Environmental Impact on Psychological Carachteristics: Why the Northerners may suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

Psychological Carachteristics and Environment

Stereotypes updated

The corridor of a densly forested, shadowy belt of dark woods, thousands of lakes and inaccessible mountain peaks can be found from Canada, Northern USA, the immensity of northern Russia to the inlands of Finland, Sweden, Norway and to Scotland. It is a complex habitat with a vast richness of delicate flora and fauna, often almost void of daylight in seemingly endless wintermonths in sharp contrast to the extremely bright and lengthy daylight (the Midnight Sun) in the short summer months when everything comes alive only to be exhausted by the round the clock living in order to compensate for the pitch darkness of mood affecting winters.

The absence of serotonin and noradrenalin generating stimuli of light, the shortage of vitamine D, and the slowing down of the neurogenesis seemingly breed a melancholic, sometimes antisocial, inwardly brooding and introspective individual human being, living in a close symbiosis with Mother Nature, comfortable with and solid in the close contacts with the somtimes overpowering wilderness with the result of an interdependency and deeply felt emotional bond with everything alive in these dire circumstances since generations.

Like the native American indian we do not take the killing of a wild animal lightly. We are cautious not to overexploit the fauna and the flora, where we all, whether living on the fertile soils of rural Skåne or in the Artic North of Lappland, find ourselves best at ease, often in single households or small clusters adapted to a demanding ecosystem which may allow us to survive or break us. We are indoctrinated or brought up to regard nature as something comparable to religion, accompanied by a philosophy of modesty, political correctness and a genuine interest in preserving the ecosystem as far as the current conditions admit. Improvisation and creativity do not flourish easily simply because the stern environment does not permit so. Life is often perceived as circular which gratifies us wih a certain stability, a sense of recognition and timelesness that give comfort in a world in rapid and uncontrolable change.

"Ve vant to be alone", as often stated by the enigmatic mega star Greta Garbo, born Gustafsson in Stockholm, thus embodying the Swedish national character to strive to live in symbiosis with and to wander freely but cautiously in the woodlands, in awe of the greatness of Mother Nature and God´s all creatures. In most parts of this international belt people live in a paradox of being at peace with nature but also fiercly struggling to try to domesticate the wilderness to survive.

People tend to drink too much, brood to much, communicate sparingly and live physically strenous lives in the harsh environment where the lack of daylight push people into sometimes massive depressions from Alaska to The Baltic Sea. It is a reflection of a bittersweet combination of mysticism and brutal strategies in order to survive physically and emotionally. And yet we stay in animistic awe of the core of everything alive, be it a leaf of grass, a timid scilla or a fox at an armslength looking you defiently straight in your eyes.

In Sweden we fare somewhat better than most indigenous native peoples and tribes. Vast regions of this country are still virgin like the South of Argentina and as such a habitat plentiful of game and wood which creates a strong relation between man and nature, based on profound love, fear and respect. Our survival financially is garantueed by the wellfare state no matter what lifestyle we choose with the exception of deliberate self destructiveness.

The Swedes seemingly never were meant to be city dwellers and we needed immigrants from the Hansa Commercial Network nations to build our towns while we stayed behind in the countryside until the late 19th century when the countryside and the backward agricultural techniques no longer sufficed to feed the growing population triggerd off an exodus to the Americas or a movement towards where the means to survive were available , a continous migration to the urban centers still going on.

Moving to the capital Stockholm may seem very tempting when you are in your early twenties and looking for distraction and a mate, but the fascination often wanes off when you have hit forty and desperately wish to return to your precious woodlands or the breathtaking beauty of the hilly apple blossoms orchards of Skåne or the majestic salmon crowded rivers of the subarctic North.

We often deliberately seek seclusion. But this should not be confused with being alone. You are on your own because you choose it and, no, you are not truly alone, because you compensate with intense emotional experiences by living in interactive closeness to the flora and the fauna which may be equally rewarding as socializing with crowds of people in anonymous public entertainment establishments or at a formal dinner party where you are tied up in an endless competition to overtriumph the other dinner guests with the social achievments of your children or the amount of Böhmer chrystal chandeliers hanging from your roof.

