Hello everyone, I am Anthony. Welcome to my channel. Let’s continue talking today, how to get out of a sense of meaninglessness and depression.

In the previous video, we focused on a sense of depression, a state of total instability. I call it a philosophical depression.

General depression is often caused by specific external events or situation-induced, such as unemployment, breakup, relationship breakdown, illness, huge work pressure, or other blows.

The person is depressed, there are often more specific events. Despite this low mood, it will also spread to other areas, but the starting point is relatively clear.

As long as the situation or event is improved, depression can be greatly improved and relieved. The parties involved may not necessarily understand the meaning of all life, a rational suspicion.

But what we call this philosophical depression, it is not or is not primarily due to a worsening of life or got hit.

On the contrary, to some extent, precisely because the life of the person concerned has become better, that is, after getting rid of the old constraints and pressures, the parties feel I can finally break away from my original value system.

This creates a huge psychological vacuum, raise doubts about the deep meaning of life.

Certainly, people in reality are always complicated. On a specific person, these two types of depression are not mutually exclusive.

Depression in many people, yes, it includes depression caused by specific negative events. It also includes this kind of philosophical depression.

But the latter depression has a core feature: it's not easy for him to pass, solve a specific life problem to relieve.

And this melancholy is accompanied by a great deal of introspection and highly developed rational thinking, showing suspicion of everything in daily life and critical.

For example, I know a civil servant from a local government. He was good at writing when he was young, he was once a famous writer in the unit.

But he also always felt that this kind of writing was very boring. He longs to be a free writer, write whatever you want, inspire readers with your own ideas.

But when he really resigned, when I started to have a lot of free time to read and think, he found that he couldn't write anything.

He first realized writing, it's not as easy as I originally imagined. It's an extremely difficult thing.

He thought he just had to resign. Creativity suppressed by the system, it will be released immediately.

But he found, when he is free, he doesn't want to write anything.

He realized, in the original false writing, too much pain suppressed. These emotions flooded him, let him bear.

Original writing, always within a fixed identity and framework, to play the role of a pen holder.

Now that all these frameworks have been removed, he had to expose himself to his pure self. No one told him what was important, what makes sense.

He must come from within himself to produce a sense of meaning.

But when he tried to open his inner, what we discover are emotions that have not been integrated by consciousness.

These emotions, just like the river water after the ice melts, it came out all at once.

So all the old beliefs and dogmas, the inevitability is lost. All that's left is pure nothingness.

The person involved seems to be in a state of not wanting to do anything, a stagnation, even a state of regression.

It's like an animal shedding its skin. During molting, he was at his most vulnerable, breaking free of his old shell, but there is no new shell to protect itself.

This is actually a common phenomenon of philosophical depression.

The parties involved feel I seem to be becoming more incompetent and confused.

For example, the lady we talked about in the last video, she through her own efforts, get rid of the environment that restricts you, came to a freer country and have more free time to read and think.

So she began to boldly doubt and deny everything that suppressed me before.

For example, traditional marriage concepts, trauma of the original family, misleading and deceptive in Chinese education, ideology and political propaganda, etc.

She had a strong desire to see the course of her own existence.

These reflections are of course very profound. However, but it also made her fall into loneliness, pain and anger.

When she put patriarchy, after the deconstruction of nationalism and authoritarian culture, she felt even more distressed and divided.

She didn't know how to reconcile with this emotion.

In fact, her experience is very similar to Hegel mentioned in "Phenomenology of Spirit", distress consciousness, or the consciousness of misfortune.

Hegel believes, distress consciousness is a necessary stage in spiritual development, Stoicism, a unity of skepticism.

So where does this sense of distress come from? We say, if a person's mind is developing normally, then at a certain stage, he will be eager to know more truth, will try to deconstruct and doubt the ideas we are accustomed to.

As his suspicions grew, he will have a sense of misfortune. This misfortune, it is not an emotion about a specific event. It is a feeling towards the world as a whole.

Phenomenology of Spirit says, this distressed self splits into two consciousnesses, because of this contradiction in its nature, it is contained in a consciousness, so in one consciousness, there must always be another consciousness.

So when each side thinks they have won, when a quiet unity is achieved, so, it is immediately expelled from the unity.

This means that, there is such a contradiction in the unfortunate consciousness: one is the other side, the ideal, transcendental self-awareness; the other is specific, individual, limited self-awareness.

Both are indispensable. The reason why I feel unhappy, it's not just because I am limited, individuals living in contingency and imperfection.

It is because, there is a transcendent self within me. This self is an infinite, pure thinker.

When I criticize the ugliness and inferiority of reality with the concept of equality and freedom, when I examine the inequality and lack of freedom in my reality, I am standing at a transcendental perspective.

If I were completely immersed in the perspective of reality, then I'll just shut up, compromise with reality.

I would use "existence is reasonable", "being content is the greatest happiness" is used to persuade oneself to let go.

However, it is because I have an ideal standard in my heart. I know that according to the concept and logic, this is how it should be, but not at this time, I feel pain and misery.

We often see, many people live in pain, but they are numb. They say life is hard, but this does not mean that there is a sense of misfortune.

They might think, just make a little more money. As long as the baby is born, it will be fine.

This explains, the pain of reality, this does not necessarily lead to a sense of misfortune. The key is to have a transcendental vision.

However, at this stage, this transcendental self, just a subjective thought.

The more rational, complete and profound the individual's philosophy is, the more it highlights the real life of individuals and past history, full of chance.

So subjective and objective, this side and the other side can never reconcile.

The parties live in a state of confusion between reality and themselves, in the hatred of finiteness, including the blind obedience and ignorance of my past self, moments of pettiness, weakness or animality, etc.

