I agree with your perspective but these things are on a spectrum. For very severe cases medication can be highly helpful and supportive, as they move to find their meaning and purpose. Each person’s situation is unique and I think blanket judgements are unhelpful.

For what it's worth, I have dealt with pretty severe depression for most of my adult life. I am only starting to have periods of coming out when I realized that most of depressed feelings come from a place of ego. I have an identity of who I am and what I like, and I seek things in the external world which might provide meaning for me. For me, it's because I always sought value from the things around me, rather than believing that I am already enough. Every single day, I have to beat down my instincts that tell me that I am worthless and remind myself that there is more beauty in the world and it's actually absurd that I am letting society tear away from me my natural instincts to want to live and enjoy life. You have to really sit with these feelings though... like really really get to know your voice vs the internalized societal voice. I have developed "tests" that help me discern which voice is which, but it has helped a bit. Also working out and taking care of your body is a bonus, and just taking pride in like... doing things to lead a peaceful life is underrated. Hope you feel better.

I hope you can understand that this and other comments about needing to find meaning and needing to sit with inner feelings... It feels patronizing. I have spent tremendous amounts of time and energy analyzing my feelings and looking for meaningful experiences. I've sought relief in meditation, religion, therapy, yoga, travel, art, etc. Most people probably have in one way or another. It's not rocket science to know those activities may be beneficial. They undoubtedly do help some people overcome feeling depressed. But feeling depressed is different from having depression.

I'm sorry it came off that way, I really didn't intend it to be, it was actually a self call out because I actually never learned as a child to sit with my inner feelings. I attribute that to being more sensitive and probably more intelligent than my siblings and acting as a buffer for my parents and basically only ever wanting to make other people happy, I never developed an inner world like other kids do.

Also I noticed... yoga, travel, art, those are still external. Even meditation can be if you approach it from a standpoint of like... one that is about forming your ego around it rather than being present... not sure if this makes sense. Like you can approach anything from a negative or place of wanting to 'fix' yourself, which ruins the experience imo. For me I would ruin things that were supposed to be fun because I would tell myself I should do this because it's good for me.

That being said, there are really low days still when I will feel absolutely nothing, I will think to myself... if this psychological pain is so intense, why should I keep going? I don't have answers for that. I genuinely just have to make it through the day. I understand that with the pressures of a family and kids, it's not one of those things where you can easily tap out, medication makes sense for that. I was just trying to share how I feel because honestly for me there isn't anyone in my life who I can relate with on this deep of a level... of these feelings, and it's really alienating in itself.

> So my career has been in software engineering since that involves building and fixing and pays well, but it still doesn't fill the hole.

A brief thought on this - I’ve found working in large software companies to be fairly unfulfilling, but working at smaller shops focused on delivering something other than software, or for which there’s some tangible connection to the real world, to be much more fulfilling. At its best, software engineering is indeed a craft and something you can take pride in and something where you can have a real impact on people’s lives by building things. A lot of that gets lost somewhere between the third roadmap meeting and the weekly scrum session to figure out how to prioritize product’s requests alongside paying down tech debt so we can improve ad unit performance, but the craft of software itself is still a creative act.

That's exactly the problem, "meaning in life" has no static definition and there is no possible way to explain it in general terms, even for people who proclaim to have "found" it.

Pills, on the other hand, are easy to understand. This is not to say that they are a viable substitute in any way, but it does explain why so many prefer substance treatments.

That's a good consideration.

Meaning in life is hard and personal. Some might have no idea where to start.

But I'd argue (somewhat pointlessly as I'm not going to change anything) -- This is the role that society, traditions, family, etc. has: "to bring people up" swimming in the same stream, given a purpose and meaning, etc.

> I'm fortunate to have had lots of unique experiences and traveled to lots of unique places

For comparison I've barely traveled more than 1000kms. Never had a passport. Travel is not related.

> where day-to-day life was focused on building and fixing things to survive, then I would have felt very fulfilled and done quite well.

Incorrect assumption; It's not the building and busy-ness. And the experience doing hobbies supports that. Nothing fills that "hole".

The feeling, the "hole" you're missing, is a combi-mix of purpose/meaning/larger-picture. I know it because I also had it. Many people try politics to fill their hole too, which also doesn't work: political parties are not big enough.

I'm not going to try to persuade you to change your life, I'm going to talk about what did it for me, and you (and others) can spectate and speculate, take and leave whatever you want. I'm sure I'll get flagged anyway.

My great realization is that nothing is set in stone, everything changes at all times, and humans have survived it.

> a debilitating feeling of lack of fulfillment, without any idea of what's missing.

A good way to start out is to start thinking about: what is your mission? What is your tribe in the world stage? are there messages or lessons from the ancestors of your tribe?

Shy away from getting over-scientific. Simple broad points. The universe is in constant change and chaos. But humans have survived for a long time. We have "lizard" brains that give us reactions, then we have learned / ingrained behavior on top of that, through all this time we've encoded "how to survive" in our brains and throughout our history; we are a storytelling species, so what stories do we have from history (note: not about history, but from history).

Realising stories, like fairytales,(ie: Rumpelstiltskin) etc - ARE old stories that ENCODE information as a way to pass knowledge from culture to culture. WHAT information is in there? what are they trying to tell us? This is the tribe of "humans" telling us something from the past, which is actually absurdly interesting and fulfilling to try and learn from.

Yes this is all "woo-woo" stuff, none of this is going to be a revelation to you. I'll probably look like a quack, but You can have a ponder about it, and realise that there's a big group that you're a part of, and there is a bit of a cosmic mission, and history plays out every day.

this won't give you purpose or fill the hole, but I think you might start to chip away at some different things in your life, (or you won't and I've just wasted 5 mins of your time, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who cares)