This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

To be human, to be alive, is to be vulnerable to sadness and suffering.

For centuries, artists, writers and thinkers have tried to capture what this feels like.

The author William's tyrant once said,

The great drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.

But it is not an immediately identifiable pain, like that of a broken limb.

It may be more accurate to say that despair comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being

imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room.

And because no breeze stirs this cauldron, because there is no escape from the smothering

confinement, it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion.

Sometimes our suffering is connected to what we see in the world.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, who was already prone to depression,

was often consumed by the horrors of the war. His secretary, John Hay, would note that he would sit for hours

staring vacantly out the window, his face displaying the deepest sorrow imaginable.

But as long as humans have been suffering, humans have also been trying to find paths

out of suffering. Philosophers, scientists, and spiritual leaders have offered many ideas on

how to live a life of contentment.

Today on the show, we explore the ideas of an unusual philosopher king who lived some

19 centuries ago.

There's a reason his meditations about a life worth living have survived nearly 2,000 years.

Ancient ideas to help us find a way

out of modern despondencies.

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