Getting Started

Writing has been easy for me. Always has been. Take an idea, clarify it, say something about it. Observe a happening or news report and feel it; then write about it. Sense what’s wrong in contemporary culture and write about that, or what would make it better.

Always something to say. Sometimes the piece wrote itself; quickly. Just like that! Very little effort.

Other times the logic would get tangled and time was needed to sort things out. When that was done, the article flowed quickly onto the page.

Not this week. No, not this week.

Rather several pages have been marked #1 and then left alone for hours. Sometimes a title sat precariously atop the page. Now and again only partial title adorned a blank page.

A nap was taken. A brief errand or chore. Someone needing a ride called and that took me away from my ambivalence. Or torpor?

Began reading a book. That’s always a good time filler. Sometimes a topic pops up from those pages and fuels my next article.

Not this time. No, not this time.

A day becomes two, then three and finally 6. A week of blogging. Nothing new to publish. Just a few items written in advance when the mind was fertile. But a week has formed with not much to show for it.

It crossed my mind to take a vacation from the blog. It also crossed my mind to quit the blog entirely. But that felt too final. Evidently I wasn’t ready to retire the blog and walk away. Too much like quitting a major portion of my mind. And then what? What would take its place?

This is what depression does. I don’t know if it is elder depression or medical blahs, or aging, or whatever. But it is part of real life; certainly mine, maybe yours. Because this is a personal journal and commentary on today’s issues I decided to write on this personal issue – depression.

You’ve seen the TV ads for anti-depression drugs. Vignettes of gloomy looking people sitting in a room alone, mooning over a static setting or maybe staring out the window to a mostly immovable scene. Boredom and ennui. Quiet. Solitude. Loneliness and pain. Deep pain. You can see it on their faces. And you remember your own.

A chemical imbalance accompanies depression. Serotonin. Neurotransmitters, tryptophan, and related chemicals in the brain either are slow to reproduce and cause depression events or depression causes a dip in the production of the chemicals. No one knows for sure. But replacing the serotonin helps ease the depression and pull the brain up and out of the low mood.   

Although unpleasant depression also fuels thinking processes that may lead to observations and intellectual discovery. Creative juices flow. Surprise conclusions and ‘aha’ moments may actually end the depression and cause a leap of consciousness that propels writing for weeks and weeks.

So, not all depressions are negative. They are periods when a person gets better grounded to reality. No pain, no gain. Depression is necessary suffering for insight. And so I have used it many times.

This time was a little different. It came on slowly with many mood dips. A busy schedule kept me productive for weeks but finally the mind succumbed to the blues. A vast sense of emptiness, vacuous space in dark corners emerged and embraced the day’s light.

Those who experience depression acutely know what I’m talking about. Probably most people on the planet. I just don’t read about it to know how many people have this condition. I know I am not alone. Although it feels that way. Very alone.

Well this journal has shared this with you today. Read it or not. Remember it or dump it. It is part of the routine of life. And so it is here because it is.

Carry on!

March 7, 2013