Is it outside the realm of possibility that "depression" is the mind's way of dealing with the inability to adapt to being a prisoner of conscious experience?

I think there are as many types of depression as there are people who are depressed. I would think that all types are in a sense endogenous in that where else are they going to originate. The article though seems to look on something called 'rampant pessimism' as a cause, except when it doesn't, and presents an exogenous idea at the start only to then move onto endogeneous as a cause.

I think if we're honest "endogenous" in terms of depression occupies the same niche in psychology and psychiatry that "idiopathic" does in medicine generally -- in other words: "It just happens. Why? Search me, sunshine. Haven't a Scooby."

I am surprised by the number of people expressing their surprise at Anthony Bourdain's death.

"He always seemed so full of life.”

Actually, I always saw someone more thoughtful and somber. But even if someone was always outwardly happy and energetic, what do people expect? Do you think anyone who is fed up with life, or maybe just bored by it, has to sit in a corner, crying?

Another reaction that pisses me off is the jump to a “mental health issue”, often insinuating that he should have sought “help” and if he had done so, he would still be alive. It’s nobody’s bloody business if someone else wants to be alive or not. It’s their decision and their decision alone. The reason may not necessarily be a troubling psychological issue. The decision to end one’s life at a time and in a manner of one’s own choosing can be perfectly rational. I actually have a lot of respect for people who make that ultimate decision.

As always, people are looking for signs... "How could we have spotted it?”, apparently believing there is one tell-tale sign for someone harboring thoughts of suicide. There isn’t, and until people understand that not everyone thinks like them, they won’t ever be ready to spot those signs. If it’s possible at all. Because where someone sees a fulfilled life, someone else doesn’t. Where someone sees a point in living, someone else is bored. Where someone is afraid of death, someone else knows that suicide is the one decision you will never regret.

And don’t ever be distracted by someone’s “adventurous attitude” to life. After all, seeking out adventures (and eating crazy food) is a way of gambling with death every day and every dish.

Sometimes, I have the feeling as if suicide by adventure is the only socially accepted form of suicide.

Dismissive hostility towards IQ tests has been the key strategy for elites to preserve their undeserved privilege through educational credentialism.

Think about it for a minute and you'll realize it's true.

Did you see this piece in the Oxonian Review?

"David Benatar indirectly suggests the value of basic conscious existence when he grieves our eventual annihilations, but what he doesn’t clearly acknowledge is that experience itself is a powerful, continuous good while we are alive, and might even be significant enough to outweigh many of life’s misfortunes. Leave it to a pessimist to regret the harm of losing oneself without recognizing the value of being oneself"

RTWT here:

http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/the-vise-side-of-life/