I’ve been depressed for the past week or two. Often I sit in my depression and look outwards but this time I’ve been looking in.

I was driving to work one morning on one of the worst days of it. Mornings are not ideal. The commitment of preparing myself for the day and subsequently propelling myself through it is tentative in those early hours. Anything can derail it. It’s easy to lose interest in a day you never wanted to begin with.

While thinking these thoughts I considered medication. Should I medicate my depression? What would be the benefits? Drawbacks? Is it worth it at this point in my life?

I thought about this because I didn’t want to sit in the thoughts I was having, and considered maybe there was a pill that would make them go away. But then I looked back inside at the thoughts that I’d tried to escape; that I’d planned to erase.

That’s when it hit me: my depression isn’t delusional. I’m not thinking things that aren’t real, manufacturing issues that don’t exist, or even peering through the half-empty glass darkly. I’m a pragmatist, though with a slightly defeatist lean. Let’s face it: defeatism isn’t negativity if it’s true. Bad news is still news.

I was thinking about the world; how shitty it’s getting to be. Everything is cheaper and everyone has more and enjoys it less. We’re quick to complain because we know it can be better, so everyone’s out there flapping their gums for a handout. We’re quick to throw away our shit because we can easily get new shit, so everyone’s stomping around the Earth throwing their shit and screaming. All this screaming and no one is saying what they mean:

That someday soon our bodies will quit and we can’t replace that. Someday soon our families will die and we can’t replace that. Someday soon our life will end and no amount of yelling at the manager will give us a do-over. Our time will end and we can’t replace that.

So we get on the Internet and we bitch about our lunch and we bitch about our car and we bitch about our coffeemaker and we bitch about our Internet. We fill the world with all this disappointment and hate then we wonder why we feel so unfulfilled and angry.

Consider a restaurant with value option price points that are very appealing to the average consumer. It drives them in by the truckload, and they order the cheapest thing and then whine if it’s not perfectly aligned with their expectations. It took too long or the portion is too small or the air is too cold. They give so little and take so much. Everyday the people are spilling out of the entrances and exits like pins in a cushion and you’d think that one would take pride in working somewhere that everyone is clamoring to be, but that’s just it: None of them want to be there! If it were thirty cents cheaper they’d eat at a restaurant called Dogshit On A Plate.

We live in a strange nexus of economic affluence and cultural bankruptcy. More people have more money to buy more shit but it’s all cheap shit and rather than make them happy it beats them down and they run screaming into the streets to cry about their first-world problems and I just can’t deal with it anymore.

The Average American Consumer is arguably the Worst Person on Planet Earth on any given day.

Just because that’s defeatist doesn’t mean it isn’t true.