Jacque Fresco - "Depression & Self Image" (Part 1/2)

The discussion today is about depression. There are many people that have been depressed
for many years and I get lots of letters and sometimes they say that, "I've found no meaning
in life. No purpose and uh, you pulled me out of it." I got alot of letters like that.
So that's the only thing I can say, "It's not due to genetics." If it was due to genetics,
I couldn't pull em' out. Does that make sense to you? Now, "What is depression?" If you
live vicariously through another person. Lets say.. you rely on that person entirely.. you
live...and that person dies. You lose your identity because you put your identity in
another person.. which isn't a good thing to do. That's a kind of dependency. You know
what I mean? So..that's part of depression, a little bit of it. The rest is loss of identity...
and you can lose your identity if you're brought up with a philosophy of life that doesn't
reinforce you. If you're brought up with a set of values, "Do the right thing and everything
will work out alright."... and if it doesn't work out alright, you become depressed...
cause you lose predictability. Is that clear? If you have predictability about yourself
and other people... you can anticipate certain things.. but if you have no answers, if you
look for answers in your own mind.. that isn't exposed enough.. y/..there's not enough in
schools that give you a way of thinking.. so you can solve problems.. cause, it isn't
that they don't want to, they don't have it. They've never found a way of thinking that
can solve problems. That's why when the businessman retires, he may become depressed because he
has no game to play. All his life, say a guy that owns a jewelry store that sells jewelry,
and he/.. every sale makes him feel good, then he retires... and he has nothing anymore.
He has no identity except sales or jewelry. Do you understand? That's gone. What follows
is depression. There are some dogs that have been depressed due to they had a very close
relationship with their master. When the master dies, they sat next to the master and wouldn't
go away... and bark at anybody that would try to take em' away... cause their full identification
was as a team with their master. They had no identificaiton when the master died. They
had no way of looking at it. The difference between humans and most animals... most animals
don't fear death. They don't even know there is such a thing but they move away from animals
that are larger than they are. That's a reflex.. but they don't know what death is... nor do
they think of it. So far, any questions? Okay. So a person that ask themselves questions,
"WHY DID MY WIFE LEAVE ME?" and they can't figure it out because everything they've done
was pl/.. pleasing... and they don't understand it. That's not necessarily a logical question.
Your wife may have left you for many different reasons: That she likes a guy tall, with blonde
waivy hair.. or stocky or whatever... and if you don't meet that image, she might leave
you. The assumption that she WON'T leave you is what can depress you. Your assumption about
the world, "Surely they won't have another war." Well, they're having a war now. You
can't say that. You can say, "I'd like to see peace on earth.", so you work toward it...
but if you hope there's peace on earth, you might by/.. get depressed by the next war.
See, when people say to me, "When will the Venus Project be built?"... the honest answer
is, "I don't know." I don't even know if we'll get there but I can't except what I see, so
I try to intervene. "Intervening? Does that mean we'll have a better world." Not necessarily.
Whatever you get is what you get. Do you understand that? The assumptions: "Surely people can
all see the logic of a one global society." No they can't. That's.. that's the major problem,
so you use different techniques to try and get them oriented towards that. Okay.. so,
"What is depression and how do you get rid of it?" If you're depressed, it means you're
looking within yourself for answers.. and you can't get that. "How did I get it?..."
I didn't find it in psychology books at all. Here's how I got it. I sat down and I said,
"What is depression?" I said, "I don't know....How can I know what it is?".. but a depressed
person always seems to have a low self-image. Do you know what that means? "I'm not getting
anywhere in life. I'm not respected and three girls left me." Whatever it is! It's a low
self-sufficiency to start with. Now instead of looking for the girl of your dreams..you
try to make her. Do you know what I/.. that means? Educate her in whatever way you can.
"Does it mean it'll work perfectly?" No.. but it'll work better than you doing nothing.
Do you understand that? Therefore, depression is not only loss of self-image, they have
none. A guy finds himself in the marines and he wants to be successful in the marines and
that can't bring success... inless they give you medals and everybody pats you on the back.
That's your self-image. "I made it!".. you can say.. or an actor that does a...a..a..th..a
theater actor that acts before an audience, a live audience and they applaud after...
that makes him feel good. A movie, he doesn't know. If he works in a movie, he doesn't know
that people are going to applaud. Do you understand that? Therefore, he could encounter depression.
Anybody that does any routine: a job, a jeweler, a plumber, an artist, a painter. If they don't
get reward for their painting, like, "You're a genius. You're a good creator." That makes
em' go on painting... but if people say, "What the hells that supposed to be?!" If they paint
because they like to paint, that's much better.. if that occurs. If you go for a walk because
you like to go for a walk, not because the doctor told you to go for a walk, everyday,
at least a half hour... but if you don't do it because YOU want to do it.. If you go out
for a walk through the country and you smell the trees and you look around and ya.. you're
pleased by that, DO IT! If it depresses you going for a walk, you have to restore the
self-image. In most instances, THERE IS NO SELF-IMAGE! So, you have to GIVE them a self-image.
