This seems strange to most of us in the Western world in the age of chemical antidepressants. We have been told depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, so the idea of a cow as an antidepressant seems almost like a joke. But here’s the thing. That Cambodian farmer did cease to be depressed when his social circumstances were changed. This wasn’t an individualistic solution—they weren’t telling him the problem was all in his head and to pull his socks up or swallow a pill. It was a collective solution. He could never have gotten that cow on his own; the solution couldn’t have come from him
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