Even if the story if who one is might be determined by social and psychological conditions, to describe it in such simplistic terms crushes the soul.

Everyone has a story to tell. But if we make sense of our stories in ways that radically change the way we behave and reach into the "universals of the historical moment" (totally just made that phrase up, email me if you want to know what I think I mean when I say this) then our stories reach out to others in similar circumstances and open up options and ways of beings which hadn't existed before consciousness.

I'm personally plagued by the need to stand out from the crowd. I'm not sure why this feeling in me exists. When I see others taking selfies I realize that my selfie taking practices are just as silly but continue.

There is a sense that one day if I have taken up enough space on the internet, I might be able to convince others that time spent with me is tine worth spending. I do model on Xtube but I'm terribly average. I make a little money, but it's chump change that pays off the student loans. Loans play into it too. If I was just attractive enough to get a free pass for the things I want to do then I would be happy.

But even when wrapping up a three month trip to Germany I am burdened. My privileged ass is still confronting the dread of becoming a very different being then I have been. For three months I have tried to make enough by exploiting my body under the name of freedom, in pursuit of freedom, but it has failed and there are thousands like me who place their bodies at the frontlines of pleasure.

It's always been in bad faith but when I make one hundred, two hundred a month doing something I would normally do and not get paid, I feel a silly sense of being one step ahead of the crowd.

There's a lot more to be said. But for now just Google Risk Society Sociology and I think this concept recasts the original post about gambling and the feeling of desperation in an empirically grounded light. It's a phenomenon to be reckoned with.

People still gobble up Stephen King. I see hard copies all the time. But I also live in one of the top five literate cities in the U.S.

The truth. Hmm. Truth about what? Truth about Life? Or 2+2 = 4? Some activities in Life make me very happy. Even if some are hedonistic like jerking off to spank porn after binge eating ice cream and listening to Chopin through both. I've had moments of pure bliss where I'm cuddling with a lover and a cat jumps on the bed to cuddle too? Is being naked next to another body under the covers a truth? It certainly is not a stable truth if a society forbids it but forbidden things can be even more joyous in a way. I'd like to get away with the truth as though I've successfully committed a crime!

These simple moments of bliss, writing this response as thought or turning on a porn is not the ultimate Truth, as it happens too rarely but it does happen on rare occasions when material relations present themselves as compatible such as free time or a reciprocal love.

Life is suffering and sometimes happy things happen but 2+2 = 4 is while true, not The Truth either and certainly doesn't make me happy even though it is always true. There is comfort in it always turning out, always being predictable, but lived life is a much more complicated equation with many working parts.

Overall to give up on happiness and seek the truth suggests happiness is not compatible with truth and that there is only one big Truth to be sought which will make us unhappy! I prefer a view which suggests that there is a variety of truths and some if these truths are boring such as the shoes are on the rug, some have functional utilities such as math, and others make us happy like writing or petting a cute furry kitten. Others sad like the fact loved ones die.

Truth is not just a woman, seek many truths, think many things, and have many experiences. Happiness comes and goes. Just keep busy.

I perceive money as a representation of my life sacrifice almost in a quasireligious sense. I suffer so that I may receive an empty representation of that life which is lost.

When I'm paid by various entities I construct a model of suffering. For example I attempted suicide during my college years because the suffering was so grandiose and I was miserable, uncertain that I had made the right choice, wonder if it was worth it. I got on a sub list which leads me to some economic benefits. Thus my suffering in college is justified by this job.

Oddly the amount I'm paid is not correlated to the levels of stress I am exposed to. Rather it seems to reflect how much income I protect for the rich. As a cashier, my raise is not correlated to stress endured but rather asset protection. If I check bags and carts for missed merchandise or get someone on a loyalty card I am more valuable.

At the point where I am paid I get to think about how much my suffering is worth and then justify consumption options based on my perception of what my suffering is worth even if it is not a lit in the eyes if others I get to buy whatever I want at this point. If I don't have a lot, my suffering is worth little, so I choose the box wine over the cirk wine. At this point I get to sun because I have suffered, I get to buy my robe or save for that car, and access the representations of my worth. Then when I run out, I return to my suffering again, sin, and forgiveness through pain, get to sin again.

that is not the type of materialism being discussed...

I think the original post does call attention to a real crisis as the effects of a materialist worldview continue to take a hold. Personally I do think the post was a bit harsh towards Atheists and treated Atheists as a homogeneous group.

My own experience with Atheists and Atheism has lead me to a more Kierkegaardian solution where when regarding religion a leap of faith must be taken. He among others, Nietsche for example, foresaw and started to experience the effects of a materialist worldview. Faith requires a leap. Thus the Leap of Faith which requires an individual to accept that God cannot be empirically proven, which God cannot be. Supernatural experiences are exactly that, supernatural.

While Faith or a religious views may empirically lead to less suicidal thoughts and behaviors, religious aspects such as having community and strong social bonds/interests could play more into this than Faith itself. One can have faith, be completely alone, and be suicidal/melancholic. Anyone reading Kierkegaard long enough would see that faith and doubt/suicidal faith are not always linked.

