A depressed nation

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There were more than 70m prescriptions for antidepressants in England in 2018 to treat conditions including depression and anxiety, according to NHS Digital. The 2016 and 2017 figures were 64.7m and 67.5m respectively. In 2008 the figure was 36 million.

Professor Wendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “For many people antidepressants can be lifesaving, but they should not be the ‘go-to’ for first instances of mild depression.” But Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We will only prescribe medication to a patient after a full and frank discussion with them, considering their unique circumstances … antidepressants are no different, and it’s really important that increasing numbers of antidepressant prescriptions are not automatically seen as a bad thing.”

If you lived in England at the moment you would be depressed, too.

Art keeps us alive

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To The Guardian

In your interview with the writer Valeria Luiselli, one minute she makes an admirable case for the value of fiction, and the next she asks, “If you’re going to devote your life to something as questionably useful as literature or art, I think there’s a commitment that you make to understanding others”. Questionably useful? I was tearing at the paper in frustration. Why do we feel that the arts are inferior to science? Who made us believe that?

I am a doctor; I work in a hospice. I am painfully aware that science keeps us alive. But what keeps us living is art. The overstretched, underfunded NHS still finances an art therapist and a music therapist at my hospice. When patients need something to keep them going they look to the arts. If you don’t believe that, look around your living room. Do you have a TV? Do you have a bookshelf? A music player of some sort? These are forms of art and they are what we choose to come home to. We come home to stories, whether told on the screen, on pages, or by a relative or friend; we live for stories. Every novelist should know that the arts are not “questionably useful”. They are what keeps us going. (Dr Clare Coggins, Oxford, published in The Guardian and The Week, March 2019)

Speaking personally, one great joy for me is to draw – outside in real life, inside designing greeting cards, anything as long as I have a drawing book, a pencil ( and, sotto voce) an eraser.   I have drawn lions and elephants in Namibia, seascapes in Britanny and castles in Italy, sitting alongside my wife. We can be silently absorbed for ages, with only the breeze and the movement of the trees as background.   This is Epicureanism at its best- absorbing, calming and a way of escaping the hassle of modern life.

Catholic priests are not alone

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Some 380 Southern Baptist pastors, ministers, Sunday school teachers, deacons and church volunteers have been accused of sex offenses over the last twenty years.  700 victims have come forward, the youngest only three years old.   One hundred are still in prison  and one hundred are registered sex offenders and at least thirty-five have been allowed to find new jobs at churches. 

Efforts to get the leaders of the Southern Baptists to deal with the abuse, track offenders and act against congregations who harbour or conceal abusers have failed – the SBC Executive Committee has rejected all proposals, while, of course expressing “sorrow”.  August Boto who drafted the refusal to act, admitted sexual misconduct was a criminal activity, but stated that “ it is always going to happen”, the implication being that they have to put up with it and not make too much fuss.. “ It’s criminal activity and we shouldn’t be resigned to it.”. But they seem  to have done nothing about it.

Why is all the attention on the Catholic church, and how come self-described “christians” tolerate this behaviour and brush it aside?  The Southern Baptists have a reputation for very right-wing political views, “family values” and historic racism, covering up some of the most egregious behaviour towards their fellow citizens.  They should be seen to be doing something about it.

25 visitors with snow on their boots

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I don’t do it often (it’s the quality of visitor to this blog that is important, not the number), but yesterday I had occasion to inspect the statistics associated with this blog.  25 Russians are  shown as visitors to the blog, just yesterday.

Now why would 25 Russian citizens visit a blog called Epicurus.Today, presented in English and with a focus on events in the United States and Britain (countries I happen to know best)?   The blog tries to relate the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus to modern, everyday events and issues that we encounter all the time  and suggests practical ways of looking at them without the arcane verbiage of modern philosophy.   It does not aspire to be a foremost opinion-former in the Western world!

Or do Russians disagree with the “foremost opinion-former” bit?

It so happens that in the ranks of those who disturb ataraxia , or peace of mind, are the Russians , who do nothing if not ordered to do so by their political masters.  I have written some very rude things about the attempts to destabilise the EU and to interfere with the elections in the US, the referendum on Brexit, and elections elsewhere. I have also recently experienced what seems to be a minor technical disruption of the blog that might have had nothing to do with anything.

I have no evidence whatsoever that these these 25 visitors have malign intent, but just in case they do let me give you the best advice you will get this year:   Mir tovarisc – stop poking around in Western media and spreading lies and untruths, and focus on the crooks who stole your country when Communism fell, and are now some of the richest people on the planet.  Arrest them and send them for re-education in a Siberian gulag (especially you-know-who), and leave us alone!   Then, perhaps we can concentrate on Epicurean peace of mind and enjoyment of life.

Poverty in Britain

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47% of British head teachers who responded to a survey on pupil poverty say they or their staff have had to wash their pupils’ clothes, and 75% say so many children turn up hungry, they offer free breakfasts. 91% have given clothes to pupils. 96% think pupil poverty has increased in recent years. 60% say their school has endured “severe” budget cuts. Some 3,000 schools were asked to take part in the survey; 407 responded.  (Association of School and College Leaders/The Times)

I don’t know how many times one has to point out the huge wealth divide, whether you are in America or Britain, a divide which is extrordinarily bad for both countries, for democracy and for social stability. To ignore it is folly, another way of saying short- sighted.  Create a situation where both parents have to go out to work for minimal pay, sub-par healthcare and no hope and there is a strong chance that someone else, bless them, has to feed their kids in school.  75% of children needing breakfast at school!  Unacceptable.

Epicurus would, I believe, have strong opinions on these statistics.  He was no “socialist”, but he was a pragmatist, believing that everyone, not just a small group of the lucky and rich, should enjoy the pleasures of life, and not live lives of desperation and deprivation.