It bemuses me that on HN, people push for CBT, positive thinking, more time spent on exercises, relationships, basically all of the outward signals of American

It bemuses me that on HN, people push for CBT, positive thinking, more time spent on exercises, relationships, basically all of the outward signals of American professional and social-media "well-being." What needs to be mentioned is that the author despite his professed history of severe clinical depression, is a published author of somewhat notability, whose last book was vouched by James Wood, the literary critic of New Yorker. And despite whatever professed outward collective-mentality present in IT, I know that many of my friends and co-workers suffer from existential doubts, personal isolation and obsessive-compulsive behaviors in private, if not more so. If anything, the fact that the author chooses to share his personal history so openly makes me more comfortable about his handling of personal issues than others who lead double of lives and "#winning on facebook" and "suffering alone." As another perspective on depression and anxiety counter to the HN's mainstream answer, I highly recommend "Happiness and Its Discontent" essay here (http://chronicle.com/article/HappinessIts-Discontents/144019/ http://chronicle.com/article/HappinessIts-Discontents/144019...) "But we are mistaken when we interpret anxiety and other forms of existential disorientation as being at odds with a well-lived life. It may well be that they are an essential part of such a life."