Why can't depressioncucks just choose to be happy?

Why can't the diabetic just regulate their blood sugar? Look, I'm doing it right now. It's not that bloody hard.

Carrot and stick

>>36809484
Why can't you choose to grow a 12-inch penis?

If you could just "choose to be happy" then what would be the point in DOING anything?

"Oh, no need for me to get an education. I can just choose to be happy in ignorance"

"Oh, no need to treat this infection that is slowly destroying my leg. I'm just going to choose to be happy, and when my leg has to be amputated, I'm just going to choose to be happy minus a leg!"

"Oh, I should be productive and contribute to society? Why? Society doesn't need my help. They can all just choose to be happy!"

It's a stupid fucking idea. Happiness isn't a choice and if it were that would defeat the purpose. The pursuit of happiness is what drives human action. If it were just a matter of "choosing to be happy" then our actual endeavors would be meaningless.

>>36809484
Just played New Vegas and convinced a druggie that support from his friends would cure his withdrawal symptoms more than withdrawal medicine would.

Would the same thing work with depression? Do we juat need supportive friends?

>>36809654

Having supportive friends is a necessary part of human existence for the vast majority of people.

Humans are a cooperative and social animal.

Unfortunately modern society is very alienating and stresses strife and competition over cooperation.

The artificially-engineered scarcity we're living under contributes to that too.

I guess you're trolling but at the same time, I wonder the same thing.

I have a brother who's depressed. And when I look at his life and compare it to mine, I see some crossroads where we've both been down.

He, for lack of a better word, chose to focus on the negative feelings and spiral further.

Me, I would say "fuck it I need distractions", and I'd go hiking, or travel somewhere, or ring up a friend and hang out and shoot the shit.

I've looked at my kitchen knives and contemplated slitting my wrists in the bathtub. Then I say "this is not right" and go for a walk, looking at nature etc.

My brother is so far gone that nothing cheers him up anymore. Now he can't choose to be happy anymore. But what would you expect, after 7 years of always taking wrong turns?

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>>36809521
>>36809561
Happiness is a subjective mental state you can control, unlike your automatic body functions

>>36809577
>If you could just "choose to be happy" then what would be the point in DOING anything?
Happy people actual do things because they are happy, its the depressioncucks who figure whats the point of doing anything because life just feels so sad all the time it doesn't matter.
>>36809577
>I'm happy, therefore I'm going to learn about and master things I am interested in

>I'm happy, therefore I take care of my body

>I'm happy, therefore I do what makes me happy no matter what other people think of me

Happiness is a choice, what a cucked mindset it must be to require some kind of validation, to gain permission just to allow yourself to feel happy. And to think that you need to pursue happiness instead of becoming it.

>>36809654
I have friends, we talk and laugh and i vent about my problems and we talk about it.
Doesnt change the fact that when I am home alone I feel so tired and down that I can barely move

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>>36809680
>supportive friends
Sounds like a nice idea. but I really don't want to deal with other peoples' problems or bother other people with mine. Humans have evolved as social animals, but we live in an alienated world where we are dependent on the state and have nary a reason to associate with one another. In an emergency survival scenario I don't doubt that I'd be able to form a group to work together similar to how we lived in primitive tribes, but in the sterile globalist society of present day, I really don't have anything to talk about with people and nothing I do alone is more fun with other people, except, ideally, intimacy with females obviously.

My secret: Be comfortable both completely solitary and in any social situation, be able to have a strong masculine energy if you're with women, and a strong feminine energy to feel complete and balanced when you can't have access to them.

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>>36809798

>Happiness is a subjective mental state you can control, unlike your automatic body functions

You're implying that the "you" is somehow not the product of body functions, such as the releases and reuptakes of neurotransmitters occurring in your brain, which is part of how your thoughts are generated and a big part of how your body moves.

Whether you're realizing it or not, you're arguing in favor of metaphysical dualism and the idea that consciousness is not influenced by physical factors. No known action mechanism supports this as an actual way the mind or body work and there is also an incredible amount of empirical evidence against it. As pic related argued way back in the 17th century, if the mind is somehow non-physical, how could it possibly react with physical matter?

>Happy people actual do things because they are happy

They do those things either because they want to get even happier, or they're afraid (consciously or unconsciously) about losing their happiness, so they make efforts to preserve the happy state.

