13th
Depression
Depression exaggerates character. In the long run, I think, it makes good people better; it makes bad people worse. It can destory one’s sense of proportion and give one paranoid fantasies and a false sense of helplessness; but it is also a window onto truth.
You survive depression through a faith in life that is as abstract as any religious belief system. Depression is the most cynical thing in the world, but it is also the origin of a kind of belief. To endure it and emerge as yourself is to find that what you did not have the courage to hope may yet prove true.
If you can knock out your depression, you can live in wonderful peace with the real-world problems you may have to confront, which always seem minimal by comparison. I called one of the people I was interviewing for this book and politely began the conversation by asking how he was. “Well,” he said, “my back hurts; I’ve sprained an ankle; the children are mad at me; it’s pouring rain; the cat died; and I’m facing bankruptcy. On the other hand, I’m psychologically asymptomatic at present, so I’d say all in all that things are fabulous.”
