Depression is a fundamental fear that is also a fundamental human instinct that is mostly covered by our daily busy-ness. When we experience unwelcoming and uncomfortable situations these instincts such as fear and anxiety tend to spring up and overrule our mindsets for a prolonged period of time. Such catalytic situations could include the present scenario of the pandemic and also financial and social phenomenon as a whole and in general. We become or we experience a low state of mind when we encounter situation that are the opposite of the situations we predict. Our predictions can be quite misleading. We may predict that our loved ones will survive for another few years or that our businesses will thrive for few more years, but we cannot really ensure that we will wake up to see the sun tomorrow morning. So, the catch here is that depression and anxiety come out of hope for our predictions to be fulfilled and fear of it not progressing as we wish for it to. Now the solution I offer is to appreciate our daily lives. To appreciate each moment as if it was your last. This is a profound Buddhist ideology and way of life. A way to remain content with what we have.

England: The Institute of Psychiatry, ( Van Der Gaag, Rutger Jan. “Mental Health ‘Cure and Care’ in the Netherlands: Risks and Opportunities.” International Review of Psychiatry 23.1 (2011): 113–117. Web.)

The article emphasizes on the problem we possess, inherently, when we say mental health, we tend to think of it as a subject that is very sensitive. For example, if we say someone has cancer, he is sociable but if someone was mentally ill, he is an outcast. This integrated ideal of society is the very reason that people are becoming more reluctant to consider the normality of the mental illness that is prevalent in the majority. The mental health factor is not a very popular area of research as there are little profits in such sectors. Everyone is subject to mental health disorders to some extent because everyone faces problems in life and not everyone is ready to face such problems. Such social phenomenon was mostly dominant after the second world war.

As stated in an article published by the  source provided above,  “For many years after World War II, mental healthcare was not acknowledged as a health issue for which the (nationwide) medical insurance companies were thought to be accountable.” Now another new claim is brought up here, we can see that money and medical insurance companies had a phenomenal impact on the social acceptance of mental illness. A few years after the war people couldn’t hide the mental health factor which lead to a huge shift in the perception of mental illness by the public. The cure was never emphasized.

The materialistic and income driven world chose material over health I believe and this is something very alarming to me personally. I feel strongly for the people experiencing mental illness, but I also discovered that all of us, in one way or the other, are experiencing some sort of mental illness to some decree. When thought is given to the subject of health over money, it is appears to be blatantly fine but if we take the time to really look at it without prejudice, we find it to be really absurd. Who in their sane mind would choose money over a long and healthy life where one does not have to fight with one self and where one is locked inside of one self. Such thoughts should be the basis of the development of a cure for the mental illness issue that is very prominent in the world.

This song was primarily motivated by the people who were suffering from all sorts of mental illnesses. The singer wanted to express the thoughts of all the people he had interviewed and had talked with through a song. He wanted his audience to have a medium to express themselves. He considered all the people in the world, whom he was not aware of, possessing some sort of a mental illness or depression and he thought that a song might be able to help in letting things flow out and in some way making everything alright. The importance of such companionship, and by companionship I mean having something (the song) that can help you feel heard or simply to direct all your negativity out of your mind stream through a song, could be of influential help to the minds of all the people who are undergoing different types of mental illnesses.

The song starts off with a very interesting verse, “how long have you been smiling?, It seems like it’s been too long, somedays I don’t feel like trying, so what the heck are you on?” The first two lines are are very symbolic. I perceive that it is meant to express the idea of people faking their smiles, which is faking their happiness and they have been faking it for an extended period of time. This makes people with mental issues feel that they are not happy enough and that they have to fake their happiness in order to accord with the rest of the society. Then comes the part where people just loose it, “somedays I don’t feel like trying, so what the heck are you on?” this line expresses the times where people just can’t carry on with their depression anymore and they wonder how other people are doing it or how exactly they are keeping up with everything thats going on around them.

I feel that music as a form of art and expression can be of great help for people with mental illnesses to cope up with themselves and the rest of the world. It could be used an influential tool to express oneself and to relate with ones surroundings. It is also a very important method to raise awareness in society and it is a very efficient medium to transmit information to the majority. Such approaches help create a open environment where everything is accepted.

“What Makes You Not a Buddhist.” Publishers Weekly, vol. 253, no. 38, 25 Sept. 2006, p. 63+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A152253193/AONE?u=cuny_nytc&sid=AONE&xid=bcd93a04. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020.

This book was written by one of the most influential buddhist teachers of our time, Dzongsar Jamyang Khynetse, and he addresses many social and political problems and unlike other research papers, he presents an answer to all the problems he addresses. These methods that he presents are a hundred percent valid as they have been tested by various people across various countries and during various time periods. His methods were taught by the buddha over two thousand five hundred years ago and since then all his methods were renowned for making people reach a state of mind where they neither felt hope for positive circumstances nor the fear of bad ones. They would reach a state of complete sanity and this is what is presented in this book, a method to reach that resultant state of complete sanity. The methods are presented by the author quite simply and in a straight forward manner which is easy to comprehend and to integrate in our daily lives. The author quotes the words of the buddha and explains them in a very modern and implicative way which seems to be his style.

