Tolstoy on Crisis

"I felt that something had broken within me on which my life had always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that morally my life had stopped. An invincible force impelled me to get rid of my experience, in one way or another. It cannot be said exactly that I wished  to kill myself, for the force which drew me away from life was fuller, more powerful, more general than any mere desire. It was a force like my old aspiration to live, only it impelled me in the opposite direction. It was an aspiration of my whole being to get out of life...

I could give no reasonable meaning to any actions of my life. And I was surprised that I had not understood this from the very beginning. My state of mind was as if some wicked and stupid jest was being played upon me by someone. One can live only so long as one is intoxicated, drunk with life; but when one grows sober one cannot fail to see that it is all a stupid cheat. What is truest about it is that there is nothing even funny or silly in it; it is cruel and stupid, purely and simply...

What will be the outcome of what I do today? Of what I shall do tomorrow? What will be the outcome of all my life? Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death which awaits me does not undo and destroy?"

-Leo Tolstoy, My Confessions 1904, pp. 20-22


Anecdotal sidenote:
I remember when my father told me that depression didn't exist when he was growing up - very poor, just after the devastation of the Korean War. People were too busy living to get depressed! He basically told me that depression is a bourgeoisie ailment. lol. Poor working folk don't have the time nor do they concern themselves with existential questions that give rise to such angstiness. This isn't to say that people didn't commit suicide, but that it was primarily a result of radically different reasons.

SO, my question is then, is depression and existential crisis symptomatic of modern society? Broad question I know. Is it primarily a western bourgeoisie phenomenon that has trickled down into the people's psyche with the gradual development of society such that persons can now - with private property (to be Marxist) - effectively live in alienation, isolation, and stress individuality, authenticity, originality etc.?

I would be willing to bet, and would love to do the research even more, that the reasons and the nature of the suicide note has changed considerably since the early 1900s and now. Or even just looking at Korea, within a 50 year timeframe, from 1953 - the armistice - to 2003. The reasons for suicide have probably changed.