Day 12 : About Depression

The book I am reading right now is about a high school kid who is suffering from clinical depression. The writer of the book has taken a lot of effort to get the reader better understand the pain and hardship somebody suffering with this disease goes through. He really has been successful at it to an extent. There are parts in the book that would make you cringe, some would make you let out a nervous chuckle because you are not sure if something that horrendous could really even be possible. It is. There are some parts that would make you feel to darn sad and forlorn. This is not a happy book. There are parts where you begin to relate to the things writer is taking about. Parts that makes you think.

Depression.

This is the sort of thing that until recently would've been thought as a illness only inflicted upon the weak-minded. People were taught - if you are to be a successful and a respected member of the society, you have to lift yourself up by the bootstraps, keep you chin up, take the best along with the worst, keep the fight going. You know the sort of motivational mumbo-jumbo that they feed you when they get tired of your whining and have no constructive advice to give you. Nobody ever liked to get their hands dirty on somebody else's mess. Don't ask don't tell, didn't always apply to the gay-rights law they implemented in US armed forces. It used to be the norm when it came to many things that made people uneasy.

I am sure that people back then too got anxious and stressed about stuff. But my guess is that they probably had more gumption than us. They had deeper understanding between them. They were able to cope with it, because they were there to help each other when it counted. In today's world of too much, we don't have enough of that. Media, entertainment, gossip, work, pressure, greed, hate, love, anger, fear. Everything. We have lot of those. But people themselves haven't progressed with the pace in which the things around them have. Sometimes it gets a little too much for us. We all have a tipping point. Where our brains just decide that it cannot handle of this all the time. It simply just goes on a snooze. And it blames you for it. Which in turn makes us feel even more shitty.

I guess there is a term for what I am doing right now - Yellderly. But heck, it is the book talking not me. Not entirely.

I really do thing we take on too many stuff on our plates. It would be good to take a break from all of this. They have even started to have these zones in some cities of Europe where they promise to have no tech or internet signal. You just go there and sit and relax for a bit. Get away from everything. Doesn't that sound marvelous.

I guess that doesn't exactly fit the bill for what clinical depression exactly is all about. That's for the doctors to talk about. I feel that everyone has the possibility of being depressed in life at some point. Not everyone always has to face it. But then nobody is exempt from it either. Some do manage to cope with it by themselves. By the help of medication and therapy, or in the case of a lucky few, wonderful friends and family that help through it all. In the end, feeling alone is a lousy thing. And if you have a disease that makes you feel like you deserve to be sad and alone, it makes life all the more tough to handle.

I guess, what I am saying is, you are not alone. Not truly. Whoever it was that created us, created like billions of other people in here just to ensue that we are not alone. And if you just give it a chance, I am sure you will find at least a few people out there who you could relate with and who would hear you out and give you a friendly embrace.

Sometimes that is all that is needed. Listening to each other. Just talking to someone who care about you really does help. Unloading your worries. To know there there is at least on other person on this planet who knows you and the shit that you're going through. There really are such people. Always.

You are not alone.

Day 58 : Optimistic Nihilist

Do you ever notice that you always keep changing your mind about things way too much? I always do that. I start out actually having a strong opinion about something and by the week's end I will be having radically opposite notion about the very same thing. I cannot really come to be of a strong conviction any one thing really, especially when it is something of the future. 

Do I want to write? Do want to keep doing the work I am currently doing? Do I want to quit and go do college again? If I do, do I want to learn something creative? Or do I just go ahead get a master in the field I am already into? Or do I just quit and go to the Himalayas in search of enlightenment?

I get so confused with these decisions, what do I really want to do with my life? I guess nobody really has an answer to it. But still isn't that the big question, what the heck are we doing with ourselves? Is this all there is to it? Is this what we are all meant to do? There are people out there who do amazing things with their life, right? The magazines are filled with pictures of their accomplishments and great feats. Isn't that what is to be our aim as well? Go out do big things and get our faces pasted on the cover of Time magazine. Isn't that THE dream? To be somebody.

