Comment by doctorcroc

Tangential, but this psychologist argues that depression evolved as a behavioral shutdown mechanism to prevent humans from over-investing in tactics or behaviors that did not yield any benefit (from a dopaminergic standpoint) -- https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201604.... The reasoning is that we conserve energy by not pursuing "dead-ends". Naturally, this evolutionary mechanism is thrown for a loop in an existence where survival is assured, and meaning becomes the main spectre psychologically.