“we do not acknowledge that our bodies and environment are made up of unstable elements that can fall apart with even the slightest provocation” Statements such as these are made by the author to emphasize on the area that we seem to skip in our lives. We know that we are going to die someday but we are sure that it is not tomorrow or a week away. We think we will die with grandchildren around us or at-least in an adult care facility. The author states the importance of knowing that we are impermanent and everything around us is impermanent which is why we have no time to be sad or depressed. If we acknowledge the fact that everything is temporary, we can embrace both good and bad situations because we know, in the back of our minds, that nothing is going to last, not the good experience, not the bad experience, not even the person who is experiencing it. This is an essential and a very crucial point that I feel will re-direct the mental illness to a deep sense of appreciation and will lead to everyone appreciating each moment of their life completely and fully without having to be depressed or mentally ill.

Lin, Wen-Hua, Chih-Hsuan Chen, and Bih-Ching Shu. “The Application of Mindfulness in Promoting Happiness and Mental Health.” Hu li za zhi 64.4 (2017): 97–103. Web.

 

This article is supporting mindfulness and meditation as a source of mental piece and it gathers research conducted by various personnel. The points seem to be that mindfulness as whole is a very influential tool in the mental health sector. Drugs were unreliable as they were addictive and the patients couldn’t do without them. Meditation and mindfulness on the other hand provides space and encourages independence and acceptance. The article states, “One potential explanation for the increase in popularity of mindfulness in the last two decades likely stems from its discovered association with mental health outcomes. Already in 2003, Brown and Ryan were reporting that higher levels of trait mindfulness are associated with greater wellbeing (i.e., lower neuroticism, anxiety, depression, and unpleasant affect as well as higher pleasant affect, vitality, life satisfaction, self-esteem, optimism, and self-actualization) Brown and Ryan (2003)  observed that mindfulness more strongly correlates with the absence of unpleasant affect than with the presence of pleasant affect.” This is the overall picture that this article is trying to portray, and it is a summarization of all the major points of declaration.

In my opinion and through my own experience of meditation and mindfulness, I find it to be very interesting and a very open space to express anything at all. This is a marvelous time where one is left to observe oneself and thus free oneself from ones own misconceptions through intellect. As stated in the article, “In other words, mindfulness is a state of mind where one observes and registers one’s internal and external experiences without evaluating, interpreting or judging such experiences (Good et al., 2015).” When we begin to elaborate our thoughts, instead of leaving them as they are, they multiply and intensify which makes the thought worse than the deed and it causes unnecessary torment in ones mind. If thoughts are not judged, they don’t intensify and are bearable. “According to Brown and Ryan (2003),  mindfulness comprises two aspects: attention to and awareness of internal (i.e., thoughts, emotions, physiological reactions) and external events that take place in the here-and-now.” Such statements based and empowered by research could not possibly be false and the very fact that no extra substance, such as medication is required during meditation and mindfulness, one is able to carry it out without any problems.

Mental health, being an impossible condition, has a cure. This cure isn’t related to something substantial such as drugs and medication. Through research we come to find out that we have a way of dealing with ourselves and that way does not demand anything extra from our being. We and simply sit and rest. Meditation was proven to have immense help in easing the mind an also in helping people cope with mental factors. I was surprised that something as insignificant as being mindful of your present would be of great influence over your mental condition. We find that when we start looking for what we need elsewhere, we miss the phenomenal presence that is in front of us. It’s more like your eyelids; we do not see them because they are very close to our eyes. I was expecting to find some kind of magic potion through my research but instead I learned that cure was only a perception, and this changed my perspective of reality. This research has also helped me develop a sense of humility as I have learnt that there are things that are unknown to me and that I have to be willing to step outside my area of expertise to learn about all the information the world has to offer. This information is very important to mankind as it Is the only efficient way to deal with any circumstance. People should be able to see clearly, perceive clearly and have a clear conscience of what is happening right now and not elaborate on one’s thoughts. If people can achieve this, the problem of mental obscurations and illnesses will be eradicated from the society as we will perceive the futility if our daily social and political activism. We have to be mentally firm to execute physical activities and meditation is the only way to affirm the strong mental firmness. People who want to succeed and who want to learn how to deal with situations effectively and efficiently should look into this subject. Moreover, people who deal with individuals who are challenged mentally and individuals who are experiencing mental obscurations should particularly consider this subject as it has great potential to assist and guide one self and others out of the dogma of thought, perception and preconception of society, civics, normality and all phenomena as a whole. If adopted, meditation has the ability to strip the curtain of our perception and reveal the naked and nude reality as a whole.

This is what I intended to do:

My material was intended on helping me deepen my understanding on the subject of mental health as I think that this particular field has a lot of loopholes and all of them being fixable. I want people to know that there is a cure and that they should not always turn to the blatant answer that’s available but instead should inquire and analyze, being critical positively.

This is how I feel about the project so far: 

I think that I only got so far because of the amount of time provided, otherwise this subject has a lot of painstakingly long list of books and articles that require through examination and criticism. I feel that this highlights the essence of the whole mental health cure in general but I must also say that my research lacks detail and precision. My research was too general which is why I must work on specifications and precision.

Here are other questions/issues I would like the reviewers to look at:

Where am I lacking and why do you think so?

How can I improve myself?

If you were to take this research further, how would you proceed?