Impression To Depression Quotes

Oh! This'll impress you - I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I'm a PEZ dispenser and I'm in the abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can't have it all?

Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.

We are sometimes dragged into a pit of unhappiness by someone else’s opinion that we do not look happy.

The more you try to impress, the more you become depressed, and the more they get tired of your coercion. It doesn't make them love you, instead, they'll see you as a little child, trying to draw a senseless picture on a piece of paper, begging people to look at it and admire it by force. You can persuade someone to look at your face, but you can't persuade them to see the beauty therein.

The smiles of the unhappiest are often the widest.

Go get him, tiger, I silently told him. Shouldn’t you be working? he asked. Yes, I said frankly. But the world outside these walls is depressing, and I need the distraction. You may begin impressing me now.

sufferers of depression, who can elect to keep their feelings private, experience chronic, unremitting emotional alienation. Each moment spent “passing” as normal deepens the sense of disconnection generated by depression in the first instance. In this regard, depression stands as a nearly pure case of impression-management. For depressed individuals, the social requirement to “put on a happy face” requires subjugation of an especially intense inner experience. Yet, nearly unbelievably, many severely depressed people “pull off the act” for long periods of time. The price of the performance is to further exacerbate a life condition that already seems impossibly painful

My demeanor isn't that of a woman enraged. To see me slumped, glassy-eyed, holding a sandwich someone has cut for me into four "manageable" pieces, a person might tell you I look much more like a woman subdued.

Don't try to impress a loser because If one is not happy about the things happening in their life, one cannot be happy about the things happening in someone else's life.

There were impressive stone paths and benches and even a statue of an angel that gave Simon nervous fits, since he was a Doctor Who fan. The angel wasn’t weeping, exactly, but it looked too depressed for Simon’s liking.

It is simply a confession that with all that I've seen in the last few years, all the events I've been invited to, and all the people whom I've met, I am less and less impressed by "impressive" things or people who are presented as having things figured out. I am impressed by people who are honest and kind. I am inspired by moments of vulnerability, moments of confession and compassion, moments where someone makes it clear that they are a person in need of other people and someone else makes it clear that the first person is not alone.

Depressions and melancholy are often a cover for tremendous greed. At the beginning of an analysis there is often a depressed state of resignation-life has no meaning, there is no feeling of being in life. An exaggerated state can develop into complete lameness. Quite young people give the impression of having the resignation of a bitter old man or woman. When you dig into such a black mood you find that behind it there is overwhelming greed-for being loved, for being very rich, for having the right partner, for being the top dog, etc. Behind such a melancholic resignation you will often discover in the darkness a recurring theme which makes things very difficult, namely if you give such people one bit of hope, the lion opens its mouth and you have to withdraw, and then they put the lid on again, and so it goes on, back and forth.

I've never met someone who is so good at switching gears and filing their feelings away so they can sort through them later. I'm not sure whether it's the most impressive thing I've ever seen, or the most depressing.

Self-hatred is self-imprisonment. Self-forgiveness is self-liberation. You have the right to suppress yourself, oppress yourself and depress yourself. You have the right to impress yourself too. Feel happy!

One of the most universal causes of self-doubt and depression: trying to impress people you don't like. Stressing to impress is fine, but do it for the right people - those you want to emulate.

Statistics say that a range of mental disorders affects more than one in four Americans in any given year. That means millions of Americans are totally batshit. but having perused the various tests available that they use to determine whether you're manic depressive. OCD, schizo-affective, schizophrenic, or whatever, I'm surprised the number is that low. So I have gone through a bunch of the available tests, and I've taken questions from each of them, and assembled my own psychological evaluation screening which I thought I'd share with you. So, here are some of the things that they ask to determine if you're mentally disordered 1. In the last week, have you been feeling irritable? 2. In the last week, have you gained a little weight? 3. In the last week, have you felt like not talking to people? 4. Do you no longer get as much pleasure doing certain things as you used to? 5. In the last week, have you felt fatigued? 6. Do you think about sex a lot? If you don't say yes to any of these questions either you're lying, or you don't speak English, or you're illiterate, in which case, I have the distinct impression that I may have lost you a few chapters ago.