Millenia of human development in harsh environments have molded man to go hunting or gathering alone or in the company of a few men or women, cautiously and in silence, not to scare the game away and the strong disposition to talk sparingly seems to be invested in our genes even in urban contexts.

Greta Gustafsson (Garbo) was the first generation of city dwellers in her line of descent with a rural background like the vast majority of Swedish natives. The Spanish conquerors of Latin America arrived in the pre-Columbian regions as a mixture of sophisticated city dwellers and labor hands from a rural Spain already densly populated. Social interacting and expressive verbal and body language were nothing strange to them. Living their lives in crowds came natural as it still does. Hierarchies were as commonplace as they were absent in early Scandinavian history.

The irritating habit of raised and agitated voices, and the reluctance to stop to listen to others, are commonplace in all crowded societies and have become paramount to a great extent to the inevitable American media domination with wailing crowds shouting at the top of their lungs when Ms Oprah Winfrey or the acid Judge Judy make their entrances as if they were hardcore rock stars or with adrenaline speeded news anchors in shouting contests to attract attention to the message delivered. It is embarrassing and almost painful to most Scandinavians who have an internalized modesty and a miniscule repertoire of agitation in the normative set up. The indigenous native americans are as silent as the rest of the ethnic meltingpot is loudmouthed and expressive and there are parallells to be drawn between the far from talkative Scandinavians and the indian tribes, not only with regards to behavioral codes but extending to the common attitudes versus nature.

To us there is nothing fake when icons such as Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo or Björn Andrésen whish to be left alone. Until recently this has been a silente entente and the privilege for every Swede and conslusively a totally rational thing to want. The public demand of infinite and possesive access to their stars is simply not understood in Scandinavia.

Garbo´s withdrawal was no image stunt. Why did she stay in New York? For exactly the same reason as those who wander off into the woods. Among the immense crowds of anonymous New Yorkers she was no one. She would spend endless time strolling around unnoticed into a “human woodland” and was as eagerly on the trail for "game", as those of her ancestors, only that Garbo haunted for antiques, which nowdays has become a national sport and favorite past time in Sweden, the original hunting habits transformed to adapted to the 21st century. No deers, except for domesticated animals placed in the public parks, are to be found in New York or Stockholm but the urge to hunt and catch your game persists.

Scientifically we know that people dwelling in the broad and extended ecological zone of the Subarctic woodlands with scarcity of daylight produce a serotonin deficiency and other envigorating transmittor substances and promote seasonal associated depressions (SAD). The over consumption of alcohol, which until recently, has been the only means to fight your melancholia has, for ”rational” (less obvious) reasons been replaced by tranquilizers and antidepressants in the western nations, whereas alcoholism still thrives from Finland to the Japanese Sea.

Sexuality is affected by the transmittor system and quite a number of the inhabitants of this dark belt are suffering from a reduced libido. Being asexual is not an attitude but a function of the biological system as a result of the slowed down lifestyle in an exhausting habitat. Functionally, promiscuity and a high nativity rate would be contra productive in a harsh environment resting on a delicate balance between man and the wild life. The mood pattern, even when we have become city dwellers on a permanent basis, may take generations to balance due to the strong agent of biosocial inheritance although the environment may have drastically changed. We do not adapt rapidly. On the surface, yes. What we feel on the inside is quite another matter..

The long tradition, only recently broken, of lifelong committments and marital fidelity served as a mechanism of perfecting the division of labor in everyday life. People did not ask themselves if they were in love but if they were compatible and made a good match. Aspects of rural rationality and the merging of land were governing the agreements. Sexuality for the most part was performed in the marital beds except for the most marginalized and, because of overpopulation, mobile proletariat crowding the town outskirts in shanty towns in the 1850´s and forward due to the sudden halt in a three century long successive royal megalomania virtually emptying the rural areas of all able men to fight insipid wars far away in foreign countries.

The ailments of the homeless in exodus toward the cities were compensated by an often liberal sexuality, irrational and extralegal relations and sexuality as a means of escaping a sad reality of poverty and dramatic social change. The current Swedish liberal views on sexuality may be a result of a vast majority of destitute proletarians gradually gaining an immense influence on the political arena in our country, easily barring the way of a petite bourgeoisie and a poverty stricken aristocracy due to the intense war faring in which Sweden had been involved since the seventeenth century.

