Why are people more sad as the years go by? Sadness is associated with loss. The best way to understand it is to see it exemplified in mourning: the most painful loss, loss of a loved one to death, as it results in the deepest sadness.
The first experience of loss we experience is the loss of attachment: the primary caregiver, usually the mother, is not available to us as much as they used to be. This first experience of loss results in a crude form of sadness, not nearly as refined as what an adult is capable of experiencing. Nevertheless it sets the pace for all future experiences.
We compensate for the loss. We find attachment in toys, in play, in other relationships; perhaps that very sibling that tore mommy away from us, perhaps daddy, or an elder sibling, or a maternal figure of an aunt or a teacher. Only to realize that those too aren’t available to us as much as we’d want for them to be nor are they able to satisfy the need in all its intensity.
We search for fulfillment in stories, in intellectual pursuits, in religious beliefs. These stories, these pursuits, these beliefs guide our choices. We mature, we find life to be meaningful, we realize that as painful as it may be life is meaningful.
Or at least this is how it used to be a couple of centuries ago.
Now? We are told the stories are fiction, religious myths aren’t to be trusted, and intellectual pursuits are only useful so far as they bring money. We earn money, we acquire means. But what those means are for, we have no idea. “We have means to live, but no meaning to live for” as Frankl said.
So now we are in a state of cultural mourning. We have lost tradition, religion, value for the intellect and all that gave us meaning. We have freedom to make more choices now than we ever did before and nothing to meaningfully guide those choices except our whims, desires, and the fashion of superficiality.
Why are people becoming more sad as the years go by? I’m surprised more of us are not as sad as we should be! The numbness is more surprising than the sadness. Those who are unable to cry at the death of a loved one are more vulnerable to a complicated and pathological grieving process. I wish we could develop a healthy sadness and realize what we’ve lost. The pain might just push us to do at least something meaningful to alleviate the condition.
Last modified: November 13, 2023
