How to Stop Self-Obsessing and Be Happier

Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out.

In Dante’s Inferno, the Roman writer Virgil leads the story’s narrator down through the circles of hell. Each circle is more grotesque and frightening than the last, until finally the pair reach the ninth circle, where Satan himself resides. Contrary to what you (or Dante) might expect, the Prince of Darkness is not found laughing maniacally, poking condemned sinners with his pitchfork. Rather, he is stuck up to his waist in a block of solid ice, weeping bitterly.

Satan is so absorbed in his misery that he doesn’t even notice the narrator and his guide when they intrude. It is a picture not of wicked glee, but of the darkest depression. Dante’s portrait is a very humanly recognizable condition, and inspires pity, not hatred.

If you haven’t experienced serious depression, you almost certainly know someone who, the proportion of Americans who have been diagnosed with clinical depression at some point in their lifetime reached an all-time high last year, at 29 percent. People describe such a spell as involving a suffocating sadness, an inability to feel pleasure, and a lethargy that makes the smallest tasks seem insurmountable.