But then I had a really good look at all the "somebody’s that I know/heard of. The famous artists, musicians, actors, intelligent people, thought leaders, party leaders, mass murderers. A big chunk of them became "somebody’s only after they were dead and done. Sure most of them knew a bit of fame when they were alive but a lot of them only came about to be the legends they are today only at retrospect. I respect those somebody’s. The ones that are revered and remembered. Ones that will be remembered even twenty years after they are dead and decomposed.

In today's day and age, there are a lot of famous people doing the rounds. It has become rather easy to become famous these days. All you have to do is have a reality show, have a big butt, or just post picture of a dress on Instagram with questionable color hues. People get famous all the time. And then people also get forgotten all the time. I can guarantee you, for example, thirty years from now you will remember Jennifer Lawrence for her scene outside the theatre in Silver Linings.. More than for her nude pictures that got leaked over the internet a few months ago. Because that is somebody who deserves the fame. She has got the skills. (And the fact that she is irresistibly adorable)

I don't suppose that we are all that memorable. I don't have high hopes that a lot many of us will be remembered more than those coming in the next generation, and only a handful at that if at all. But I do think that if we really got into it at all we are all capable of doing something worth remembering by. I am an optimistic nihilist. While I agree there is no point to any of it, we are all just dead people who just don't know it yet. I also believe that we can also create something  worthwhile and enjoy the time we have on this planet. The whole idea of morals and right and wrong is trivial but gratification for ones desires or hunger or lack thereof, should be our goal.

Today, create something out of love, just for your own sake.

Day 53 : The Voices In Our Head

There is a little flower that blooms on the pile of garbage, on a piece of bark, on a moss of green.

I've never seen a sight more hopeful, this flurry of color, on brown and dirt, in the midst of stink and reek.

I look at the life of those around me, and mine. At the toil and the gripe we feel it to be. At the helplessness we feel trying to cope with it.

There must be something that still pushes us forward. To live each day. Survive as best as we could, not give in to the despair. Why then must we think of putting up with this torture each day?

I see strength when people to put a strong face and go about their lives. Or is it pride?

We are all too strong for our own good I guess. We are all maybe waiting for someone to hear our silent calls for help. We are all needy but hate to show it.

We still dream of it. We think someone will come save us. So we wait, hoping for the day to come.

That is why we all do not give in to the voices in our heads. After all, nobody will hear our cries with the barrel of a gun between our teeth.

Day 49 : Pain and Sorrow

I have immense respect for sorrow. It is in my opinion the only honest feeling that we as a specie are really capable of feeling. Love. Anger. Hatred. Fear. Those are all just our reaction to the things that happen to us. Sorrow, I feel is something that comes from a more deeper core of our being.

We cannot see or sense sorrow. There is surely no way to measure someone's sorrow. It is not a quantifiable thing. Very much like any other feeling I suppose. But unlike those other feelings. Sorrow is something that can hit you anytime. At any place. For any reason. For love or fear or anger. There mostly has to be something to kick it off. For the pain of this heart-wrenching sorrow - you do not need a catalyst.

You could be out there driving alone in your car. Or by grocery at your local market. Or just innocently commuting to work. Like the hundreds of people around you. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes this sudden feeling somewhere deep within you. You feel like your breath is snatched out of you. This thought comes pounding at your chest like a fifty pound hammer on a anvil, you feel your heart shudder at its each jolt. The thought that you are all alone.

You may have the most adoring family, a big group of fun friends and colleagues, but when you come to think of it. You are really all alone on this planet. And no matter how many people you surround yourself with. You always feel alone. You came alone to this planet, and that is exactly how you will leave.

When this feeling comes nagging at you, you see that your hand automatically goes to your mobile phone. Wonderful thing technology is, one click and one broadcasted 'Hi' later you are suddenly in conversation with fifty different people. Lo and behold, you are not alone anymore. Do not do that.

