This article is not very good. Any article on ennui this long that does not mention depression at all is clearly not thinking deeply or widely about the topic at hand.
I do think there is a good article about ennui that could have been written. And, in particular, how to distinguish it from depression. Both feature anhedonia (life is not pleasurable), monotony, dissatisfaction, and a vague sadness. To me, the key difference is drive.
With depression, it is as if your own motor is turned off. Everything you do brings you no pleasure, you can't imagine them bringing you pleasure, and you don't even have the energy to try. Both the world is empty and you are too.
With ennui, the inner component is different. The world feels boring and unsatisfying, but the internal drive to fix that problem is still present, just unguided. You know you aren't happy and want to do something about it, you just don't know what.
Ennui is restless where depression is inert.
This makes it a relatively easier problem to solve because it's essentially external. The feeling is caused by your actions and not a fundamental chemical imbalance. Addressing it requires understanding your own values and motivations. What gives your life a sense of meaning? Look back on days that you felt were particularly gratifying—the ones you want to reflect on on your deathbed. What made them that way? What did they have in common?
Often, ennui comes from trying to replicate the same actions that brought us joy in the past without realizing that the context has changed. So there is a generalization step. It's not that doing X was meaningful. It's that doing X because it meant Y was.
For example, I used to be a game developer. After about six years, I was pretty burned out. It wasn't as fun anymore. I kept doing it but felt more and more ennui. Why did the same activity that used to make me feel gratified no longer do so?
It's because the underlying context—my own internal state—changed. A big part of the gratification came from:
* Learning a new domain and seeing my skill in it improve.
* Proving to myself that I could accomplish shipping a real AAA game.
After several years, my knowledge had plateaued, and I had already proven to myself several times over that I could do it. Those aspects were gone. What I took away from it is that internal growth—learning new skills—is important for me to feel that something is meaningful. Once I "max out" in a domain, it is no longer gratifying for me.
This may not be true for others where their satisfaction comes more from providing value to others, or demonstrating mastery. I value those too, but in the absence of learning, they aren't enough.
The articles does mention depression at the very end but I kept finding myself thinking the same thing: that there's no use in not calling what you're describing by it's commonly accepted name. Generally I would say that feelings of this type that manifest over a period of time definitely qualify as clinical depression.
No, I do believe that there is a significant difference between depression and the ennui the article talks about. I think the article just fails to clarify the difference.
I do think there is a good article about ennui that could have been written. And, in particular, how to distinguish it from depression. Both feature anhedonia (life is not pleasurable), monotony, dissatisfaction, and a vague sadness. To me, the key difference is drive.
With depression, it is as if your own motor is turned off. Everything you do brings you no pleasure, you can't imagine them bringing you pleasure, and you don't even have the energy to try. Both the world is empty and you are too.
With ennui, the inner component is different. The world feels boring and unsatisfying, but the internal drive to fix that problem is still present, just unguided. You know you aren't happy and want to do something about it, you just don't know what.
Ennui is restless where depression is inert.
This makes it a relatively easier problem to solve because it's essentially external. The feeling is caused by your actions and not a fundamental chemical imbalance. Addressing it requires understanding your own values and motivations. What gives your life a sense of meaning? Look back on days that you felt were particularly gratifying—the ones you want to reflect on on your deathbed. What made them that way? What did they have in common?
Often, ennui comes from trying to replicate the same actions that brought us joy in the past without realizing that the context has changed. So there is a generalization step. It's not that doing X was meaningful. It's that doing X because it meant Y was.
For example, I used to be a game developer. After about six years, I was pretty burned out. It wasn't as fun anymore. I kept doing it but felt more and more ennui. Why did the same activity that used to make me feel gratified no longer do so?
It's because the underlying context—my own internal state—changed. A big part of the gratification came from:
* Learning a new domain and seeing my skill in it improve.
* Proving to myself that I could accomplish shipping a real AAA game.
After several years, my knowledge had plateaued, and I had already proven to myself several times over that I could do it. Those aspects were gone. What I took away from it is that internal growth—learning new skills—is important for me to feel that something is meaningful. Once I "max out" in a domain, it is no longer gratifying for me.
This may not be true for others where their satisfaction comes more from providing value to others, or demonstrating mastery. I value those too, but in the absence of learning, they aren't enough.