Employees hate meetings because they reveal that self-promotion, sycophancy, dissimulation and constantly talking nonsense in a loud confident voice are more impressive than merely being good at the job - and it is depressing to lack these skills but even more depressing to discover one's self using them.

The very same person can, at the very same time, seem at peace to some people, and depressed or even suicidal to some.

It seems that a whole lot of people, both Christians and non-Christians, are under the impression that you can’t be a Christian and vote for a Democrat, you can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution, you can’t be a Christian and be gay, you can’t be a Christian and have questions about the Bible, you can’t be a Christian and be tolerant of other religions, you can’t be a Christian and be a feminist, you can’t be a Christian and drink or smoke, you can’t be a Christian and read the New York Times, you can’t be a Christian and support gay rights, you can’t be a Christian and get depressed, you can’t be a Christian and doubt. In fact, I am convinced that what drives most people away from Christianity is not the cost of discipleship but rather the cost of false fundamentals. False fundamentals make it impossible for faith to adapt to change. The longer the list of requirements and contingencies and prerequisites, the more vulnerable faith becomes to shifting environments and the more likely it is to fade slowly into extinction. When the gospel gets all entangled with extras, dangerous ultimatums threaten to take it down with them. The yoke gets too heavy and we stumble beneath it.

It was more that he did better being busy, keeping to a routine. It helped hold the black dogs of thought at bay. Also he had learned that a person could be happy with having done the best they could under the circumstances. It didn't always have to be bright and shiny and impressive to the outside observer.

Edna felt depressed rather than soothed after leaving them. The little glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an apalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle, - a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium. Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by "life's delirium." It had crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression.

In such a person, sadness breeds purpose; finding inspiration in the darkness and often times, I believe, they will impress a hell onto their own lives in order to re-create it, that others might suffer the experience from the comfort of their armchairs. - Quote from Her Past's Present.

I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, - and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart." I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

Do well to impress; don't depress, suppress or oppress anyone. Inspire a soul; never despise!

You got a tattoo?” It’s the third time I’ve asked Holder the same question, but I just don’t believe it. It’s out of character for him. Especially since I’m not the one who encouraged it. “Jesus, Daniel,” he groans on the other end of the line. “Stop. And stop asking me why.” “It’s just a weird thing to tattoo on yourself. Hopeless. It’s a very depressing term. But still, I’m impressed.” “I gotta go. I’ll call you later this week.” I sigh into the phone. “God, this sucks, man. The only good thing about this entire school since you moved is fifth period.

Life isn’t about being strong or pretending we are strong to impress others. It takes courage to be authentic with our feelings and acknowledge that real strength comes from recognizing our moments of weakness.

In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions. And the only external means I had was reading. Reading, of course, was a great help--exciting me, giving me pleasure and pain. But at times it bored me fearfully. One longed for movement in spite of everything, and I plunged all at once into dark, underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind. My wretched passions were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability I had hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with depression, too; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice. I have not said all this to justify myself .... But, no! I am lying. I did want to justify myself. I make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen. I don't want to lie. I vowed to myself I would not.

Often he had the impression that the person answering questions from the scratchy armchair was a dummy he was controlling, that this had been true throughout his life, and that his life had become so involved with operating the dummy that he, the ventriloquist, had ceased to have a personality, becoming just an arm stuffed up the puppet's back.

We are sometimes depressed by our failure to convince people who strongly believe that we are that we are definitely not depressed.

Hey,” Price says. “I’m depressed, I mean impressed.

We shared a piece of Poncho's apple pie, and I told Poncho about PureTone. Like all serious musicians, he is depressed by the quality of sound the people's music id delivered in today. That is the impression I have gotten from every Musician I have met. Everyone. After he heard PureTone, Ben Bourdon, one of Ben Young's caregivers asked me if I was making war on Apple. I said, "No. I'm waging heavy peace.

There was no mistaking the awesome implications of the chaplain’s revelation: it was either an insight of divine origin or a hallucination; he was either blessed or losing his mind. Both prospects filled him with equal fear and depression. It was neither déjà vu, presque vu nor jamais vu. It was possible that there were other vus of which he had never heard and that one of these other vus would explain succinctly the baffling phenomenon of which he had been both a witness and a part; it was even possible that none of what he thought had taken place, really had taken place, that he was dealing with an aberration of memory rather than of perception, that he never really had thought he had seen what he now thought he once did think he had seen, that his impression now that he once had thought so was merely the illusion of and illusion, and that he was only now imagining that he had ever once imagined seeing a naked man sitting in a tree at the cemetery.