You should take your finger off of you mobile screens. Put your cellphone back into your pocket. And let the sorrow wash over you. Let it cleanse you. Feel its steely claws squeezing your guts trying to pull you innards out. Feel yourself getting light headed and dizzy with this feeling of emptiness. But you won't, this feeling passes. So will the pain. Soon you will feel your heart beating at a normal rate. And you will be able to get on with whatever it was that you were doing.

You see, pain is not that bad a thing. Pain and sorrow are sort of the only thing that teach us more about the real us than any of those other feelings can even hope to. Bask in the sadness in all of is bleak glory. They will only help you become the stronger, more feeling being that you want to be. It is the only way you can begin to understand and empathize with what the people around you are going through. And that is in turn the only way for you to start feeling a tad less alone for a change.

Because when we are capable to feel more, we welcome more people into our lives. And then only are we capable to be truly happy.

"Pain deserves to be felt"...

Today, don't shy away from yourself. Feel it all.

Day 46 : The Beast of Depression

There is this one thing that I've often wondered about  - that I do wonder a lot.

There are times with a book or a movie or a wall in front of me;  and I just stare blankly at it with my mind somewhere seas apart.

I am sure a lot many people do this. After all it is so comfortable there inside our heads. The world is such a convenient place. We can be as brave as we want. There is no one smarter than us there. We always know all the right words to say. We won’t have to be cautious about anything here, and always will all the battles. This world is so much prettier than the real world. Who wants this 'real' world anyway? A world filled with burden and sorrow and bitter disappointments. Half the time our life is spent making up for lost opportunities, and the rest is spent wallowing over how we’ll never make up for the loss no matter how much we try.

We all have a deep depressing beast inside all of us that we never fully understand, let alone satisfy. This beast is always going to push and prod us and hold something or the other over our head. This beast will always wail and shed rivers of tears over the sadness that we've have brought upon us and the over the people we hold dear. This beast knows just what to say and show us to bring us over to his side. It will always have that power to tantalize us into thinking there is no scope of victory; that there is no chance of any change in the tide of events.

Things were always sad and hopeless for you, and just because you decide to do something to fight it won't mean your future would be any different.

We in our inexplicable way always feed its hunger. This dark beast breeds off of your hopelessness and grows bigger and fiercer by the day, till the time when you are nothing but a hollow shell of the person you were. You lose your battle even before the results are declared.

Our lives are just too confusing and tiring for any of us to hope to keep hold of our sanity for any long duration. Every once in a while you will find yourself that you have started lashing out at the people around you. Or that you are holed up in a room letting nobody in. Or spending more means to try and keep people away from you; letting them see the bags under your eyes due to the lack of sleep. You sulk around, drag your feet, and sigh your sad sighs over every blow you take. Fate has beaten the life-force out of you. And now your existence seems nothing but a sad process to the eventual downfall to mental annihilation.

But you see... sometimes, you also find a little glimmer of light showing at the end of the tunnel. This bleak damp seemingly endless tunnel of despair you’re in has an end!

You slowly bring yourself you move your feet towards the light. It is hard work, your legs are heavy with the weight of all the burdens and sorrow that you have been carrying through all this time. But still slowly but surely they keep moving forward. Even your body knows how much you need to see that light with your eyes. You move forward.

Slowly your shoulder seems to grow weary, the burden seems too tough to bear anymore. And the light is so close now; you can almost feel its warmth. You cannot stop for a break now. You cannot trust yourself to make it this far again. You shrug your shoulders and let the burden slowly slid off of you one by one. It feels so much better now. You almost chuckle wondrously at how it easy it was to let go of the weight. It seemed so fearsome before. You look back and see all of you misfortunes lying there behind you like your many footprints in the sand of time. So small.

Now you are there. Right in front of the end of the tunnel. There is a door there. It is old wood, seems sodden and damp with age. This door has not been used in a long while. But there is warm air through its hinges, and from below it there is sunny yellow light pushing through onto your feet. Your feet look bloody and dirty with you waddling through your dark tunnel. But now in that light, you like the look of it. It seems callous but firm and hard, ready to step confidently through whatever may be in store for you beyond that bright inviting sunshine.

Today, you shall open that door and step into the light.