Woes Be Gone: Need for Sadness?

Title: Woes Be Gone: Need for Sadness?

Author: Jessica Marshall
Publication Info: Published on 1/5/2010 by the Medical Dealer Magazine
Date: 2 March 2011
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class

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            This article questions the concept of sadness. These days, some people often depend on antidepressants to cure them from sadness. This article deals with the advantages and disadvantages for taking antidepressants, and asks, what is the purpose of “feeling sad” in our lives? Although the feeling of sadness can be painful to the greatest extent, in the article, it also states that sadness can be beneficial to us –it helps us learn from our mistakes, express our emotions, be more aware of our surroundings, be more creative and allows us to be able to communicate without the use of words. However even with these advantages, people do not like to accept the feeling of sadness and prefer to push this emotion out, and not deal with it. To do this, they take antidepressants or go to therapy to “cure” them. One must ask, is sadness something that can be cured? Should it be cured even with these many benefits listed above? How reliable is their argument? (Knowledge Issues)

            How effective are the antidepressants? Is it possible that psychiatrists give the patients blank pills, but say these pills will cure them?  (Knowledge Issues) There are cases where doctors will give patients empty pills, but because the patients believe that they will be cured, they feel that they are cured mentally and physically. [Connection] Could this scenario apply to antidepressants too? If so, how reliable are doctors and our medications? Can sadness actually be cured through medication? Are our beliefs and faith enough to cure our internal struggles and illnesses?   

            [Observation]In my opinion, I think sadness is normal to feel. By normal, I mean that people should feel sad from time to time. As cliché as this may sound, “Life is not always perfect”, and I believe this quote bears truth within itself with the support of empirical knowledge – my past experience. There will be times when we fall, and need to stand back up. However in order to stand back up, we must learn to not fall back down again. We must accept our mistakes and learn from it. Because we don’t like being sad (the reason why people take antidepressants in the first place), we avoid the decisions and actions that led to sadness. The feeling of sadness allows us to change for the better. It allows us to reflect back and make connections to ourselves and our past, as well as helps us to think about the outcomes. By doing this, feeling sad allows us to be more aware of our surroundings and even ourselves as an individual.

[Connection] In my life, the feeling of sadness can be experienced at least once per week although the extent of the feeling may vary. For example, a fight with my mom may cause me to feel angry and sad for a while. Upon feeling this mixture of anger and sadness, I may not be able to think about the cause of this fight; however as time passes I feel that I am naturally inclined to reflect back on what had happened between my mom and me. I say that it feels automatic to reflect because I find that sometimes, I think about what had happened between my mom and me without me even realizing, thinking or having planned to do so. Was our mind designed to evaluate our actions and decisions ever since evolution? Am I the only one who feels this way? [Wonderings] I have asked my friends about their tendencies to reflect, and they have told me that they find themselves doing the same thing as me. Although I trust them as sources of knowledge, how do I know what they exactly mean by reflecting back on their problems? (Knowledge Issue) Do they reflect on the cause of the problem, the effects of the conflict, other perspectives on the fight, different ways in which there could have been a misunderstanding or a combination of all of these? Also, how do I know what they get out of this reflection? How do I justify that they actually learn from their evaluations? Is my experience enough to say that we learn from our mistakes for all people? Just because I learn from my mistakes, does this mean that other people do the same? Isn’t this then, making a hasty generalization in which this would be a fallacy? (Knowledge Issues)