You have to talk about alot of things, a person says, "Gee, I didn't know that! That water
became ice suddenly. I thought it was gradually it became ice/" Well, whatever it is. If you
expose them to different branches of science and they begin to find answers that satisfy
them, their self-image grows.. but if you make a Lutheran of a person, says, "Have faith
in God. He will look after you." If you put that faith in somebody you can't see or touch,
it may carry you through.. cause you know there's somebody up there that loves you,
even though nobody does.. that there is somebody up there.. and that helps some people but
it's not genuine help. Do you understand? Cause he says to the minister, "What did I
do wrong?" If you believe in right and wrong you can get depressed. "I must've done the
wrong thing." It isn't the wrong thing that you do. It's the less valid thing that you
do. It's the less appropriate thing that you do. Do you know what I mean? Not wrong. If
you work on somebody/.. "SNAP OUT OF THAT DEPRESSION! HAVE FAITH IN YOURSELF AND CONFIDENCE!"
Well they might get..fall/ "Gee, you sound great!" but that doesn't take away their self-image.
You don't take away their self-image, you add to it. Do you understand what that means?
Whatever the person is. They.. they only have no self-image, they don't know who they are.
So they want to take/.. if you're in pain, that's different. I'm not talking about that.
If you have a tumor growing in your lungs and you can hardly breathe. That's something
else. That's not depression. That's physical.. disability.. but if you have your health and
you.. you feel that you're learning something everyday../ Don't ever assume that you can
fix something too. You can try to fix it. "I'm gonna try to fix it." If that doesn't
work, you come at it another way. If that doesn't work, say, "I can't handle it. I need
more information in THAT area." That's what self-confidence is. The more genuine information
a person has in certain areas../ People that do feel, "I can't get up before a 100 people
and say something cause I worry about whether I'll boo../ goof.. and they'll laugh at me.
You know?" Here's how you handle that. You never talk to people to win approval. You
talk to people to inform em'. If you were in a building, you were in the hallway and
f../ a big beam fell on fire, you can go in front of a thousand people and say, "Exit
as fast as you can. There's a fire." and you don't feel bad about it.. if what you're saying
is essential to their well being.. but when you gamble, if you say, "I don't believe in
God." at a church meeting, they're going to say, "WHAT?!" You know. They're not gonna
say, "How do you account for all this?" They don't even do that. If they don't do that,
there's no bridge. You have to build a bridge. Even a religous person, when they get a window
crank and they crank it and the window doesn't open, they take it back to the company. They
need verification. When they buy something the guy says, "If you buy this window, it's
hurricane proof because there's a sheet of plastic between two sheets of gl../ glass.
So you can't smash it with an object." You have to give a person with a low self-sufficiency
a high self-sufficiency by giving him a direction.. or her so that they don't concentrate on themselves.
"I've been working all these years and I have nothing to show for it." "Did you assume that
you would have something?" What you have to do is engage in self-image asking questions.
"Why am I depressed?..Why do I feel insufficient in a crowd?..Because I'm hoping the crowd
will like what I say." I don't give a shit. If they believe the earth is flat and I found
out it's round. I enjoy telling them it's round. If they refuse it, that's their problem,
not mine.. but if you feel you are unsuccessful in presenting an idea, the assumption that
you will be preccessiv/ successful is depressing. Do you understand that? That's what makes
depression. When you do something and nothing happens. When you row a boat and it doesn't
move. If you can get in a boat but you don't know how to use the "oh.."/ and it doesn't
move, you get depressed. When you pull on a string and the motor doesn't start,.. "What
the hell?" You pull on it until it does start.. but or you learn that you might have to change
the spark plug. It might have a shorter gap or a longer gap and you bring the gap closer
together, so you have a spark. If you don't know those basic things, you can kick the
lawn mower. We tend to project living human characteristics into things. Sometimes if
your binoculars don't work, you throw em' on the couch. Do you know what I mean? Cause'
you get mad at the binoculars. You give it a personality.. "Goddamnit! You should work!
I PAID $40 for it. That's why it should work." No. YOU PAID $40 and it doesn't work. So you
take it back.. or you leave it until you go into town again.. but throwing it on the couch
or the floor doesn't make it work. SOMETIMES, if there's a loose wire in your t.v. set and
you kick the set and the wire../ it'll go on again.. and so sometimes that carries on
that type of value system. I think I covered everything related to depression. It's a LOW
self-image or NO self-image.. or looking for justice. If you give them something to do..
that they identiy with. Not something that you like. Something../ talk to them about
the Venus Project, work on it, talk to other people. Then they feel they're doing something.
If other people don't understand them, they might feel disappointed. What they're disappointed
in is their inability to make contact with other people. So, it takes practice.. and
error.. and mistakes. When I first walked over to the clan people, said, "Why are you
beating up the black guy? He didn't do anything to you." They'd just say, "Just said a nigger
lover from the north." They did not hear that, nor could they hear that. Do you understand?
So if you talked to a depressed person.. and you show them what it is, so they know what's
wrong with them. They don't have a self-image. "How do you get a self-image?" By learning
new things. By learning things that take you out of the old value system.