly dedicated study of philosophy, with an emphasis on subjectivity and the various, multitudinous offshoots of Pythagorean thought. Although it took me a while, I eventually came to a pretty good understanding of what I take to be the psychological basis of a happy life. Part of that happy life includes service to others, so I offer this humble advice in that spirit.

Despite new drugs and an entire industry devoted to mental health, depression afflicts more people than ever today. Wealth and technological progress have not made us any happier, and in some cases seem to have contributed to the problem. As of 2023 well over a third of women and slightly over a fifth of men had been diagnosed with depression at some point, with the overall rate having risen over 8 percent in only six years. Although the COVID debacle created a spike in depression diagnoses, the trend was rising before the pandemic, and has continued to rise in its aftermath.

Antidepressants were considered a breakthrough when first put to use, but they obviously haven't worked, and their side-effects have turned out to be a lot more severe than initially thought.

Another, more promising technique in dealing with depression is "mindfulness," which doesn't involve drugs at all, but rather training in self-awareness. Sadly, lack of self-awareness is a common feature of our culture, and this basic skill that should be developed in childhood often must be taught to adults who, because of our culture's emphasis on self-gratification over awareness, never learned it. Mindfulness is an important - even crucial - skill, but it doesn't address the root cause of the anomie driving the increase in depression.

Mindfulness works because it snaps people out of a reactive state of mind in which they have no sense of agency. As a tool of intervention it is very useful, but it isn't a substitute for an overall worldview that provides a sense of agency. When we see the world as a purposeless chain of events it's almost impossible to escape the conclusion that we are powerless victims at the mercy of fate. In such a world the only reasonable response is Stoicism, which teaches its adherents to exercise emotional resignation to fate so as to be less affected by the inevitable wounds and disappointments.

The Stoics firmly believed in a deterministic world, taking it to the logical conclusion that what we experience is just another round of an eternal recurrence. Freedom is merely an illusion in this sort of world; nothing happens that has not been fated. There is perfect symmetry of time, and all runs on an algorithmic loop.

Fortunately, we now know that this is not the case. At its most fundamental level the universe is non-deterministic and time runs in one direction. However, the Enlightenment "clockwork" mechanistic view of the world still has a great number of adherents and is dominant among certain factions of the academic elite. It is more convenient for those with a "scientific" philosophy to adhere to such a worldview, and even those who admit that determinism does not explain everything make efforts to reintroduce it as "close enough" or "with exceptions." Through their influence it has spread throughout our society to such an extent that even ordinary people who would otherwise know better have come to internalize this belief.

For most people a belief that fate determines everything naturally leads to the conclusion that they have no agency whatsoever and that freedom simply doesn't exist. This has profound implications for mental health, and it explains a great deal of the increase in depression we have seen over the last few decades.

Freedom is necessary for two of the most important components of happiness: hope and gratitude. If freedom doesn't exist, neither make any sense, because hope looks toward what lies ahead while gratitude pertains to what has come before, and if both were pre-determined there's no reason to look either forward or back with any positive emotion. Life without hope and gratitude is drained of color and purpose. What is the point of getting on with things when there's nothing to look forward to or be thankful for? Becoming depressed - or a passionless Stoic - is the logical response to such a state of affairs.

A belief in the existence of freedom is an important part of what protects the religious from suffering from depression as much as the non-religious. Even if God has far more agency than humans, He is proof that freedom exists in this world, some portion of which must accrue to mere mortals as well, giving us reason to have hope and gratitude (in fact, Christians are commanded to have both).

But one need not start with religion. Merely rejecting the premise that all is pre-determined is the most important first step. When people recognize the fact that they can make a difference, this is the seed of hope. When they then realize that others can do so as well, gratitude is planted in their hearts.

How does one internalize this worldview? I think it's quite simple: apply mindfulness to the very act of choice and its results. Cultivate an awareness of your choices as you make them and take note of their effects. If you choose to clean your room, then do so and look at the clean room with the clear understanding that the clean room is the result of your free choice. Practice this until you have internalized the fact that you have a share of freedom in this world, and the very idea that you might not seems absurd (which it is).

Once you have brought yourself around to a healthier understanding of reality, indulge in a little hopefulness. Take a moment to be grateful for something. This will warm your heart and chase away black moods. Life will inevitably throw curveballs at you, and sometimes painful challenges, but in one way or another you will always be able to make choices, act on them, and influence the world.

Ultimately, if you embrace your freedom you'll come to see that depression itself is a choice.