Going Nowhere, Slow: The Aesthetics and Politics of Depression by Mikkel Krause Frantzen

In Going Nowhere Slow, Mikkel Frantzen looks at depression not only in its personal aspect, but through the intertwining of the inside and outside. While most of the literature tends to focus on the psychological aspect, this work brings the phenomenological, and existential tradition to bear on the problem of depression. The author’s claim is that we can’t understand depression in isolation from a broader political, economic and cultural horizon. Depression is understood here as a cronopathology, a sickness of and about time. Drawing from Mark Fisher’s idea of Lost Futures, the author theorises that the increase in depression can be understood in terms of that loss. It became harder and harder for most people to imagine any hopeful version of the future.
The only antidote we have is “care”. This is not the empty meaningless ‘how are you?’ Or the vague and dumb insistence on positivity. This care is born out of understanding of the other and of the shared human predicament.

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