Fighting depression and anxiety disorders is a full time job that requires full time commitment. No one ever gets better without putting tremendous effort into the struggle..
There are no accidental healings.
The answers are not easy but they never come until the questions are asked.
Here is a hard, basic question that goes to the heart of getting better--why is this illness so much more prevalent in modern society than in agricultural cultures?
I have no doubt that we are genetically predisposed to farming and animal husbandry. It is a simple evolutionary fact. Those who were drawn to farming survived at much higher rates than hunter/gatherers.They produced more off spring and came to dominate the genetic pool
There is also the suggestion that microbes in soil may be necessary for a human brain to function correctly. If so, there is a direct link between the soil and happiness.
The Darkness rarely leaves on its own accord. It thrives in seclusion and blossoms in inactivity.
But the Darkness can't live forever when it is forced to enter a shadow. Getting outside, getting in the sunlight, getting into situations where one is constantly able to see one's shadow is toxic to the Darkness.
And one sees one's shadow in a horse lot. One sees one's shadow in a pig pen. One sees one's shadow in a poultry yard. And one sees one's shadow in a goat pasture.
But there is no shadow in a darkened room. There is no shadow in a bedroom with tightly drawn shades. A bottle of liquor does not generate the light needed to create a shadow.
There are no shadows in coffins.
Plant a tree. Pick a fruit. Feed a pig. Gather an egg. Slaughter a goat.---get your hands dirty.
And fight the Darkness.
This could very well be the most important thing ever said in this blog.
ReplyDeleteWe have become divorced from the land in the years since 1945. That is the year the grocery store first appeared and began the steady slide away from our food.
What Steve says about gettig dirty and being involved in husbandry is spot on correct, but I want to extemd that line of thought on into the food chain. Whether hunter gatherer or farmer, humans were intimately bound up in the pursuit and production of food. If you did not grow it, find it or kill it, you starved. End of story. Now, we slave for someone else, and buy alleged food packaged in the most wasteful ways possible.. most people have zero clue where their food came from. That tomato you eat in january... trabeled at least 2500 miles to join you for dinner.. that is just stupid.. and if you realize how much oil it took to bring it to you, you would never eat another winter tomato.
If you eat pretty much anything that you have either raised amd processed yourself, or had a hand in bringing to the table... you will certainly achieve a level. of contentedness not possible in any other way.. When you eat pastured chicken that tastes like meat instead of like tofu... when you eat an egg from that pastured chicken you will taste the difference between what big ag shoves down your throat and holds over your head... and you will know contented goodness. When you take responsibility for the life of the animal you eat... you cherish the life it lived, you cherish the animal's place in the chain of life... and you are at that point more human than any other point in time. It is less likely for a human to be depressed when he is scratching up his next meal and when he knows it will be good..
There is no more abject slavery than when a human is divorced from nature.. no more abject a slave than he who depends on giant faceless corporations and hordes of parasitic middle men leeching the life out of humanity by standing between it amd its food supply. No wonder we are depressed... no wonder we are going crazy in droves... no wonder our kids are asthmatic and allergic to everythimg that exists. Go eat some dirt already.
One of the seemingly innocuous things I have ever done, yet the most satisfying and peotically eloquent and memorable... I had a little red hen once who fthough the table outside my back door was a good place to lay her eggs... one morning I literally reached out the back door and picked up the egg she laid turned around and walked three feet and cracked that egg into a skillet for my breakfast... I have had some fine meals... but never one more satisfying. It is hard to be too depressed when you can live like that. - Lloyd
One of my best meals was with my Uncle and Aunt in Nova Scotia. It was corn on the cob straight from the field. My Aunt was so embarrassed, but to this day we still talk about that meal so many years ago...God knew what he was doin..don't think we can make life better than He planned it!
ReplyDeleteAnother good article Steve. Thank you.
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