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Originally Posted by Boogster
I don't know, to be honest. Seems to me that a lot of people playing online games aren't that happy with their lot.
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Of course, but that wasn't really my point. Lots of behaviours might be a response to depression - some people might drink too much, others might have frequent sexual encounters with one-night stands, while some lay in bed doing nothing. (This last one is probably way more common)
My point was that it's a mistake to look at someone elses behaviour and assume that you know the
real motivation underlying it all (without further examination) especially if you're suggesting that it's because secretly they are depressed or feel generally worthless.
As I say, this mistake is particularly common when people are doing something very disimilar from ourselves.
So for instance, I have no ****ing idea why people choose to get crazy and sometimes horrific piercings in their genitalia. It just doesn't make sense to me that anyone would want to do that to themselves, as that's so far from my personal goal list. But can I
automatically assume all of those people are secretly depressed or looking for attention? Maybe some are - hell, maybe most are, I've no idea and that's the point.
I am not defending excessive drinking on a personal level. It's not for me (at present) and I increasingly dislike the effects of alcohol. As I often say, the last thing I need is a drug which makes me
more cruel, lazy and stupid.
I just find it troubling that any deviation from perceived norms is labelled as some kind of mental illness. It's an almost totalitarian attitude. The person who get's a tattoo is doing it because they're depressed and acting out. The person who parties all night is really responding to feeling worthless. The person who never parties is a bitter lonely weirdo. The person who married someone outside their own ethnic group is responding to some traumatic family history. And so on - step right up folkw - any social divergance can be condemned!
As geeks of one form or another I would have thought there might be some personal insight here. I'm sure there are great times we've all had doing something like reading a book in one sitting, or completing a particular game, or sitting up all night coding or problem solving. These behaviours (i.e. sitting by yourself, perhaps for hours at a time) are probably thought of by some in the same terms as used for drinkers - a serious sign of problems, a reaction to depression, etc. But for myself, some of the most enjoyable times I've had have consisted of those types of activities. Doing the "healthy" active stuff like attending certain types of social events have been some of the most miserable times.
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As for drinking, it's just silly to claim that everyone drinks to excess because it's fun.
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Of course, and I hope I didn't imply that it was. I was suggesting that successful people drink to excess as well as those of us in the loser category. Of course it's not all great times - more than one of my relatives drinks not because it's fun but essentially because they have to. On a less serious level most people I've met seem to have turned to binge drinking at uni partially out of boredom. But there's diversity of motivations for the same behaviours and no prescribed path to having a good life.