Depressive hedonia, as Mark Fisher observed, is not an absence of pleasure but an enslavement to it.
Trapped in compulsive enjoyment, one feels something vital is missing—yet cannot look beyond the pleasure principle to find it.
This mirrors the hedonic treadmill, where pursuit replaces purpose. Acceleration becomes its own end, masking emptiness with motion. To stop invites existential anxiety; stillness feels like exile in a society wired for relentless forward thrust.
Thus, we treat symptoms with therapy and medication, but the core remains: despair disguised as pleasure, urgency masking absence.