“Depression” has morphed into a status symbol.
People cry depression because it’s a convenient excuse not to be special.
It also makes people feel special.
Now, before everyone flames me, I’ll clarify:
- PTSD is real.
- Clinical depression is real.
- Post-natal depression is real.
- Schizophrenia, anxiety, bipolar are real.
- Suicidal thoughts are to be taken seriously.
Your undiagnosed depression is most likely a product of:
- consumption of toxic social media and news sites
- brainwashing from Western ideologies
- buying into a victimhood narrative
- sedentary lifestyle and poor diet
- no mission in life.
I was pressured to go on amitriptyline for “depression” as a teenager (the drug that killed Nick Drake).
I had insomnia and growing pains and anxiety.
I was going to a shit school where kids would stab each other every day.
Doctors said I was depressed.
They refused to indulge my speculation that melatonin might help my insomnia.
They never once recommended an exercise program or talked about my diet or discussed how I could quit smoking or gave me the anti-drug talk.
They simply dispensed the side-effect-laden pills like candy.
A few years later, doing finals at Oxford, all my friends had dropped out, and I was stressing my balls off.
Again, different doctor, same story.
“You’re depressed. Here’s some Prozac. Bye!”
The pills actually made me depressed.
I wasn’t depressed before (just “blue”).
I was understandably stressed and anxious, and while my temperament does make me more likely to being “blue” now and then, I wasn’t and am not clinically depressed.
“Are you having suicidal thoughts?” They asked.
I said yes.
But, let’s be real:
Who hasn’t?
Anyone who says they’ve not once thought of suicide is either a liar or has not had a normal amount of pressure from shitty old life.
I’ve lost a few friends to suicide.
No one knew they were depressed.
They didn’t talk about it on social media. They hid it so well that it really came as a shock.
We need a society that has figured out a way to give support to those legitimately suffering from mental health issues.
We need to stop fetishising depression to the point where every angsty teen thinks they’re cool and special for “having” this “disease”.
And we need a society that instils an empowered narrative in our young minds (not a victim narrative like that awful Joker movie), one that results in mission and drive, rather than victimhood narratives and excuse-making.
It’s normal to be sad and blue.
It’s normal to think your life is shit for a few months.
Deep sadness should be celebrated as a warning sign that you might need to do something positive.
Happiness is not the goal in life.
And if more people realised that, and aimed after meaning rather than happiness and pleasure, then perhaps more people would be able to weather the perfectly normal spells of life in which they feel “depressed”.
Rather than happiness, seek virtue.
How?
You could start by following Aristotle’s virtue program.
It will make you more proud, ambitious, courageous, truthful, friendly, generous, magnificent – all qualities that are in short supply in society today.
Seek pain and struggle.
Read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
Listen to my podcast on that book.
I’m talking about male depression here.
Yes, there’s a difference between male and female depression.
Our bodies are different and the reason we get depressed is different.
I’ll cover female depression and how to combat it if there’s demand (after all the majority of my readership is female, and a quarter of American women are on antidepressants).
But I’m a guy, so I’m speaking for me and I’m speaking from the heart.
First, stop saying you’re “depressed”.
The more you name something, the more you fatalistically damn it.
You might be feeling a bit low or crummy or blue. Maybe you’ve got some malaise. But knock off that depression bullshit.
Once you’ve done that, get this mantra into your mind:
Mission, passion, action.
Mission sends malaise into remission.
This is most guys:
- plays video games hours on end
- smokes bowls of weed every night
- doesn’t lift weights, run, or play any sports
- orders pizza and fast food instead of cooking
- talks about starting a business but never does
- drinks alcohol and then complains about being hungover
- swipes on Tinder, settles for a low-grade “lady” or their hand
- can’t even get it up when they occasionally “get lucky” because their test is so low
This is also most guys:
- “I’m depressed.”
- “Misery loves company.”
- “Women are such sluts.”
- “It’s Friday! I wanna get fucked up.”
- “Monday’s suck. Can’t wait to smoke weed.”
- “Racist Donald Trump is the cause of society’s bullshit.”
- “I’d start a side business but the economy’s not good right now. Thanks, Obama.”
When are you going to get serious about your life?
No one’s coming to help you.
It’s all down to you.
And it’s now or never.
You need a mission, something you’re passionate about, something that gets you fired up and gets you out of bed in the morning, and then you need to take strong consistent action on it.
Smoking weed, playing video games, and whacking off to internet pornography is not a decent mission.
Can you imagine if Teddy Roosevelt could see you now?
Or your grandfather? The one who worked to put food on his family’s table during the Depression and kicked butt in the war?
They’d be ashamed.
6 million years of your ancestors successfully passing their genes on and avoiding plague, floods, poverty, war, and you moan about “being depressed” whilst “hitting up bitches for Netflix-n-chill”.
Everyone’s mission is different.
It’s not for me to say what your mission is.
You already know your mission if you’re honest and examine the depths of your soul.
Mission will immediately cut out 80% of your “depression”.
But you might still have lingering brain-fog, irritability, and low energy that you mistake for depression, which is caused by a harmful environment – harmful mentally and physically.
Let’s take care of the physical first.
Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor and this isn’t medical advice.
You owe the following each and every week without argument:
- 3-4 strength/weight-training sessions minimum (compound lifts, progressive overload)
- 2-3 cardiovascular sessions minimum, outside in nature
- Deep breathing meditation every single day
- Ice therapy every single day
Also stop the following:
- consistent recreational drug use (weed only an exception if it’s a performance enhancer)
- ordering takeout/eating junk more than once a week
- smoking cigarettes (here’s how I quit smoking)
Then add in this to your lifestyle:
- healthy fats in the form of nuts and fish oil
- vitamin D in the morning, magnesium before bed
- stop eating/drinking from plastic containers
- stop keeping your mobile phone next to your nads
- use an SAD lamp in the morning if you’re in the northern hemisphere
Now, lifestyle factors.
Again, talking to men here.
Stop hating your sex.
We need masculinity now more than ever.
We need femininity too.
What we don’t need is this weird super-woke marxist family-destroying fake-liberal view of men and women.
Cut anyone that uses the term “toxic masculinity” out of your life.
Western media and culture is all about guilting and shaming men for their gender.
Men as a collective can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but we also have gifts to give to the world and you’ll never tap into that if you go around hating your gender.
Never apologise for being a man.
But don’t buy into the “men’s rights activism” bullshit either.
That’s just a thin guise for woman-hating.
Be a human being.
Next, moderate your media consumption.
Read Amusing Ourselves to Death and Deep Work, and heed their warnings and take their advice.
Stop spending so much time hate-reading clickbait websites and leave rage-inducing social media sites if you’re not using them to make money.
TikTok and Instagram are for narcissistic children.
Just like with your diet:
Input = output.
Feed yourself intellectual vegetables.
Read the old books.
They’ll make the world today make all the more sense.
If you want recommendations, sign up for my newsletter.
And those are the main pieces to solving the male depression puzzle.
- Follow your mission.
- Exercise like a man.
- Embrace masculinity.
- Read nourishing books.