On responsibility as the solution
«To destroy oneself, the moral agent,» wrote Kant, «expels that much morality from the world.» For all its apparent naiveté, this argument remained the only one. Only our sense of duty keeps us alive. In concrete terms, if you want to have a useful duty, make another being’s happiness depend on your existence.
The movie “Whatever” (Extension du domaine de la lutte) (1999), Michel Houellebecq. Here the book.
I.e. love, family, etc. Which the protagonist cannot however apply because he is too far gone.
Also see Jordan Peterson who, as a solution for the depressed white male, places the concept of responsibility at the forefront: «When I talk to these crowds about this, the men’s eyes light up.» Or yet: «[this] idea that life is for happiness, and I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think that that’s how people experience life. […] people experience life as a series of crucial ethical decisions.»
In fact Peterson correctly believes that life is suffering. To survive this truth, he escapes into morality and into the sense of duty, which are illusions ancient like History.
Of course Peterson’s recipes are not only not applicable to the most extreme cases, but they can also have serious consequences, because by applying the “fake it till you make it” system one can get to commit suicide, or in any case reach very deep abysses which, from a therapeutic point of view, are obviously worse than the mere containment. Not to mention any damage to others, due to the unfulfilled responsibilities.
This would actually apply to him too, since his depression is very serious, but after all Peterson is specialized and used to hurt himself, because he thinks he has a mission.
The missions, like the characters in old RPGs, that fought against the nihilism of the final boss that wanted to destroy the world (1, 2, 3), or like the main characters in “The NeverEnding Story”, fighting “The Nothing”. It were the old family men of the pre-nihilistic-era (pre-2000 – before that it was still ongoing, it was just announced, nihilism didn’t yet reveal itself), that believed in a future, and that told their children their morals, their hopes, their beliefs. Anything. Anything goes but acknowledging reality.