These histories seem to be undeniable by the parties involved, so they are regarded as enemies, and we have to think hard to fight these enemies.

The result was that the person involved became even angrier.

This is what Hegel said: "Since this enemy, it was created when he was knocked down. And since this enemy is established by consciousness itself and fixed, therefore, consciousness cannot drive away the enemy. Instead, I always get entangled with the enemy, and saw himself continually defiled by his enemies."

This is a profound split. The sharper and deeper the individual's thinking, in real life, instead, they fell further into incompetence and contraction.

And this feeling of division, it is usually difficult for people around you to understand. Those who have not experienced this path of doubt, or consider it unreasonable, or just feel the person involved is simply depressed and sick. I can't understand the depth of this depression.

It is worth mentioning that, distress consciousness, not only an important stage in Hegel's philosophy, Hegel himself, a true experience in youth.

In 1797, the 27-year-old Hegel moved to Frankfurt. There, Hegel felt more and more, contradictions and oppositions are everywhere, so he experienced the biggest mental crisis of his life.

He fell into a state of hypochondria and self-destruction. Later he recalled that period of his life: “This state of hypochondria, I suffered for several years, almost mentally paralyzed... Everyone in his life, we all have to go through such a turning point. This is a dark contraction point in his nature. He's going to pass this, to reach a safe situation, thus convincing himself...”

So how does one get through this? We say, the key to getting out of this split, neither is it giving up thinking, nor is it merely criticizing reality from the perspective of what should be.

Otherwise, the objective world is still alien to humans. Individuals will still feel unhappy.

The key to reconciliation is, individuals need to be aware, those transcendental ideas are not merely subjective, and it is already contained in objective reality, and it is the result of the natural development of objective reality.

For example, a lady may narrate their life in a passive way. She felt herself been deceived by various wrong ideologies, entered the wrong marriage, a bad workplace environment, and now she, finally I realized all this clearly.

She used these events as the main axis of her life. These are of course objective and true, but it’s not the whole truth.

Because, if I were just a passive recipient, is the torrent of life, and driven by the contingency of fate, so why am I, haven’t you been assimilated by those wrong ideologies?

What events prevented me from being assimilated? And how can he still remain conscious until now?

We need to know, everyone's life experience, there are thousands of fragments, full of multiple stories.

These stories are told through, after being narrated and spoken in a certain order, entered people's consciousness.

At this point they are no longer just passive messages. It provides a new framework for interpreting our experience.

It also determines how we view ourselves and others.

When we follow this line of thought to find, to expand our horizons, you can find some side events and plots that differ from the mainstream narrative.

These events often contain our own unrecognized power, resources, resilience and courage.

For example, we mentioned at the beginning of the video, the man who wanted to write. Although he was very much in favor of his work in his early years, I have no doubts about the system.

However, even at that time, he also procrastinates, resists, and forgets from time to time.

These things seemed to be, it is totally incomprehensible. It's also sick and terrible.

And it gradually destroyed his ability to work.

However, nowadays, but it led him down a path, a more authentic life path.

Even though he, I haven't read any negative opinions about the system, and thought.

For example, that lady, she is in a bad marriage and lonely, did not give up on myself. Still trying to make various attempts, find a way to leave China, get away from it all.

She may not have had a clear understanding of these at the time. Even people around her think that her life is good.

But she just felt something was wrong. With an intuition and inner inspiration, she overcame a lot of resistance. Only later did she reflect on how reasonable it is to leave that bad environment by yourself.

However, this rational cognition lags behind intuition.

For example, a rather depressed high school student, I had good grades. But I accidentally fell in love with a hobby. This caused his grades to get worse.

And everyone around him thought he was addicted.

However, it made him, opened a new social starting point and career path.

This shows that even in the past, in those who are involuntarily, misled, during the time when I was blinded and bound, in the individual's heart, there is still a transcendent self. It is constantly leading itself.

It's just this transcendental self, not necessarily through revelation, suggestive and intuitive approach. It may also be an unconscious resistance, some seemingly self-destructive actions, even some kind of morbid addiction, to present oneself.

As Winnicott believed, when an individual suffers from certain physical or mental illnesses, those symptoms may be my true self expressing itself.

Because this is the first time in my life, for the first time, I felt that I was no longer overwhelmed by the environment, but exist alone in a creative way.

I will never be replaced or ignored by anyone again.

To some extent, these symptoms, they all serve to preserve the individual's true self. It is not subject to social and moral authority, completely unified.

These symptoms, in the past, they were considered alien to each other and wrong. Now the person involved has finally recognized, it is actually the transcendental self.

When individuals discover that whether they are awake or not, all your experiences, intentions and actions, universal and transcendental self, are present at the same time.

People save themselves. Behind those limited moments, there is always an infinite self.

At this time, the parties finally stopped regarding external reality, including the world, others, environment, and chance, completely opposite to oneself.

But understand that: all of this is the unfolding form of self-consciousness.

So, people no longer escape from reality. It's not just about resisting reality.

But finally realized, “reality” is the process of “concept” unfolding in time. I am the bearer of that concept.

So the individual has an absolute confidence, that you will never really get lost, never really lose yourself.

He was sure that it was nothing else. It's him.

He will gain a deep sense of integration between himself and the world.

Even if he encounters setbacks and failures, he will also feel all of this has value in a higher dimensional world.

So we will no longer fall into complete nothingness and doubt.

He will feel that he does everything, all the feelings that arise in my heart have meaning.

At this time, people return to the world again. This is reflected in he is more open and positive in his external behavior. He will begin to care about others and society again.

About this topic, there's a lot more to talk about. Let's discuss it slowly later.

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I will post this video, put it in the list of "Psychology and Education". Also recommend to everyone, check out my other videos in this list.

Thank you for watching, goodbye!