Spring Break
More than economic depression
Furrah Qureshi
Issue date: 2/13/09 Section: Ed-Op
Living is a business. You learn to read, go to school, take the SATs, take the APs, apply to college; go to college, punctuate your social life with an exam here or there, take the MCATS, the LSATS, the GREs or other entrance exams; go to grad school, pay/borrow/earn/waste/receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process of getting an education; buy a suit, go on an interview, find a job, keep a job, get a promotion so that you can make money. Life, in the modern sense, does not exist without a paycheck. We spend our days in a state of bartering, buying and selling our time - so utterly unconcerned with taking a minute to rest - until the unthinkable happens.
Death: in short, the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism. But who would want that? Why not, as Joseph Heller once put it, "live forever or die in the attempt?" In some situations, the business of living begins to lose its profit. The company of the self is marginalized by the market, and forced into foreclosure, bankruptcy, death. If you are lucky, you will get a bailout and the previously laissez faire institution will lend you a hand. But sometimes, you will lose your own hands, in the process of slitting your wrists.
Jan. 27, Ervin Lupoe, father, husband and unemployed person of Los Angeles shot and killed his entire family before he turned the gun on himself. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health's 24-hour hotline has received nearly one-third more calls than normal from October to December, averaging 27,000 to 28,000 in those months, according to center supervisor Sanjay Shah. That increase parallels a reported 36 percent increase in calls to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline from 2007 to 2008, when the U.S. sank into economic recession. In the recent months I have heard of corporate tycoons from around the world losing their jobs and then losing their desire to live.
The world's people have always been haunted by depression. Anyone could be a victim at any time. But lately, we've witnessed a spike in short-term depression in an extreme sense. With so many people feeling depressed and yearning for help, is there enough to go around? With so many people at their wits' end looking for a job, looking for money, looking for a means to get by - are there enough jobs out there? We couldn't solve depression with a surplus, now we're supposed to counter it under an 11 trillion dollar deficit?
Death: in short, the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism. But who would want that? Why not, as Joseph Heller once put it, "live forever or die in the attempt?" In some situations, the business of living begins to lose its profit. The company of the self is marginalized by the market, and forced into foreclosure, bankruptcy, death. If you are lucky, you will get a bailout and the previously laissez faire institution will lend you a hand. But sometimes, you will lose your own hands, in the process of slitting your wrists.
Jan. 27, Ervin Lupoe, father, husband and unemployed person of Los Angeles shot and killed his entire family before he turned the gun on himself. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health's 24-hour hotline has received nearly one-third more calls than normal from October to December, averaging 27,000 to 28,000 in those months, according to center supervisor Sanjay Shah. That increase parallels a reported 36 percent increase in calls to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline from 2007 to 2008, when the U.S. sank into economic recession. In the recent months I have heard of corporate tycoons from around the world losing their jobs and then losing their desire to live.
The world's people have always been haunted by depression. Anyone could be a victim at any time. But lately, we've witnessed a spike in short-term depression in an extreme sense. With so many people feeling depressed and yearning for help, is there enough to go around? With so many people at their wits' end looking for a job, looking for money, looking for a means to get by - are there enough jobs out there? We couldn't solve depression with a surplus, now we're supposed to counter it under an 11 trillion dollar deficit?
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