Impression without expression causes depression. Study without service leads to spiritual stagnation.

Depression is the impression of failure.

What women do with their bodies as long as they're around men with power and money actually seems to me very near to prostitution. I still don't catch the subtle difference between the sort of femininity sold in magazines and that of the whore. And although they might not state their price openly, I'm under the impression of having met a lot of whores since then. Lots of women who aren't interested in sex but know how to draw profit from it. Women who sleep with men who are old, ugly, boring, or depressingly stupid, but socially powerful. Women who marry them and fight to gain as much money as they can when they divorce. Who think it's normal to have their bills paid, to be taken on vacation, to be spoiled. Who even see this as an achievement. I find it sad listening to women talk about love as an implicit financial contract.

This was before the importance of set and setting was understood. I was brought to a basement room, given an injection, and left alone.” A recipe for a bad trip, surely, but Richards had precisely the opposite experience. “I felt immersed in this incredibly detailed imagery that looked like Islamic architecture, with Arabic script, about which I knew nothing. And then I somehow became these exquisitely intricate patterns, losing my usual identity. And all I can say is that the eternal brilliance of mystical consciousness manifested itself. My awareness was flooded with love, beauty, and peace beyond anything I ever had known or imagined to be possible. ‘Awe,’ ‘glory,’ and ‘gratitude’ were the only words that remained relevant.” Descriptions of such experiences always sound a little thin, at least when compared with the emotional impact people are trying to convey; for a life-transforming event, the words can seem paltry. When I mentioned this to Richards, he smiled. “You have to imagine a caveman transported into the middle of Manhattan. He sees buses, cell phones, skyscrapers, airplanes. Then zap him back to his cave. What does he say about the experience? ‘It was big, it was impressive, it was loud.’ He doesn’t have the vocabulary for ‘skyscraper,’ ‘elevator,’ ‘cell phone.’ Maybe he has an intuitive sense there was some sort of significance or order to the scene. But there are words we need that don’t yet exist. We’ve got five crayons when we need fifty thousand different shades.” In

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

Isaac Deutscher was best known—like his compatriot Joseph Conrad—for learning English at a late age and becoming a prose master in it. But, when he writes above, about the ‘fact’ that millions of people ‘may’ conclude something, he commits a solecism in any language. Like many other critics, he judges Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four not as a novel or even as a polemic, but by the possibility that it may depress people. This has been the standard by which priests and censors have adjudged books to be lacking in that essential ‘uplift’ which makes them wholesome enough for mass consumption. The pretentious title of Deutscher’s essay only helps to reinforce the impression of something surreptitious being attempted.

I once read a theory about ‘positive thinking’ that seems to be true or, at least, made a sufficient impression on me to remember it. I have always been distrustful of positive thinking, believing it to be as fixed and unyielding as negative thinking. Yet it is the advice most often offered to depressives. That it does not work seems not to occur to those who offer it up like some benevolent panacea. Perhaps it works for them or perhaps they are a product of some positive thinking gene pool. Who knows? Anywhere, here is the theory that helped me. I hope that it will help you too. Imagine you are driving a car, and you are heading straight for a brick wall. If you stay in habitual or rigid thinking (the kind of thinking that says, ‘this is the way I always do things’) and do not change the direction in the way you are headed, you will drive you car into the brick wall. Now imagine you are driving that same car towards that same brick wall. Now use positive thinking to imagine that wall is, in fact, a tunnel. It is not, of course, you simply hope or wish that it is a tunnel but it is the same old, intractable brick. You still drive your car into the wall. You are in the same car, facing the same wall except that you use creative or constructive thinking. You see the wall as an obstacle set dead ahead and see that it is solid and immoveable. You use your thinking to change direction and drive your car around it. Understanding that our thinking is not always helpful sounds so obvious and simple. So does changing our thinking, yet both are formidably difficult to do, perhaps because, most of the time, we never question it. We go right ahead and do what we have always done, in the same way we have always done it. We crash into relationships, mess up jobs, ruin friendships and all because we believe that our way is the right way. There is a saying: ‘I’d rather be right than happy.’ And here is another: ‘My way or no way.’ I see that wall as a symbol for an obstacle (or obstacles, there may be many) in our emotional make-up. If we go on behaving in the same way, we will crash. If we pretend that those obstacles in our character don’t exist, or are something else entirely, we will still crash. But if we acknowledge them and behave in a different way, we will come to a better and safer place. Or at least we will, until we meet the next obstacle.

