The vast extrapolation of this into "depressive realism" has always struck me as misguided. The test favors depressed people's instincts because they tend to have less belief in self-agency in general. If the light was influenced by the button you might have seen the opposite gap, with the non-depressed being more accurate.

If you desire control or influence then the world can become a daunting and depressing place. You learn to feel trapped and impotent. If you let it be and learn to focus your energy on your own realm of control, it’s much easier to be at peace (though still challenging at times). If there’s nothing you can do and you aren’t responsible for the awful things you see in the world, should it really consume you? Shouldn’t you focus more on what’s good, and the limited good you can do? Perhaps we should save most of our energy for exactly that.

Fundamentally the act of being disturbed by bad things in the world seems to indicate or require that it should be some other way, or that one should be able to change it. If both aren’t true, it seems futile to be so deeply bothered by it. If both are true, we should devote as much as we can to resolving it. As individuals it seems this is rarely the case, though.

I don’t eat animals. I don’t think other people should, generally speaking, and I think the systems turning them into food are beyond deplorable. If I focus on that I can become pretty upset. If I dwelled on I could easily become depressed. But for what? What can I do but not eat the animals? Encourage my family to eat more vegetables without annoying them? Beyond these small acts, I’m virtually powerless to make a difference. I have to accept that.

There are countless examples like that. The wars ongoing today are make some of the best examples. Fears that global recession will cause mass starvation while I experience what could be summarized as financial inconvenience. Existential questions about meaning and purpose. Personal problems caused by external forces (arguably most of them?). The list is endless and each item, if examined in depth, can make someone extremely sad.

Certainly don’t ignore these things, but don’t become obsessed and engrossed. Don’t feel personally responsible to make substantial changes. Just do the best within your means, and be glad you did.

Without that, I would be so miserable. Before I learned this I was. The world seemed impossibly dark and sad. Today I hold on to the belief that to overcome these things, my perspective needs to be one of positive action and intent. Anything else seems to amount mostly to self-harm, and no one wins.

Rather than trying to find bliss in ignorance or aversion, there are practices for holding all of it in your head in a way that doesn’t destroy you.

Many people who see a lot of death find it useful, I find I need it just for everyday life :).

Given this is HN, I read that comment as assuming an entrepreneurial disposition, one wants to "change the world". It's easy to imagine how one might want things to be, imagine steps to achieve that, and then crash hard into reality. Regardless of intelligence or diligence, the future is fundamentally unpredictable. I take the GPs point to be that you'll do better in your goals if you are able to pursue them with a measure of naivete versus dwelling on your best expected probabilistic outcomes which are likely to become more pessimistic as you gain experience. This is reflected in the common story from successful entrepreneurs: "if we knew how hard it was going to be we never would have started".

That said, I also appreciate your point about perspective. The ideal is to be able to leverage all your knowledge, instinct and willful drive, but without an emotional attachment to an outcome. Walking the tightrope between apathy and frustration as it were.

Regarding the abyss and reality (I’m taking liberties):

- “I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do.”

- “I myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me”

What you do when “enlightened” is personal, but I don’t think everyone is prepared to handle it in a healthy fashion.

Curiosity and discovery, even when reality is difficult? Or fall into despair?

We can ask ourselves what makes people depressed and postulate:

I would point at a lack of realized agency as the main culprit. Now if one capable of operating via a realistic fictional narrative it's probable they could simply narrate that whatever happens was intended (internal), or perhaps is for the best (external), or is a challenge for the best (combined). And these modalities can be divided, perhaps unnecessarily, into various different subcategories... I think I could find this comfortable, and I think history has a lot of elements to reinforce this reasoning, one obvious and predominate one being religion, but I would suggest that some biographical works would equally point towards internal and combined narratives.

But what if we imagine someone who can not or does not subscribe to these narratives? There's a huge degree of reduction in their agency automatically. For instance, it's pretty easy to brazenly rationalize some success as a gut feeling, an instinct, an unconscious will - but what if it's just... Luck? As for external: from my perspective it would be fairly comforting to think that some predestiny has been concocted for me, this is just some experiential ride for some greater purpose and I'm an element affecting a much greater end. Or a combined version wherein I am both an agent, and a choice one, being pressed into ascension of spirit by some greater force, again for some greater end...

Or we're a mortal meatsocks who will live some relatively short life and have a very limited effect on the outcomes of the greater picture (except by extremely limited and fixed chance), highly constrained by innumerable forces impeding our ability to enact our wishes regardless of their actual magnitudes.

Personally I feel obliged to exist in the lattermost space, because I hope to seek truth - but I don't discount the other approaches either. But as TFA indicates, and I will corroborate, there is a balance to be struck.