Facets of a Diamond - Blog

The negative emotion associated with the liver meridian is unhappiness. Unhappiness is often confused with depression, so it important that we distinguish between the two. In psychiatry, depression has now become quite acceptable because we have antidepressant drugs. On the other hand unhappiness is not acceptable and even has a rather childish or epithetical connotation about it that depression does not have. Thus a great many people who are called “depressed” are really not depressed at all—they are unhappy. The depressed person feels that he is heavy, he is down, he is literally de-pressed. He also feels that it is his fault and his responsibility to get himself out of this situation, if it can be done, which he usually doubts. “Genuine” suicide attempts usually come out of depression, but the attempt that is not “genuine” is usually a product of unhappiness and a wish to have others do more for him.

The unhappy person feels that the fault always lies with someone else: if only his wife had done such and such, then he would not be bankrupt. If only the government would do more for him, then he would be a success. If only lady luck had smiled on him, he would have made a fortune at gambling. If only God had answered his prayers. With the state of unhappiness there is always the feeling that if only the powers that be (which in our psyche always comes down to our parents) had given me more, I would now be perfect, I would now be happy. Joseph Ratner wrote, “If we are born under a lucky star, and are fortunate and happy lovers of the ideal, the ecstasy of the mystic’s beatific vision is ours.”*

*The Philosophy of Spinoza (New York: Modern Library, 1927), p. lxviii.

–

Extract from the book Life Energy (1985)