One day, I think, we'll invent the most impressive broom an interrogating mind might ever attest to seeing. Enormous, this thing would be, and whole formidable chōbu high and with bristles as coarse and catching as the most perniciously effective cleaning tool. And we will invent a mess esteemed and distinguished enough to satisfy the functions of our enormous, genius broom, and the time will converge wherein both the mess and the broom will not do, so what then, but manufacture something bigger, and more furious, and less manageable?

Some of his [Chester Bowles's] friends thought that his entire political career reflected his background, that he truly believed in the idea of the Republic, with an expanded town-hall concept of politics, of political leaders consulting with their constituency, hearing them out, reasoning with them, coming to terms with them, government old-fashioned and unmanipulative. Such governments truly had to reflect their constituencies. It was his view not just of America, but of the whole world. Bowles was fascinated by the political process in which people of various countries expressed themselves politically instead of following orders imposed by an imperious leadership. In a modern world where most politicians tended to see the world divided in a death struggle between Communism and free-world democracies, it was an old-fashioned view of politics; it meant that Bowles was less likely to judge a country on whether or not it was Communist, but on whether or not its government seemed to reflect genuine indigenous feeling. (If he was critical of the Soviet leadership, he was more sympathetic to Communist governments in the underdeveloped world.) He was less impressed by the form of a government than by his own impression of its sense of legitimacy. ... He did not particularly value money (indeed, he was ill at ease with it), he did not share the usual political ideas of the rich, and he was extremely aware of the hardships with which most Americans lived. Instead of hiring highly paid consultants and pollsters to conduct market research, Bowles did his own canvassing, going from door to door to hundreds of middle- and lower-class homes. That became a crucial part of his education; his theoretical liberalism became reinforced by what he learned about people’s lives during the Depression.

You heard me. Let someone else send you to your blaze of glory. You're a speck, man. You're nothing. You're not worth the bullet or the mark on my soul for taking you out." You trying to piss me off again, Patrick?" He removed Campbell Rawson from his shoulder and held him aloft. I tilted my wrist so the cylinder fell into my palm, shrugged. "You're a joke, Gerry. I'm just calling it like I see it." That so?" Absolutely." I met his hard eyes with my own. "And you'll be replaced, just like everything else, in maybe a week, tops. Some other dumb, sick shit will come along and kill some people and he'll be all over the papers, and all over Hard Copy and you'll be yesterday's news. Your fifteen minutes are up, Gerry. And they've passed without impact." They'll remember this," Gerry said. "Believe me." Gerry clamped back on the trigger. When he met my finger, he looked at me and then clamped down so hard that my finger broke. I depressed the trigger on the one-shot and nothing happened. Gerry shrieked louder, and the razor came out of my flesh, then swung back immediately, and I clenched my eyes shut and depressed the trigger frantically three times. And Gerry's hand exploded. And so did mine. The razor hit the ice by my knee as I dropped the one shot and fire roared up the electrical tape and gasoline on Gerry's arm and caught the wisps of Danielle's hair. Gerry threw his head back and opened his mouth wide and bellowed in ecstasy. I grabbed the razor, could barely feel it because the nerves in my hand seemed to have stopped working. I slashed into the electric tape at the end of the shotgun barrel, and Danielle dropped away toward the ice and rolled her head into the frozen sand. My broken finger came back out of the shotgun and Gerry swung the barrels toward my head. The twin shotgun bores arced through the darkness like eyes without mercy or soul, and I raised my head to meet them, and Gerry's wail filled my ears as the fire licked at his neck. Good-bye, I thought. Everyone. It's been nice. Oscar's first two shots entered the back of Gerry's head and exited through the center of his forehead and a third punched into his back. The shotgun jerked upward in Gerry's flaming arm and then the shots came from the front, several at once, and Gerry spun like a marionette and pitched toward the ground. The shotgun boomed twice and punched holes through the ice in front of him as he fell. He landed on his knees and, for a moment, I wasn't sure if he was dead or not. His rusty hair was afire and his head lolled to the left as one eye disappeared in flames but the other shimmered at me through waves of heat, and an amused derision shone in the pupil. Patrick, the eye said through the gathering smoke, you still know nothing. Oscar rose up on the other side of Gerry's corpse, Campbell Rawson clutched tight to his massive chest as it rose and fell with great heaving breaths. The sight of it-something so soft and gentle in the arms of something so thick and mountaineous-made me laugh. Oscar came out of the darkness toward me, stepped around Gerry's burning body, and I felt the waves of heat rise toward me as the circle of gasoline around Gerry caught fire. Burn, I thought. Burn. God help me, but burn. Just after Oscar stepped over the outer edge of the circle, it erupted in yellow flame, and I found myself laughing harder as he looked at it, not remotely impressed. I felt cool lips smack against my ear, and by the time I looked her way, Danielle was already past me, rushing to take her child from Oscar. His huge shadow loomed over me as he approached, and I looked up at him and he held the look for a long moment. How you doing, Patrick?" he said and smiled broadly. And, behind him, Gerry burned on the ice. And everything was so goddamned funny for some reason, even though I knew it wasn't. I knew it wasn't. I did. But I was still laughing when they put me in the ambulance.

