'-25, 2018
News
Page 7
DEPRESSION, from page 5
The liberal government at the time decided to
do this experiment They chose a town,
seemingly at random, called Dauphin, and
they said to everyone in this town, “We are
going to give all of you a guaranteed basic
income from now on.” I think it was the
equivalent of about $17,000 in contemporary
U.S. dollars. This continued for three years,
and there were many results. But to me, the
most interesting one was what happened to
E.G.: You offer seven solutions to depression
people’s mental health. There was a massive
in your book - non-chemical forms of
improvement in people’s mental health.
antidepressants, like the cow that you mentioned
Depression so severe that you had to be
earlier. Whatare some simple changes that a
hospitalized fell by 90 percent. It didn’t
typical person might be able to make in their life
happen in the surrounding areas.
to become a happier Person?
That tells us that one of the things that’s
making people depressed is profound
J.H.: One of the most interesting pieces of
insecurity in how we live. People
research I looked at, done by a
who have income from property
guy called Dr. Brett Fordat
the University of Berkeley,
" U s lw r s a l baste In - a r e 10 times less likely to
develop anxiety disorder than
looked at if you consciously try
e s a e , wStieb F re s l-
people who don’t Part of what’s
to be happier, will you in fact
d e a f O b am a s a id
making us anxious is that aspect
become happier?
c a n id h a p p e n w ith in of the way we live - and it’s an
Dr. Ford and her colleagues
increasing insecurity. There’s a
studied this in four places: in
2 0 ye a rs, Ib a t Is a n
reason why depression
the United States, in Taiwan, in a n tid e p re s s a n t/*
massively spiked up after the
Japan and in Russia. They
JOHANN HARI,
found in the U.S., if you
AUTHOR of "LOST. 2008 crash, because a lot more
people were insecure and having
-CONNECTIONS'«
decided to consciously spend
to work even harder to just keep
more time trying to be happier,
their heads above water. And so
you will not become happier,
universal basic income, which
but in the other three places,
President Obama said could happen within 20
you do. What they discovered is, if you try to
years, that is an antidepressant.
become happier in the U.S., what you do is you
There are biological factors that can make
try to pursue happiness for yourself. You buy
you more sensitive to these social factors. So
stuff for yourself, you try to get a promotion for
your genes, for example, can make you about
yourself, you build up your ego. We have an
35 percent more sensitive to these things
instinctually individualistic view of happiness.
In the other countries, they had an instinctively , than someone who had a different genetic
collective sense of happiness, so if you tried to
They’re just making you more sensitive to
make yourself happier, what you do is you do
these factors in the environment and in your
something for your family. You do something
psychology.
for your community, you do something for
This requires us to really reframe what’s
someone else, not for yourself. And it turns out
going on, because we’ve been told a story that
an individualistic model of happiness just
has really disconnected us from the source of
doesn’t work. If it did, Donald Trump would be
our own pain, and because we haven’t
a very happy person, and he’s an incredibly
understood what’s causing it, the solutions
miserable person, for example.
that we’ve been using haven’t worked very
A Collective vision of happiness, by contrast,
well.
does work.
emily@streetroots.org; Twitter @greenwrites
Another thing would be based on the
experiment happening in Canada in the ’70s.
pushing us to live in an extrinsic way, to not
do things because we think they’re valuable,
but to do things in order to buy something ’
else, in order to show something off, in order
to look impressive on social media M just like
junk food has hijacked our diet and made us
physically sick, junk values have hijacked our
minds, and made us mentally sick. |
pe
«
■
■
Poetry
Is raw edged real
Pain
Needing words
To heal
And ecstasy
Set loose
To set
The seeds loose
To bloom
So when you read mine
Remember
T eam ed
It all
To set those tones
Sepia or bright and beautiful
Those pictures
Ya they’re all mine
And therefore
Save your
Preconceived notions
For those whose
Pictures better match
Your expectations
And leave your
Judgement and hypocrisy
For those who revel in it
As for me
I show them to you
Not because I like your sight of them
But because
Like breadcrumbs
Theysnow
What trails not to take
Every single
Bit of
bad and good
W
■
t I
r C i*
IO
It was ‘bout rough edges
' Sanded by soft
And
The impossible
Meeting the highly implausible
I earned
The right
to use the words s
I use to paint with
MMMI1
111
W
i f e y
■
-A * „ „
wf
* -
Poetry was never
Bout
Roses being red
Or violets being blue
The tears and the deep belly laughter
And I carry the scars as proof
Of the profit of where I been
WEDNESDAYS 2-7PM
FOOD CO-OP
I
S
In the end
The sensations
You left on this skin
Are
what caused
those words
To scar the page
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