The political gradual radicalization of the poor, marginalized Swedes almost produced a Bolshevist revolution in 1919 and could only be stopped because of an an unexpected and unholy union of the King (who still had some political influence at the time), and the radical Social Democrat leader, Hjalmar Branting, a bourgeois armchair socialist, who joined forces with the establishment and managed to keep the most rebellious at bay.

By a cleverly implemented policy of heavy bourgeois influence on a majority of the labor force in terms of launching nationwide projects of stability, health care, housing and education, (internationally and nationally known as Saltsjöbadsandan) thus constructing a well fare state, was followed by a string of pragmatic social democrat leaders who succeeded to ”domesticate” their adherents and to hold hands in close cooperation with the leading stunningly socially concious Swedish capitalists, a kind of democratically progressive socialism unique for Sweden during eight decades. Socialism, as it should be understood literally, never governed Sweden, contrary to popular (and American) belief. State capitalism was never an issue but a large public sector enfathomed most of the basic human rights and the allocation of the revenues.

Better housing, better standards of living and with an excess time of leisure time, the working class idealized their relatives in the countryside and their favorite spare time, if any at all for the peasantry, to hunt and go fishing for pleasure and to let oneself be absorbed by the breathtaking impressions of the deep forests, to discover a virgin lake by yourself or join smallish hunters´ group of locals to go on hunting while the ladies picked berries and mushrooms as feverishly as in the old days.

This pattern persists. A vast majority of the Swedes are affluent enough to travel to Thailand or the Maldives for a sunny vacation but usually never miss a chance to spend some weeks in the countryside and in the woodlands and like Garbo taking extensive hikes into the wilderness on her visits to her native Sweden or her urban hikes in an anonymous New York.

Feeling a bit sad and melancholic is sometimes an attractive feeling that makes you stop and reflect on what you are doing or the human condition and existentialism. Feeling depressed, however, is pure hell and very seldom something good comes out of it.

Depression most likely existed in the rural Sweden, although there was no time for idleness or passivity and by now, we know, that being kept busy may keep a depression at bay. Still many of us regress in pangs of immobility and anxiety during the oppressing darkness , seasonal affliction of infamous Dark Belt affecting it´s millions of inhabitants.

“I vant to be alone”. Yes, it seems very plausible that Garbo may have uttered this plea. Greta, for complicated reasons, had a frail ego and no transfer to New York or Hollywood could wipe out the genetical and social legacy of generations before her.

Bergman and Andrésen have expressed repeatedly that they “vanted to be alone”. The excess attention is as opposite to a “Swedish Mentality” as possible. Bergman, the Film Director, fled to the barren and rough island of Fårö, as did many of the celebrities in order to have some privacy. Pretentious ? I think not.

And what with the famous Queen Christina and the Swedish Iceberg, Anita Ekberg, splashing around in the Fontana di Trevi, equally famous as Garbo and Bergman?

Queen Christina devoted much time to hunt bear as one of the men of inumerable aristrocatic hunting parties. This, however, did not suffice. She fell in love with the Latin Mind whereas Ekberg fell in love with Latin men. Ekberg did not care for squirrels or mosquitos and Christina had already been there and done that. There are always exceptions to the rule...

The persistent rumors that the Swedes are more prone to suicide than the rest of the world are not true. It stems from the fact that suicide was not regarded as a crime because of the early secularization and the religious stigma for a sudden death made public and noted in the statistics did not exist. Most other countries declined to openly present the real reason for somebody dying by suicide, especially in Catholic countries, so comparisons are misleading. In spite of a vivacious Farnese wine and tarantellas, suicides still occur in midst of the allegría and the joie de vivre of the vivacous Mediterreaneans.

It may be true, however, that the Scandinavians and Russians, equally sentimental and emotional as the Latinos but expressing it differently, choose to temporarily socially isolate themselves and brood upon the hardships of life. Being at one with the nature is the single most healing effect on these melancholic although not depressive states, something that may be difficult for a South East Asian or a Latino to understand, since myriads of people and the deforestation has been a reality for thousands of years and has fallen short as a concept of wellbeing.

Our particular mindset and conduct is often regarded as odd. Maybe it is...

Just a thought

Douglas Modig 2012