I recently attended a panel discussion on depression presented by various health professionals and a spiritual leader. The forum took place at the Ashland Community Food Store's meeting room, and it was packed with curious attendees. Each panel member discussed their work with depressed patients and how their field of expertise addresses the problem. A physician talked about the biological aspects, which can be addressed with drugs or herbs and vitamins. Others addressed more subtle issues such as energy healing and the importance of spirituality. The audience challenged the panel with compelling questions.

It appears as though depression is the modern era's plague and there are no simple answers although science attempts to zero in on the brain's various L-dopamine -- we all know the buzz words associated with new "cures" for the disease.

The alarming aspect of it all it that it has become one of the most lucrative areas for the pharmaceutical companies and the medications are freely prescribed by anyone with an M.D. or even nurse practitioner's title after their names. Sadly, the marketing of those drugs has penetrated children and teens. Aside from brief references in some mass media vehicles, nearly nobody is aware that some of the boys in the high school shootings in Colorado had high levels of Prozac in their blood mixed with street drugs -- a lethal combination.

One of the most basic human emotions -- sadness -- due to a loss of a, loved one, a job, a home, etc. is now considered a depression and "must" be treated with drugs.

People are less willing to persevere such emotional complexities which are essential components of the human "condition." Our lives have become a maddening rush to get somewhere ... but where? The historical perspective offers compelling theories -- one of them explains that we still possess pre-historic neurological wiring which pre-dates agriculture. We are still, in essence, hunters/gatherers longing to live in clans and tribes and spend our days in a survival mode trying to feed and defend ourselves while exerting enormous amounts of physical energy in the process. There was an intense purpose to our daily activities in a closely bonded group. With the development of agriculture (a relatively recent phenomenon) we became capable of producing more food than we could consume which prompted trading, land ownership, uneven distribution of wealth and thus exploitation. The ruling classes found themselves having nothing to do and suffering from melancholia which they tried to cure with amusement through the arts and self‑indulgence. The peasants, on the other hand, were happy to end their backbreaking days with a good meal -- they had no concept of melancholia. Are we struck with the royal disease on a massive scale? Are we leading lives we are not wired for? Survival and reproduction are the two core instincts that are still loud and clear within us. Aren't they money and sex? Beyond those we are challenged with an invention of such concepts as meaning, purpose, self-realization, happiness. Those are new dimensions in the human repertoire along with loneliness, single parenthood, divorce, traffic, pollution, TV, computers, junk food -- perhaps we do need to be medicated, while waiting for the DNA alteration, to deal with the insanity of modern lives.