>I'm happy, therefore I'm going to learn about and master things I am interested in

Why would you set out to learn about those things, unless you either weren't happy and felt that mastering those things would make you happy, you were happy but felt that mastering those things would make you happier, or you were happy but felt those things would preserve your happiness from loss?

>I'm happy, therefore I take care of my body

Same idea as above. If you don't take care of your body, consciously or subconsciously, you know that it will lead to future unhappiness. So you feel like you need to take care of it to preserve your happy state.

It's simple reality. Happiness is determined by chemical and physical reactions occurring in the body. You cannot "choose to be happy" if your neurotransmitter levels are so off that they make you feel sad.

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>>36809901

>He's not a metaphysical dualist

Promissory materialism is the worst

>>36809484
It comes down to either bad material/social circumstances or some sort of biological error.

>>36809860
>we talk and laugh and i vent about my problems and we talk about it.
See, I know that from reading books about socializing this is an important part of friendship bonding, showing vulnerability, emotional disclosure and interdependency, but as I said in my previous post, I just don't feel comfortable with the idea of a friend thinking he can nag me about everything that's bothering him, and I would feel like a burden talking to friends about personal problems. Maybe its just because I never experience any real depth of human relationships my whole life. How does that even happen if not borne of survival cooperation necessity.

>>36809901

And, conversely, you can't "choose to be sad" if your nervous system is arranged in such a way that produces happiness.

No more than you can will yourself lucid in the grips of a psychotic breakdown, or will yourself sober if you're too drunk. Can't do it. Body doesn't work that way.

>>36809916

Hell, man, even IF dualism is true, how would that make happiness a choice?

It really just adds another layer to it matter.

You1 (the metaphysical "you" that controls You2, the physical you) can just "choose to be happy" by interfering with physics and re-wiring You2's brain to produce happiness.

But why would You1 do that, if You1 were completely happy with You2's unhappy state?

You1 would first have to be dissatisfied with the state of affairs. If happiness and unhappiness are choices for You1, then You1 would have to choose to be unhappy (or at least not happy enough, or concerned about losing the happiness) with You2's situation.

But why would You1 do that? Why wouldn't You1 just choose to be happy, while You2 is miserable?

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>>36809901
>"you" is somehow not the product of body functions, such as the releases and reuptakes of neurotransmitters occurring in your brain, which is part of how your thoughts are generated and a big part of how your body moves.>>36809901
>metaphysical dualism and the idea that consciousness is not influenced by physical factors.

Its a feedback loop, and you have plenty of control merely by choosing to think positive thoughts, feel positive feelings, have a positive attitute, etc. And there are also many body hacks (that don't involve drugs) that you can use to quickly enter a blissful state. Long deep breathing and super fast paced music for example. Point being that you can train your bodymind to be a happy person.

By the rest of your post it sounds like you're just deliberately being an obtuse pessimist downer party pooper. Ptttttttttt

>>36809973

Miserable is a property of minds, not brains. It doesn't make sense to say "You2" is miserable. Plus, I don't believe the mind has absolute control over all faculties, just some of them. The mind and brain work together as a total. Each working together to produce a whole person.

>>36810007

>Plus, I don't believe the mind has absolute control over all faculties, just some of them.

But the characteristics of the mind itself are contingent upon physical factors. Your ability to think rationally, as opposed to being very delusional, is contingent upon the levels of neurotransmitters in your brain.

The neurotransmitters themselves are instrumental in shaping your consciousness.

>you have plenty of control merely by choosing to think positive thoughts, feel positive feelings, have a positive attitute, etc.

You seem to be implying that we choose our thoughts. How is this possible?

>By the rest of your post it sounds like you're just deliberately being an obtuse pessimist downer party pooper. Ptttttttttt

I just think you're wrong and I feel compelled to try to prove that to you, because I think your outlook in addition to being mistaken leads to horrible consequences for society.

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>>36809927
>you can't "choose to be sad" if your nervous system is arranged in such a way that produces happiness.
Yes you can, but why would anyone want to? I remember in my college psychology textbook there was an exercise where you put your body in certain positions, and it automatically makes you feel sad or happy. There's the also commonly referenced pencil experiment: Hold a pencil in your lips and you feel said because you are frowning, hold it with your teeth and you feel happy because you are smiling. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/isnt-what-i-expected/201207/try-some-smile-therapy

And this is actually a ridiculously sumple way to effect the feedback loop, literally just make your face into a smile, smile like a grinning idiot, creepy lunatic, excited rapist or whatever, just hold the wide smile for 5 minutes and you will start to feel happy automatically and then probably continue smiling normally after you stop holding it.

