Why there is such a widespread epidemic of depression and psychosis in the world?
Too much change, happening too fast and robbing us of the familiar anchors in life; anchors in beliefs, anchors in thoughts, anchors in our habits, anchors in families, anchors in “Old Familiar Faces”, anchors in furniture and household items, anchors in the neighborhood.
I wrote this post based on my deep contemplations on Future Shock which is a 1970 book by the futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler,[1] in which the authors define the term “future shock” as a certain psychological state of individuals and the entire societies emanating from personal perceptions of “too much change in too short a period of time”. The book has sold over 6 million copies and has been widely translated.
Modern man feels shocked by rapid changes. For example, when we go to our childhood neighborhood, we find nothing that is familiar, the corner shop which was there for decades is no more, and our grandfather clock was a digital clock, long gone. We don’t even need a clock, our corner hair-cutting shop is not there. Our neighborhood has been uprooted, old houses have been uprooted, replaced by hideous lifeless structures. Our household items are all disposable even the furniture is disposable, our relationships are disposable, our relatives are disposable, and our parents and children are disposable, not to speak of extended family members,. Our professions, our skills, and our jobs are all disposable….
Humans cannot and will not be able to withstand this accelerating change at breakneck speed leading to psychosis and depression whose prevalence is increasing with accelerating changes in our life.
I think the loss of one solid Anchor, the One and only One, who has been immutable from day One, who never changes from eternity to eternity, all-powerful.
ڈپریشن کا تعلق ایمان کی کمزوری سے ہے!
ایمان باللہ کی کمزوری اور ایمان بالقدر یعنی خیر و شر اللہ کی
طرف سے ہے کی کمزوری
This means our faith in the Almighty and faith in Destiny makes us weather many storms, setbacks, and disappointments of life and their linkages to stress.
Also “our quest for more and more has plunged us into a devastating state”
الھاکم التکاثر
This verse from Surah Takasur in Muhammad Asad’s book Road to Mecca became a trigger for his conversion to Islam from Leopold Weiss in the 1920-30s.
This strife for more and more, and lack of gratitude for what one already has creates great stress.
When a person starts believing in the following ayah,
عسی ان تکرھو شئ وھو خیر الکم وعسی ان تحبو شئ وھو شر الکم ۔
he will start feeling less stressed about the happenings on which he is not able to control the results.
From Wikipedia description of Future Shock:
For example, Toffler’s daughter went shopping in New York City and she couldn’t find a shop in its previous location. Thus New York has become a city without a history. The urban population doubles every 11 years. The overall production of goods and services doubles every 50 years in developed countries. Society experiences an increasing number of changes with increasing rapidity, while people are losing the familiarity that old institutions (religion, family, national identity, profession) once provided. The so-called “brain drain” – the emigration of European scientists to the United States – is both an indicator of the changes in society and also one of their causes.
Many goods have become disposable as the cost of manual repair or cleaning has become greater than the cost of making new goods due to mass production. Examples of disposable goods include ballpoint pens, lighters, plastic bottles, and paper towels.
The design of goods becomes outdated quickly. (And so, for example, the second generation of computers appears before the end of the expected period of usability of the first generation). It is possible to rent almost everything (from a ladder to a wedding dress), thus eliminating the need for ownership.
Whole branches of industry die off and new branches of industry arise. This affects unskilled workers who are compelled to change their residence to find new jobs. The constant change in the market also poses a problem for advertisers who must deal with moving targets.
People in post-industrial society change their profession and their workplace often. People have to change professions because professions quickly become outdated. People of post-industrial society thus have many careers in a lifetime. The knowledge of an engineer becomes outdated in ten years. People look more and more for temporary jobs.
To follow transient jobs, people have become nomads. For example, immigrants from Algeria, Turkey, and other countries go to Europe to find work. Transient people are forced to change residence, phone number, school, friends, car license, and contact with family often. As a result, relationships tend to be superficial with a large number of people, instead of being intimate or close relationships that are more stable. Evidence for this is tourist travel and holiday romances.
The driver’s license, received at age 16, has become the teenager’s admission to the world of adults because it symbolizes the ability to move independently.
Death of Permanence. The post-industrial society will be marked by a transient culture where everything ranging from goods to human relationships will be temporary.
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