Screw Depression Already, Okay?

Any emotion that does this to a kid's face
oughtta be dragged into an open field and shot.



Greg:

Fuck depression, okay? Just fuck it already. It's a fuckin' waste of time. Goddamn my brain chemistry anyway. The only reason I write this stuff down is in the off chance that somebody might find it helpful some day. I was looking around the Web yesterday for resources on anxiety and depression, and that in and of itself is depressing. Why? Because there are no real humans talking about the issue. Just academics and doctors and salesmen - none of whom can adequately empathize with what I'm feeling. On top of that, every other website is trying to sell you something. Buy my tapes, eat my drugs, join my overly expensive therapy group. It's a disgusting load of crap, I tell ya! Capitalizing on a person's depression. It's unconscionable.

So I'm beginning to think that Alan Watts was right with that whole "you oughtta think less" thing. And here's why. If you entertain fewer depressed thoughts while you're depressed, then all you're left dealing with is the physical manifestations of depression. You've effectively taken the "fuel" away from the depression for maintaining itself. I'm not saying that you should stuff all your feelings. That's not healthy either. The most effective thing I've found is to simply observe your thoughts, understand them for what they are, and let them go on their merry (or not so merry) way. The problem with thoughts is that they lead you to believe that there's something to be done. The underlying truth is that there's nothing to be done about being depressed. Depression seems to be a group of particular thoughts and bodily sensations that lead a person to certain actions or inaction as the case may be. The thoughts are what keep the bodily state in place, so fuck 'em and the depression goes away.

It's at times like these that I have to remind myself that there's actually nothing going on. Like I said in one of my previous letters, actual events are over in a millisecond. Then there's a vast tract of time before any salient event takes place again. In the interim, all you're left with is thought cycles that are either grinding on what already happened, or desperately trying to anticipate what might happen next based on previous events, or trying to figure out a way to have thus-and-so happen again. It's all pretty much a monumental waste of brain power. All of those thoughts are getting in the way of the unshakeable presence of reality. It's tantamount to saying, "Get out of the way, wouldja? You're standing in the way of the view of my own ass!"

I was riding the waterfront trolley to work this morning, having all my depressed thoughts and whatnot, and trying as best as I could to just let them roll by, when right in the middle of it all the memory of the fact that riding on the trolley is fun pushed everything else aside. There's no reason why riding on the trolley is fun; it just is. There's no explaining it. And for some reason that recalled realization made me want to cry right then and there. It seems that realization would've made me react in some other way - getting happier, I suppose - but instead... Maybe it was that I wanted to weep with relief. I dunno.

But there you have it. There is still fun in the world, there is joy without reason, mirth without consequence, up without down - all of this regardless of whether I can "feel" it at the moment or not. Life itself is not an unfolding drama with me as its central character. Not even my life is that. There is much more in the world than what goes on between my ears.

Thanks for listening. Give my best to Marie.