>>36810063

>I remember in my college psychology textbook there was an exercise where you put your body in certain positions, and it automatically makes you feel sad or happy.

You mean it MAKES you feel sad or happy, or it gives you the option to CHOOSE to be sad or happy?

Just look at what you're saying here. "Makes" you happy. "Makes" you sad.

>>36810062

>the characteristics of the mind itself are contingent upon physical factors.

Changes in the physical lead to changes in the mental, but it does not follow that the physical and the mental are identical. Changes in mental intentions can lead to changes in physical properties.

>You seem to be implying that we choose our thoughts. How is this possible?
I'm not interested in debating "free will", that merry-go-round can circle.

The rest of your post is garbage. if you're interested in proving the Dualists wrong, go ahead. Materialists have been trying to crack that nut for years. All failed.

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>>36810079
Yeah, choosing to do things that make you feel certain ways is still a choice

Just don't be yourself

>>36810091

>Changes in the physical lead to changes in the mental, but it does not follow that the physical and the mental are identical. Changes in mental intentions can lead to changes in physical properties.

But the changes in mental intentions themselves are the product of physical phenomena.

If you had too much dopamine in your motor circuits, you would intend to move around, and if you were prevented from moving, you would feel very sick. This is why people in manic episodes sometimes move violently.

They're not "choosing" to feel this compulsion to move. It's a product of physical and chemical reactions.

I would be really interested in someone who attained a supposedly great degree of "self-mastery" keeping still while experiencing a toxic nerotransmitter reaction. I don't think it's possible and realistically speaking such an experiment would be ethically questionable.

>>36810106

>Yeah, choosing to do things that make you feel certain ways is still a choice

But why go through the middle-man?

If happiness is a choice, then why not just choose to be happy directly?

>>36810130

Ehhh, poor analogy. A disconnect between the medium of cause and effect does not mean the relation doesn't exist. My keyboard "causes" the letters to appear on my screen. If I cut the cable, it stops producing this effect. But I wouldn't argue that because this relation can be severed, it never existed.

Plus, I already answered this. The mind does not control everything. It controls some, not all. The brain and mind interact with one another. Look, even if you dispose of interactionism. The Dualist could still claim victory with Epiphenomenlism or some sort of parallelism.

>>36810197

>A disconnect between the medium of cause and effect does not mean the relation doesn't exist. My keyboard "causes" the letters to appear on my screen. If I cut the cable, it stops producing this effect. But I wouldn't argue that because this relation can be severed, it never existed.

Cutting a cable is a verifiable thing. We can see the cable get cut, and this is how we can understand that the relationship between the keyboard and computer has been severed.

How can you say when the mind has been severed from the brain? Unless you're talking about death or brain death, it seems there would be absolutely no way of determining whether that had happened.

Even people experiencing toxic neurotransmitter reactions still have minds and many such reactions don't produce unconsciousness. If you've ever seen someone in a manic episode jerking around violently, they're very conscious of this. They often want to stop mentally, but find themselves unable to do so because the consequence of trying is painful.

This is caused by abnormal neurotransmitter levels. But there is no "optimum level" of any given neurotransmitter for any given situation. There is a wide spectrum of variation and it's only considered abnormal in situations when it causes visible or otherwise perceptible abnormal behavior that is distressing.

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>>36810272

We're going in circles here, so I'll just say I have not yet been convinced. Agree to disagree.

Such a troll thread. Here's a reply

>>36809484
I've always wondered this, whenever I'm depressed or upset I always realize this is gay and snap myself out of it. At this point I can't even fathom genuine depression, and I have a pretty shitty worthless life

>>36809484
Yeah man, just be happy.
Just be yourself :^)

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>>36809484
I do.
But I get weak moments, when I'm tired but can't sleep, for example, where my emotions kinda just really surface
And boy, do i get depressed then. If it happens to me a few more times, I'm going to gain courage to end it.
But on the daily life I'm happy.

>>36809901
>if the mind is somehow non-physical, how could it possibly react with physical matter?
If the coder is somehow non-code, how could he interact with the program?

>>36809484
i actually try to but it just makes me think i'm losing my sanity, i smile and laugh when bad stuff happens to me but i don't actually feel happy on the inside, i'm just kinda dead and have no other emotions so it doesn't bother me to just make my face look happy