The Wall Street Journal reports that physical stimulation of the brain, in addition to having cured tremors in Parkinson’s patients, is now being utilized to cure depression and other forms of ‘mental disorders.’ 

I wonder if this is an actually positive development. Depression is an important part of the human experience—it drives us to make corrections to our lives, to examine ourselves, to change, to grow. Art, music, and literature would become sterile without suffering. Can we imagine Kierkegaard without his depression? Or Van Gogh? Can we even fathom Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane or on the Cross after ‘brain therapy?’ 

There is no doubt a lot of illegitimate suffering in the world that we should do everything we can to remedy—famine, infectious disease, warfare. But legitimate suffering plays an integral role in the evolution of the human species and the development of individual people. 

Some things should be met, not with a surgeon’s scalpel or pills but with fortitude, emotional resolve, and community support. I fear we try to medicate too many things these days, and we may just medicate ourselves out of being human.