’Pong has combined his penchant for photographs of reflections with a self-portrait to head his latest post, Moments in 2007.
For him, 2007 was a year where he overcame some of the pressures of depression to achieve highlights such as a prize-winning image.
As I’ve said before in a post about privacy, depression hits 800,000 Australians every year and yet we try to pretend this epidemic and its effects don’t exist. Just pop another SSRI.
Small-minded politicians introduce legislation like WorkChoices in the name of “productivity”. Yet by disrupting routine family time and increasing individual stress they produce a shell-shocked workforce that’s less productive.
’Pong has the good fortune to have a day-job employer who has a more sophisticated worldview. When WorkChoices was introduced he told me “Why would I want to treat my staff so badly? I want to keep the good people!”
If a workplace produced physical illness as debilitating as depression, the proprietors would be paying compensation for decades — if they weren’t jailed for criminal negligence. But somehow it’s OK to destroy people’s minds. This has to end.
Depression is a normal human reaction to abnormal conditions. We’ve produced an abnormal society where in any given year nearly 1 in 20 of us suffers from its effects just in this way, let alone what others. Yes, this has to end.
Fortunately organisations like Beyond Blue help. And I’ll post my own, generally more positive thoughts later today.