California during the 1940s had Hollywood and the bright lights of Los Angeles, but on the other coast was Florida, land of sunshine and glamour, Miami and Miami Beach. If you weren't already near California's Pacific Coast you headed for Florida during the winter. One of the things which made Miami such a mix of glitter and sunshine was the plethora of movie stars who flocked there to play, rubbing shoulders with tycoons and gangsters. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the latter two. Miami and everything that surrounded it hadn't happened by accident. Carl Fisher had set out to make Miami Beach a playground destination during the 1930s and had succeeded far beyond his dreams. The promenade behind the Roney Plaza Hotel was a block-long lovers' lane of palm trees and promise that began rather than ended in the blue waters of the Atlantic. Florida was more than simply Miami and Miami Beach, however. When George Merrick opened the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables papers across the country couldn't wait to gush about the growing aura of Florida. They tore down Collins Bridge in the Gables and replaced it with the beautiful Venetian Causeway. You could plop down a fiver if you had one and take your best girl — or the girl you wanted to score with — for a gondola ride there before the depression, or so I'd been told. You see, I'd never actually been to Florida before the war, much less Miami. I was a newspaper reporter from Chicago before the war and had never even seen the ocean until I was flying over the Pacific for the Air Corp. There wasn't much time for admiring the waves when Japanese Zeroes were trying to shoot you out of the sky and bury you at the bottom of that deep blue sea. It was because of my friend Pete that I knew so much about Miami. Florida was his home, so when we both got leave in '42 I followed him to the warm waters of Miami to see what all the fuss was about. It would be easy to say that I skipped Chicago for Miami after the war ended because Pete and I were such good pals and I'd had such a great time there on leave. But in truth I decided to stay on in Miami because of Veronica Lake. I'd better explain that. Veronica Lake never knew she was the reason I came back with Pete to Miami after the war. But she had been there in '42 while Pete and I were enjoying the sand, sun, and the sweet kisses of more than a few love-starved girls desperate to remember what it felt like to have a man's arm around them — not to mention a few other sensations. Lake had been there promoting war bonds on Florida's first radio station, WQAM. It was a big outdoor event and Pete and I were among those listening with relish to Lake's sultry voice as she urged everyone to pitch-in for our boys overseas. We were in those dark early days of the war at the time, and the outcome was very much in question. Lake's appearance at the event was a morale booster for civilians and servicemen alike. She was standing behind a microphone that sat on a table draped in the American flag. I'd never seen a Hollywood star up-close and though I liked the movies as much as any other guy, I had always attributed most of what I saw on-screen to smoke and mirrors. I doubted I'd be impressed seeing a star off-screen. A girl was a girl, after all, and there were loads of real dolls in Miami, as I'd already discovered. Boy, was I wrong." - Where Flamingos Fly

