People Suffer

I finally read this article from New York Times, buried deep within my Instapaper account. Titled “Depression’s Upside” it investigates the possibility that depression as a medical condition might be of benefit to the human species.

Apparently Charles Darwin—the very man who hypothesised on the origin of species—suffered from recurring depression. He asked himself why a condition as common as this, which results in sexual inactivity, diminished appetite and sometimes self-slaughter, could be so common among human kind. Could it be that it had some evolutionary advantage? A few modern-day researches seem to believe it might be so. They see the painful rumination, a core pathology in depression, as focused problem-solving—a tool to help us learn from experience and avoid future mistakes.

I think this is nonsense. Depression is not an evolutionary advantage, it’s an evolutionary cost. Humans are hard-wired for problem-solving and worry. We all have a negative bias, making us better at to spotting problems and possible dangers, than enjoying a sunny day. This has made us survive through the millennia. Unfortunately it also makes us susceptible to anxiety and depression, more so in today’s society. It is the unfortunate price we have to pay for our evolved, abstract-thinking brain.¹

However, this doesn’t mean that the situation can’t be improved. As a species we lack the necessary physiology for flying, but we managed to get around that rather nicely.