What's the deal with being depressed...

Working three hour shifts in the computer lab means I spend a lot of time wandering the internet, and I come across people's livejournals and such. There seems to be one common theme among all these journals and that's that the people writing them are writing about how depressed they are. Judging by these things, people are all aimless, without focus or direction and searching for their place in life. Now, obviously people use the livejournal as a place to vent, and I find when I write, I always focus on the problems, because you take the good things for granted.

When you think about your life, there could be a million great things going on, but I find that I still always want more. And, it's that one thing I don't have that occupies my mind, rather than all the good stuff. I mean, sometimes I can just go outside and look at the beauty of a shadow falling across a tree under a streetlight, or the majesty of a great work of fiction and get completely absorbed in it, but I eventually always go back to the things that I feel I've failed at.

This brings me back to the fact that we have to be confronted with bad things in our lives, so that we can get better. If we aren't reminded of where we've gone wrong, we're never going to try to correct the errors we've made, and improve in life. That's what The Invisibles is all about. The archons, the things that hold us back, exist to make us better. In the long run, it's better to have these problems because in confronting them we can improve and become stronger.

But, back to my original point. I think one reason people constantly feel depressed is because the media creates this image of what we should have. Like, at college, you should be having the best time of your life, you should have a girlfriend, you should have meaning in your life, a real sense of purpose, and I think most people don't. They just go along, fulfilling obligations, and I'm not sure what their ultimate aim is.

For me, the thing that simultaneously makes me happiest and saddest is my desire to be a filmmaker. This dream gives me direction. Even if I'm wasting time along the way, I have an ultimate destination, a passion that drives me. I find it difficult to think of people for whom art isn't a big part of their lives. Like, I don't see how you couldn't want a job that allows you to express what's on your mind. I don't get how you could live if your ultimate aspiration in life is just to get a boring job, and keep moving along in the way that society has prescribed you should. Everyone has to have some passion that keeps them going.

And I think it's the lack of a dream that makes people so depressed. All the aimlessness I go through, I still ultimately have this dream that I'm working towards. If you don't have that, these probably will be the best years of your life, and if you're bored, what does the rest of life hold for you?

Maybe that's a bit defeatist. I look forward to getting older. Hopefully I'll be making films, but even if I'm not, it doesn't mean I can't still enjoy myself. There are people who will have had the best time of their life in high school, some in college, and some after. I liked high school, I like college, but I'm hoping things will get even better as time goes on.