VERY EARLY ONE MORNING in July 1977, the FBI, having been tipped off about Operation Snow White, carried out raids on Scientology offices in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, carting off nearly fifty thousand documents. One of the files was titled “Operation Freakout.” It concerned the treatment of Paulette Cooper, the journalist who had published an exposé of Scientology, The Scandal of Scientology, six years earlier. After having been indicted for perjury and making bomb threats against Scientology, Cooper had gone into a deep depression. She stopped eating. At one point, she weighed just eighty-three pounds. She considered suicide. Finally, she persuaded a doctor to give her sodium pentothal, or “truth serum,” and question her under the anesthesia. The government was sufficiently impressed that the prosecutor dropped the case against her, but her reputation was ruined, she was broke, and her health was uncertain. The day after the FBI raid on the Scientology headquarters, Cooper was flying back from Africa, on assignment for a travel magazine, when she read a story in the International Herald Tribune about the raid. One of the files the federal agents discovered was titled “Operation Freakout.” The goal of the operation was to get Cooper “incarcerated in a mental institution or jail.

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

The narcissistic self tries at all costs to avoid a confrontation with his repressed feelings of inferiority, depression and emptiness. The author has an unrelenting desire for admiration and will engage in inappropriate and reckless behaviours in order to acquire this admiration. He exhibits envious feelings towards those who are socially successful. His narcissism protects against this envy. Any positive attention he receives is experienced as narcissistic gratification. It is clear that the author’s narcissistic behaviour is fuelled by his belief that this behaviour is the only way he can impress others as he considers his true self to be unattractive.

My friend Naomi described [depression and anxiety] this way: "Since my early childhood, I have faced a constant battle with feelings of hopelessness, darkness, loneliness, and fear and the sense that I am broken or defective. I did everything to hide my pain and to never give the impression that I was anything but thriving and strong.

Mass media is the food for our eyes, ears, and minds. When we watch television, read a magazine, watch a film, or play a video game, we are consuming sensory impressions. Many of the images we are exposed to through the media water unwholesome seeds of craving, fear, anger, and violence in our consciousness. The images, sounds, and ideas that are toxic can rob our body and consciousness of their well-being. If you feel anxious, fearful, or depressed, it may be because you have taken in too many toxins through your senses without even knowing it. Be mindful of what you watch, read, and listen to, and protect yourself from the fear, despair, anger, craving, anxiety, or violence they promote. The material goods they promise are only quick, temporary fixes.

The ensuing crises and depressions during the decades preceding the era of imperialism42 had impressed upon the capitalists the thought that their whole economic system of production depended upon a supply and demand that from now on must come from “outside of capitalist society.”43 Such supply and demand came from inside the nation, so long as the capitalist system did not control all its classes together with its entire productive capacity. When capitalism had pervaded the entire economic structure and all social strata had come into the orbit of its production and consumption system, capitalists clearly had to decide either to see the whole system collapse or to find new markets, that is, to penetrate new countries which were not yet subject to capitalism and therefore could provide a new noncapitalistic supply and demand.

Naturally, it causes psychological harm as well; it shouldn’t surprise you that a national survey of 24,000 workers found that men and women with few social ties were two to three times more likely to suffer from major depression than people with strong social bonds.9 When we enjoy strong social support, on the other hand, we can accomplish impressive feats of resilience, and even extend the length of our lives. One study found that people who received emotional support during the six months after a heart attack were three times more likely to survive.10 Another found that participating in a breast cancer support group actually doubled women’s life expectancy post surgery.11 In fact, researchers have found that social support has as much effect on life expectancy as smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, and regular physical activity.12

A major depression, these findings suggest, can be the outcome of particularly severe lessons in uncontrollability for those of us who are already vulnerable. This may explain an array of findings that show that if a child is stressed in certain ways—loss of a parent to death, divorce of parents, being a victim of abusive parenting—the child is more at risk for depression years later. What could be a more severe lesson that awful things can happen that are beyond our control than a lesson at an age when we are first forming our impressions about the nature of the world?