Nonetheless i think to address the increased likelyhood of suicidal thoughts and actions as well as committing suicide for religiously unnaffilliated individuals is a valid concern. It's a concern that lead me directly from the huffpost article to the research publication itself. Atheists should be particularly interested in such empirical evidence and not turn their heads away from it just because one's sense of identity is threatened by a valid criticism/concern/problems for Atheists.

Atheism and Suicide Research

Many Atheists I have met quote Nietsche at random without acknowledging his criticism of science. For here I will leave a quote, "Science has no consideration for ultimate purposes any more than nature. . . . " however it will, "in many ways further the usefulness and welfare of man without intending to."Full Quote

Now my favorite quote from the research cited in defense of belief and religious affilliation is that "Religious commitment promotes social ties and reduces alienation."

It is possible to create social bonds with other atheists and in this way reduce alienation among atheists. Atheists are often faced with marginalization and ridicule as a result of being a minority or non-traditional. This doesn't mean it's impossible for Atheists to create community. To have potluck and a weekly bowling or dungeons and dragons night is entirely possible! Perhaps there needs to be an equally devoted commitment to DnD and Bowling to resolve the issue and not simply a matter if faith/belief. (Rural isolated atheists aside.)

And now for a bit of humor for those who kindly read my response. I treat you with my demented mind.

I saw the phrase "gaping hole" and as a gay male marginalized by religion, immediately thought it was a gay porno. Gaping hole on Xtube means something quite different on a philosophy forum! Here I thought the post was going to be The Philosophy of Fisting, a Materialistic and Existential Endeavor. Maybe this will be a good essay for my next book?

What is problematic about mental illness in my experience is that it is socially disruptive. If someone breaks a wrist it can be placed in a cast and the individual can return to their roles in the world.

A person with severe mental illness posses a problem to both mind and body, the social and the physical. As someone with depression I know crying in the workplace because my father offed himself when I was young is different than having a broken finger. Many psychiatrists and psychologists emphasize the physical aspects of stress.

Sapolsky on Depression

What psychology often overlooks, in my experience, is the social elements of mental illness. An example that could overlooks a social aspect of mental illness is where the DSM has frivolous spending with negative financial consequences as a criteria. If this is the primary symptom in an up and the person is rich enough where it has no financial consequence, is it a symptom? If the person makes ten thousand a year, shouldn't this be considered in the writing if symptoms in the DSM? Perhaps it is, it's been a long time since my days off wanting to be a psychologist.

Furthermore behavior which may reflect the inner workings of our brain is often a site of meaning making and the interpretations of the other. How a person acts in the world is interpreted! (Symbolic Interaction, Existentialism too many books to list) An example of this in my own life was my co-workers giving me nudges about staying up late drinking alcohol, and someone mentioned that others at Target we're addicts. My behavioral signs caused by depression indicated similar acts associated with excessive drinking not to mention living with four roommates who played loud music past midnight. How can we simply stop at the biological components without considering "the mind" is indeed an imperative ledge to jump from! The mind here is for me undoubtedly social!

If I'm not sleeping well, have 80k in debt, am stuck on a lease for the next six months, ( thank God that's over) and know I have to teach an English class 5 hours and push carts 8, because it is morally right to pay off loans, not to condemn my cosigners to the debt, etc, this social situation must have some effect on the lymbic system! Thus what happens when our minds say, " I need to go to the grocery store and pay bills" or "should I take a risk and gamble" is overwhelmingly more complicated than looking at the lymbic system and saying, "looks like a bad storm coming". Adding some electrical flare or some happy chemicals and leaving mental illness only up to psychology and its biological bias will get us nowhere! Even with biology being as complicated as it is, I think even if we had a comprehensive understanding of the brain we could not manage to appropriately make sense of human behavior, including mental illness, without considering social components. Even if my biology is condemned to it's annual dip in mood because of early life trauma, this biological ontology omits the operations of masculinity which most likely lead my father to the grave.

So sarcastically, yes oh yes, I am physically depressed because genetics caused it, not just another generation of broken men who met the ultimatem, "it's either the booze or the family" and because he could not go to counseling for fear of breaking social bonds with his manly booze buddies because seeking help would make him weak, thus unmanly, he took a gun to his head, and well is condemned to pushing up daisies in a grave built in a swamp somewhere in the sticks where another generation of boys are learning to shoot guns and drink booze to avoid all feelings but anger!

I think if there was evidence of Obama cruising gay bars I would have been even more inclined to vote for him than I already was. I can see Obama saying, "Those were good times." and chuckling.

Kavanaugh throws a temper tantrum. My biggest concern is that many men will identify with his anger and have zero impact on what they think other than perhaps, "yah my ex wife tried throwing me under the bus once". People tend to make everything about themselves hence why I emphasize the gay aspect of the original post.