I was beginning to think there was something significant about the fact that grief and depression have identical symptoms. Then one day, after interviewing several depressed people, I asked myself: What if depression is, in fact, a form of grief—for our own lives not being as they should? What if it is a form of grief for the connections we have lost, yet still need?
Lost Connections ~ Johann Hari
E. M. Forster, a British Modernist writer of the early 1900s, wrote one of my favourite books: Howards End. On the surface, it's a very English story of two families and a house, and, at that level, it's a rather boring novel. The first time I lent it to someone, I told him to read it for everything but the plot. If you read a little deeper, you find it's rich with insight.
The thesis of Forster's classic novel is the same thesis as Hari's contemporary nonfiction: connection. They reveal what's missing in life. Howards End contains an epigraph that has fascinated and confounded scholars for decades: 'Only connect....'
Throughout the book, Margaret struggles to make Henry see the connections he 'obtusely' passes over: the connections between past and present, businesses and people, mind and emotion. He sees cause-and-effect but not connection.
Picture a 1950s housewife living before modern feminism. She goes to her doctor to say there is something terribly wrong with her. She says something like: "I have everything a woman could possibly want. I have a good husband who provides for me. I have a nice house with a picket fence. I have two healthy children. I have a car. I have nothing to be unhappy about. But look at me—I feel terrible" [...] There were millions of women saying things just like it. And the women meant what they said. They were sincere. Yet now, if we could go back in a time machine and talk to these women, what we'd say is: You had everything a woman could possibly want by the standards of the culture. You had nothing to be unhappy about by the stands of the culture. But now we know that the standards of the culture were wrong.
Henry Wilcox is a decent man who is exactly as he should be and does everything as he ought to. He enjoys a life of ease and comfort—he truly does enjoy it—while keeping busy with his affairs. He's a cheerful chap who cares for his wife and children. He leads a good life and is so content that he imagines himself fulfilled. But in truth, he's filled with 'panic and emptiness.' It's a deep secret even he can't uncover.
The problem with Henry was not simply that he was disconnected from other people but that he was disconnected from himself. He couldn't even feel what he was missing in his life or inside of him. He thought he was happy because he knew he was supposed to be. He had more than material possessions: he had a good career that he found challenging and meaningful and engaging. He never paused to see whether or not that really was enough. He just assumed it was.
Henry is like the plot of the book: something quite dull covering up something quite enthralling. He lived an excellent life on the surface without knowing there was anything underneath. Henry didn't know how to grieve his wife's passing because he didn't know how much she meant to him, or how he felt about her. He'd lost touch with his feelings. When he finally made the connection, he couldn't bear them and crumbled beneath them
Henry is the epitome of lost connections
your distress is not a malfunction. It is a signal—a necessary signal.
I know this is going to be hard to hear, I'd tell him, because I know how deep your suffering cuts. But this pain isn't your enemy, however much it hurts (and Jesus, I know how much it hurts). It's your ally—leading you away from a wasted life and pointing the way toward a more fulfilling one
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