20TH CENTURY BLUES
"Feeling miscast in our own lives, we experience depression almost as a moral stand, a protest against a world we do not understand." ANDREW LEWIS CONN New York City
Technology in modern society has made great strides in bringing us more free time, and Robert Wright shows us how we are spending it: being depressed [COVER STORY, Aug. 28]. The quotes from the Unabomber raised some interesting points. I just wish he would convey them in a humane manner. SETH MAYERI New York City
As Wright's report on the roots of widespread depression makes clear, we are relational beings and find close, loving associations with others the most effective source of the trust, self-confidence and security that can relieve our anxiety. However, anything that increases insecurity triggers a self-preservation withdrawal. This makes close relationships impossible and cuts us off from the source of emotional nurturing we need, further intensifying insecurity, increasing withdrawal and so on in a spiraling cycle of despair. There are many more things than technology in our society that make us feel anxious and insecure. MARILYN KRAMER Wausau, Wisconsin
I was enraged by Wright's constant use of the Unabomber as an authority on the problems that plague our times. Wright seems to have forgotten that the Unabomber is a killer, not a leading expert on the causes of despair. The biggest threat to our well-being is not in our genes but in the absence of moral clarity and purpose. When we start quoting serial killers, we have lost our moral compass. I am disgusted that TIME and other publications have legitimized rather than condemned this murderer. RICK SHUMAN Los Angeles
The secret dream of most of us is not to seek a sense of community but to flee from it. Our stress comes from being mired in a forced and artificial "civility" when what we really want is to gather those few people we truly care about and then find a mountaintop where we can live like the primitives--fewer in number, less diverse, more honest and less civil. DIANE E. FOLTZ Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
I got so depressed reading Wright's article that I could hardly finish it. Science now confirms what my girlfriend told me when she dumped me: I am an evolutionary wreck. Cro-Magnon is the term she used. I had to watch Mary Poppins twice to snap out of it. CARROLL MILLER Lufkin, Texas Via E-mail
I live in a turn-of-the-century house where the dining room is bigger than the living room. This suggests that family meals together were once an important ritual. They provided cross-generational contact, practice in civil conversation and early experience in intimate socialization. ELIZABETH MURTAUGH Winnetka, Illinois
There is no mismatch between our genetic makeup and the modern world, for our genes have given us the ability to forge this modern world. They have been built to satisfy our needs, to meet our requirements, to solve our problems. We have evolved to this; the path of human history is not some fluke: it is all that is true; it is who we are. STEPHEN KRIEGER New York City