Why So Blue?

(March 15, 2008)

I've been thinking about this since Monday. That's when Preston posted something worrisome on "the board." No, not The Noise Board, I haven't looked at that retarded fucktank in over a year-- this here is a new non-douchey message board started by Preston and Chuck.

Preston's post was essentially, "hm, depression and melancholy affect many of my friends and most of the women I've dated." He wasn't looking for a Prozac roll-call or anything, it was just a general musing over what he sees as widespread blues. At first I was like, "Must be a coincidence around who he happens to hang out with, or his perception of things." But no, there was a gargantuan number of responses agreeing, showing that essentially a lot of our circle of friends WOULD call themselves depressed, melancholy, anxious.

Really, this is true?

'S up, guys? It's alright. Buck up little tigers, everything's gonna be alright. Why so blue? Nothing is insurmountable.

I'm pretty happy. Very happy actually. That doesn't mean I don't have shit going on. Everyone's got shit going on. It's life. I told Joe yesterday that I walk around seeing myself on the surface of the planet, fixed in space and time as this microscopic speck. This view makes it really hard to worry about anything. Life lasts, like, a nanosecond in the grand scheme of things. Don't waste it being anxious or depressed!

Here's what I do. I learned to do this when I was little and unhappy all the time. I had this ritual I did almost every night. I envisioned the inside of my head as a round dark room with doors all around. As I lay awake bombarded by terrible thoughts, I would take each thought as it came, give it a shape and a weight, and put it in a box, then I'd put the box out the door and close the door. Sometimes I would have to put out the same box a ton of times, but eventually the room would be empty and I could go to sleep.

By the time I got to college I could do this very quickly.

I don't even consciously think about it any more. I just automatically compartmentalize my thoughts and feelings. For example, yes, I still owe the IRS more than a few paychecks' worth of back taxes. But I don't keep that box constantly in my main room. It's there, but it's behind its door in its own box and I deal with it when I do the monthly payment or get a letter from Uncle Sam. It's fine, it'll all work out. What's the good of giving central stage to things that cause anxiety? That shit's not for the main room. The main room is where I keep my love for Joe, his love for me, our fantastic household, my busy schedule, my friends, my plans. Everything that makes me happy!

I never want to know what it's like to need drugs to make me stop feeling sad or anxious. Especially when there is no specific source of the sadness. That's the kicker -- these people cannot answer "what's wrong?" It's nothing. Or it's everything. They don't know. That, in the parlance of our times, bites the big one.

That reminds me of this interesting guy whose music I reviewed last fall. He's not merely depressed. He's a goddamn mess. Here's what I wrote, excerpted:

"...Have you ever been in bed, halfway between awake and asleep, when the most disturbing thought comes sidling into your mind, unbidden? Or it doesn�t even need to be when you�re falling asleep; ever be driving your car and calmly ponder how easy it would be to just hit the gas and veer off a bridge? What�s stopping you? When these sinister thoughts flit through your consciousness it�s as though a grey cerebral curtain fluttered in some morbid mental breeze and for just a nanosecond you�d caught a fleeting glimpse of your nightmares. The curtain is sanity, judgment, control. What hell it would be if there was no curtain and you lived every day in the nightmare..."

Someday science will begin to fathom the human brain and all the ways it can sabotage.