Depression

Is it possible to consider any negative thing and, depending on your point-of-view, see it differently? Take a bad thing, take a "worst" thing, look at it from one side and then another, and tell me that it doesn't change.

Depression seems to follow that line for me.

Does life ever seem an utter waste? Sling whatever logic you wish, the feeling is low, there in your chest, an ever sinking pressure that nothing you ever do will make a difference, nothing you've ever done has mattered, and that life will end today or fifty years from now and the only thing that might change is the length of your obituary.

That is depression from one angle. Look to your wonderful family, a job that provides a living, a talent that might one day provide a better living, even faith in a benevolent God. Make a list as long as you wish, it doesn't matter, emotion and logic live in different area codes.


Of course, such a sentiment is unreasonable and so obviously a lie, and yet it is true inside your chest, and so it might as well be a maxim of nature, like gravity.

What examining angle could alter anyone's perception of this to something positive?

Strange that for so many creative types, their best work springs from a depressive state. A writer may bang out scene after scene of adequate story and dialogue, but when the black melancholy covers him, or is looming there on his horizon consciousness, exquisite words and phrases spill like rain droplets.

What is this that leeches happiness but stokes creativity? Does he embrace it? What strange trade off does a writer complete when he gives in to the black feelings to stumble through his days as wretched as the basest man, while drafting words and phrases that transform. Why does pain so often produce beauty?

Don't know.