You need to stop worrying about whay you should enjoy, and just start appreciating the things you already do.

Dunno, stuck around.

I really think we get caused more pain by our worry than the things we worry about could ever inflict.

I know for certain that I will regret burning the bridges I have over the last year. Maybe it was necessary to get me to the place I am now, and need to be both emotionally and professionally, but I think I'll regret that I wasn't able to just quietly walk away from the painful parts of my life for a very, very long time.

I just finished "The Magician's Land" by Lev Grossman. Absolutely adored it. I've gotta say, I see the problems a lot of critics have with it, but it manages to make me not care about them. You hate the protagonist in the first book, and begin really rooting for him in the second. The whole magic system that's used there is really fascinating to, as is its short meditation on the nature of the divine.

I want to start by thanking you for making this thread. It's not easy to put yourself out there, and you've already sparked some great discussion.

Now, I'm 21, US, have struggled with depression quite a bit, and have spent the last year and a half in a job I absolutely hate in order to pay for school (Just so you can get a sense of where my perspective comes from). Every second has been worth it. See, whenever I get down about the whole "capitalism / money " issue, I always keep two things in mind:

1) Champagne in a penthouse is still drinking alone. 2) Everything will be OK, even if it's not OK, it will be OK.

The first one you seem to have a fantastic grasp on, even if you haven't quite internalized it enough to allow you to stop the envy and all else.

The second is something my mother used to say to me when I was a kid. What she meant by it is that we do, as you say, always find a new "neutral point", but that goes down as well as up. The human mind can get used to anything and everything.

How I deal with capitalism, and the world, is I mostly compartmentalize and ignore it. I've found friends, and it's taken me a while, but I've found friends who don't think in social capital. They'll be there for me when I need them, and I'll be there for them when they need me, but not because of any social capital. We'll be there for each other because we genuinely like and respect each other as human beings. Finding this takes some doing. I've burned a lot of bridges I maybe didn't need to on the way. But, it's all been worth it, because now I can call up friends halfway across the country and they'll pick up. I'd say surrounding yourself with good people is the single most important step to battling whatever darkness you face.

When it comes to money, I've found that I can get a job with enough to pay the bills. I'm left with a modest amount left over after that. I'll put a small bit of it aside to save up for whatever shiny toy I might want, and the rest of it I use to buy experiences. It's not a bad deal at all, if you do it that way. Most of my money goes out to bars, skydiving, pool, things I'll remember. Yeah, maybe it sucks that I have to pay for that things, but at some point you just accept that this is how the world works, and there's been some form of it around since we invented wealth.

Other than that, I've found hobbies. Hobbies I can sustain for free. My biggest one is writing. It costs me the price of notebooks and ink. And I can do it for hours. Finding something you enjoy, you truly love and have a passion for is an incredibly important part of both getting past living in a world ruled by little green pieces of paper, and my depression.

Finally, to address the jealousy, I find that at some point when you have the other things, you just let it go. After a certain point in time, your happiness is an internal action. Not an easy one, mind you, but an internal one nonetheless. When you've got friends, and experiences, and hobbies, you stop feeling the need to keep up with the Johnsons, because his car might be nice, but hey, I got to look at a cool car today, so I've got that. It comes down to spinning things positively, and accepting that what you have is more than enough. It's not easy to do, and there's no shortcut to it, I'm afraid, but it's worth it.

Sorry for the rambling route this took. Thanks for the post, deepflows, it's really made me think about some stuff.

Thank you, Hubski. Thank you for existing. Thank you for being what I've always wanted the internet to be. I joined Reddit a few years ago looking for a community, a place to interact with people I would never otherwise have had the opportunity of interacting with. With a few exceptions strictly related to a few niche hobbies, it has not turned out to be that. However, I've kept up with it because, well, I don't know, to be honest. Conversations quickly devolve into like-minded "yes-manning" or attacks on anyone that dares disagree. It's truly been a disappointment.

Here, things seem different. People seem to want to talk. To discuss. To share. You've all also been so incredibly welcoming of us refugees, that I'm absolutely blown away. In the 21st century, the first site that autofills on your browser may as well be your home address, and I think I've finally found a nicer neighbor. Thanks again.

I don't think it really has. I'm blessed to have plenty of fascinating discussion in my life in general, so the little bit I've tried to have on Reddit hasn't really affected my general ability to talk about things. What I think Reddit has done, is made me wary of attempting that sort of discussion online. Why bother attempting to have a reasoned, well thought-out argument, when you're just going to get flamed into oblivion if you happen to disagree with the "hivemind".

That said, there are places on Reddit that had, and still have, very good discussion. The smaller, fringe boards have always been fantastic for me. The ones that were tightly focused on one hobby or issue and didn't have more than a few thousand subscribers. I think the problem Reddit has, is that for the larger site, it has lost any sense of community.

I think macro and micro dark are one in the same. That's one of the things that I've always liked about Islam, that idea of Greater versus lesser Jihad, but I digress. The inner, singular darkness, when not properly dealt with, and when in a group of people who experience the same shade of darkness, that is how we get war, bigotry, flame wars, and North Dakota.

What is the darkness? It's my wont to say that the darkness is struggle, but that's not quite true. Struggle is good. It is how we get art, how we get poetry, how we get advancement of any kind. In my opinion, the darkness is our fear that the struggle isn't worth it, or that it won't amount to anything.

I think that fear of insignificance is the sparking force behind the great conflagrations of the soul. When we begin to believe it, begin to give in to the darkness, we begin to try to find a way of removing it, convince ourselves that some external thing stands in the way of our struggle, our progress, being meaningful. The tragedies of the world arise when a group of people begin to see other people as that external thing.

As for how we push it back? I think we push it back by forcing significance upon our every endeavor. It's true, Music, poetry and all forms of art push it back. First because they show us that human experience is universal, and that makes it a lot harder to give into, for some reason. When you feel insignificant, you feel isolated, lonely. Seeing that every human being out there has the same feelings and tribulations as you, that makes you feel part of something, part of humanity. Laughter, bonding with friends, does the same thing.

In summation, I think the darkness is the belief that we are insignificant, and nothing we do matters. This is cosmically true (well, as far as we know), but we push it back by narrowing our view. Recognizing that we may be cosmically insignificant, but we can be incredibly significant to those around us.