Mark Manson, an American bestselling author and famous YouTuber, has made headlines by posting a video that he “traveled to the world’s most depressing country” after visiting Korea. Manson, a best-selling author who has written famous self-development books such as “The Art of Turning Off Nervousness,” is a YouTube creator with 1.44 million subscribers.
Manson recently released a 24-minute video on his YouTube channel under the theme of “Traveling to the World’s Depressing Country.” During his visit to Korea, Manson met with Americans, psychologists, and psychiatrists living in Korea to look into depression in Korean society.
How do they compare, I’ve been to a few eastern euro countries and the people are happy and vibe is fun. The standard of living might not be high but it isn’t high stress worker drone society boxed in by societal expectations.
You have probably been in big cities where a lot of stuff is happening but visit the countryside and it is full of broken people and dying towns.
Another thing to note is that further south you go, the happier people will seem, while in the north, long winter days and lack of Vitamin D can really mess with local people.
The people over 45 have it especially bad here, since the world they used to know is no longer there, they can’t adapt to it, they don’t make as much as some younger people do, and they are beginning to lose their friends and family. While life is amazing and exciting to the young adults you are most likely to talk to in bars. The contrast actually adds to depression.
When it comes to comparisons, I think the main difference is that in East Asia, people have to deal with too much order and monotony.
In East Europe, the life as you know it might disappear at any moment. Life is fragile and fleeting and everything around you and everything you know will be dead one day. Nature itself reinforces that fact every year.
Isn’t that basically just all rural areas at this point? I am not aware of any rural towns where you will have a jolly good fun time.
At this point it just seems like a trade off of rural living. You need to be part of some community if you want to live a happy existence in a rural area.
There are places in bigger cities that are depressing too, if you venture outside of the touristy parts. In rural areas, however, it is harder to avoid.
You basically just described every rural town, anyplace in the world I have traveled to.
The younger generation leaves the rural communities for the opportunities found in larger cities and towns. What is left behind is 50+ year olds with no-one to pass the farm onto. Eventually they sell out to someone or go bankrupt. The consolidation of land resources continues.
My wife and I are some of those the fled the rural hellscape. Those that stayed behind have spent their lives in poverty and ignorance. Both of my grandparents went bankrupt farming and died living with some of their kids in a city.
I actually did the opposite. I grew up in Klaipėda, a harbor town in Lithuania and moved a 100 km eastward to a small town to live with my wife.
I work from home so I can live here quite comfortably, despite it being boring. Both urban and rural experiences can be depressing in their own way.