Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness by Edward T. Welch

purposes in our lives even when we make decisions we later regret.
A C ULTURE OF THE I NDIVIDUAL
    In 1984, Edward Scheiffelin studied a primitive tribe in New Guinea. Among his findings was an absence of despair, hopelessness, depression, or suicide. Studies among the Amish have found similar results. What is similar in these two cultures is the way individuals are part of a larger community. While Western culture is a pseudo-community in which we occasionally cluster in like-minded groups, these cultures have extended families of different people with different interests who learn how to live and work together.
    Think about it: how would the statistics on depression change if people felt they were part of a community? Part of a family? In modern Western culture there is nothing bigger than ourselves. Satisfaction doesn’t come from serving others in our extended circle of relationships. Instead, we think it comes from consuming and gratifying personal needs. If a relationship doesn’t suit our desires, it is expendable; we can move on to another. “How do I feel?” is the national obsession.
    This exaltation of the individual is a cultural value that is gradually changing. There have been a number of Christian and secular critiques of the “me decades” lifestyle. The problem, however, is twofold. First, the damage has been done. The aloneness, isolation, and powerlessness of a self-driven life have already taken root. Second, in a mobile society that lacks spiritual empowerment to love and reconcile, there isn’t much hope for something better.
    If this feature of the world contributes to depression, our response is first to know the enthroned God. When we go into the courtroom of the King of kings, we are in awe of him more than we are aware of ourselves. Our troubles become much smaller in contrast to his beauty and holiness. Then, when we listen to the King, his command to us is simple: love others as you have been loved. Love breaks the hold of individualism; it builds new communities out of the ashes of broken and fragmented relationships.
    Finally, we band together in churches. Depressed people avoid people and church commitments, but they can also complain about abject isolation. The answer is to humbly accept your purpose. “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb. 10:25). Churches are not perfect. How could they be when we are the church? But the Spirit is with the gathering of his people. Church is where you will know more of God’s grace.
A C ULTURE OF S ELF -I NDULGENCE
    A corollary to the culture of the individual is the culture of self-indulgence. Whether you look at past slogans of popular culture, such as “If it feels good, do it,” popular psychology’s “Follow your feelings,” or the advertising that fuels our economy, we are surrounded by the belief that we can find something outside ourselves to fill or satisfy us.
    The myth is that “one more” will finally bring satisfaction. The reality, of course, is that it just leaves us with a desire for two more, and then three, because we find that one didn’t satisfy. A law of diminishing returns is always at work when our appetites run amok. For those with stamina, the cycle of craving and indulgence can go on for years, but many people glimpse the vanity of these pursuits before they are ruined by them. These are the people who might be prone to depression. Some of them just intuitively see through the promises of self-indulgence. Others have deprived themselves of nothing or reached the zenith of their careers and found it empty.
    When we think about the things that can satisfy our lusts, we tend to think of things that satisfy physical desires, like drugs, food, and sex. But self-indulgence can also feed more psychological appetites. The most common desire has been called the need for self-esteem, the endless quest to