Screw all mental illness stigma. Having the courage to admit yourself for psychiatric care to heal is phenomenal. Shrugging off a panic attack is badass. Battling through intense spells of fatigue and demotivation is incredible. Going to the psychologist to attend to your mental health is a boss move. Achieving things despite having little to no interest or pleasure is impressive. Frequently practicing self-care is fantastic. Picking yourself up after hitting rock bottom is exceptional. Openly talking about your mental health struggles is courageous. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

The story of the “exquisite cadavers” is as follows. In the aftermath of the First World War, a collection of surrealist poets—which included André Breton, their pope, Paul Eluard, and others—got together in cafés and tried the following exercise (modern literary critics attribute the exercise to the depressed mood after the war and the need to escape reality). On a folded piece of paper, in turn, each one of them would write a predetermined part of a sentence, not knowing the others’ choice. The first would pick an adjective, the second a noun, the third a verb, the fourth an adjective, and the fifth a noun. The first publicized exercise of such random (and collective) arrangement produced the following poetic sentence: The exquisite cadavers shall drink the new wine. (Les cadavres exquis boiront le vin nouveau.) Impressive? It sounds even more poetic in the native French. Quite impressive poetry has been produced in such a manner, sometimes with the aid of a computer. But poetry has never been truly taken seriously outside of the beauty of its associations, whether they have been produced by the random ranting of one or more disorganized brains, or the more elaborate constructions of one conscious creator.

For an employer, employing someone with mental health problems is not an occupational hazard. We might not always make the best first impressions, but if you give us a chance you might see a completely different side to us; a positive, resilient, and dedicated side. In your selection processes, don’t nonchalantly equate nervousness to weakness. I might stutter at times, come across as insecure, or get the occasional brain fart, but that does not mean that I’m not intelligent, suited, or capable. Sometimes people just need that belief from the outside, as the belief in themselves has deteriorated over time. Try to look beyond the surface, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Edna felt depressed rather than soothed after leaving them. The little glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium. Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by "life's delirium." It had crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression.

Almost a year after the start of the corona crisis, how is the mental health of the population? MD: For the time being, there are few figures that show the evolution of possible indicators such as the intake of antidepressants and anxiolytics or the number of suicides. But it is especially important to place mental well-being in the corona crisis in its historical continuity. Mental health had been declining for decades. There has long been a steady increase in the number of depression and anxiety problems and the number of suicides. And in recent years there has been an enormous growth in absenteeism due to psychological suffering and burnouts. The year before the corona outbreak, you could feel this malaise growing exponentially. This gave the impression that society was heading for a tipping point where a psychological 'reorganization' of the social system was imperative. This is happening with corona. Initially, we noticed people with little knowledge of the virus conjure up terrible fears, and a real social panic reaction became manifested. This happens especially if there is already a strong latent fear in a person or population. The psychological dimensions of the current corona crisis are seriously underestimated. A crisis acts as a trauma that takes away an individual's historical sense. The trauma is seen as an isolated event in itself, when in fact it is part of a continuous process. For example, we easily overlook the fact that a significant portion of the population was strangely relieved during the initial lockdown, feeling liberated from stress and anxiety. I regularly heard people say: "Yes these measures are heavy-handed, but at least I can relax a bit." Because the grind of daily life stopped, a calm settled over society. The lockdown often freed people from a psychological rut. This created unconscious support for the lockdown. If the population had not already been exhausted by their life, and especially their jobs, there would never have been support for the lockdown. At least not as a response to a pandemic that is not too bad compared to the major pandemics of the past. You noticed something similar when the first lockdown came to an end. You then regularly heard statements such as "We are not going to start living again like we used to, get stuck in traffic again" and so on. People did not want to go back to the pre-corona normal. If we do not take into account the population's dissatisfaction with its existence, we will not understand this crisis and we will not be able to resolve it. By the way, I now have the impression that the new normal has become a rut again, and I would not be surprised if mental health really starts to deteriorate in the near future. Perhaps especially if it turns out that the vaccine does not provide the magical solution that is expected from it.

It is sheer fantasy to think that you can ever transform your grandiose energies so they will never seduce you again, that you can ever prevent your grandiosity from being seductive. Sometimes people think if they just prayed enough, or went to enough masses, then their grandiosity would stop being seductive. Or if they became a cardinal, or a bishop, or a mother superior, it would not be seductive anymore. The truth, of course, is just the opposite, because the more successful you get, the more seductive grandiosity gets. The more traumas and tragedies you have in your life, the more grandiosity will attack you. It can tell you how impressive it is that you are still alive, or it can chide you into depression by suggesting you might as well go ahead and commit suicide. Many suicidal thoughts come from a grandiose perfectionism.

The relationship between doctor and patient, especially when a transference on the part of the patient occurs, or a more or less unconscious identification of doctor and patient, can lead to parapsychological phenomena. I have frequently run into this. One such case which was particularly impressive was that of a patient whom I had pulled out of a psychogenic depression. He went back home and married; but I did not care for his wife. The first time I saw her, I had an uneasy feeling. Her husband was grateful to me, and I observed that I was a thorn in her side because of my influence over him. It frequently happens that women who do not really love their husbands are jealous and destroy their friendships. They want the husband to belong entirely to them because they themselves do not belong to him. The kernel of all jealousy is lack of love.

The way we define their problems, our diagnosis, will determine how we approach their care. Such patients typically receive five or six different unrelated diagnoses in the course of their psychiatric treatment. If their doctors focus on their mood swings, they will be defined as bipolar and prescribed lithium or valproate. If the professionals are most impressed with their despair, they will be told they are suffering from major depression and given antidepressants. If the doctors focus on their restlessness and lack of attention, they may be categorized as ADHD and treated with Ritalin or other stimulants. And if the clinic staff happens to take a trauma history, and the patient actually volunteers the relevant information, he or she might receive the diagnosis of PTSD. None of the diagnoses will be completely off the mark, and none of them will begin to meaningfully describe who these patients are and what they suffer from.

A turning point in Yeltsin's intellectual growth occurred during his first visit to the United States in September 1989; more specifically his first visit to a supermarket in Houston, Texas. Seeing aisles and aisles of shelves filled with all kinds of food and household items, each in dozens of varieties, was both dazzled and depressed. For Yeltsin, as well as many other Russians visiting the United States for the first time, a supermarket was far more impressive than tourist attractions like the Statue of Liberty or the Lincoln Memorial. It was impressive precisely because of its normality. A cornucopia of consumer goods beyond the imagination of most Soviets was available to ordinary citizens without the need to queue for hours. And everything was displayed very attractively. For someone who grew up in the frugal conditions of communism, even a member of the relatively privileged elite, visiting a supermarket in the West was a complete assault on the senses.

If there are always forces around which are concerned to depress and discourage, there are always forces above and around us which we can draw upon, - draw into ourselves to restore, to fill up again with strength and faith and joy and the power that perseveres and conquers. It is really a habit that one has to get of opening to these helpful forces and either passively receiving them or actively drawing upon them - for one can do either. It is easier if you have the conception of them above and around you and the faith and the will to receive them - for that brings the experience and concrete sense of them and the capacity to receive at need or at will. It is a question of habituating your consciousness to get into touch and keep in touch with these helpful forces - and for that you must accustom yourself to reject the impressions forced on you by the others, depression, self-distrust, repining and all similar disturbances. ... it is part of the experience of those who have advanced far in Yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can act and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in the spiritual consciousness, though all do not care to possess or, possessing, to use it, and this power is greater than any other and more effective. The invisible Force producing tangible results both inward and outward is the whole meaning of the Yogic consciousness. Your question about Yoga bringing merely a feeling of Power without any result was really very strange. Who would be satisfied with such a meaningless hallucination and call it Power? If we had not had thousands of experiences showing that the Power within could alter the mind, develop its powers, add new ones, bring in new ranges of knowledge, master the vital movements, change the character, influence men and things, control

I also worried about her morale. During Linda’s first season working for Amazon, she had seen up close the vast volume of crap Americans were buying and felt disgusted. That experience had planted a seed of disenchantment. After she left the warehouse, it continued to grow. When she had downsized from a large RV to a minuscule trailer, Linda had also been reading about minimalism and the tiny house movement. She had done a lot of thinking about consumer culture and about how much garbage people cram into their short lives. I wondered where all those thoughts would lead. Linda was still grappling with them. Weeks later, after starting work in Kentucky, she would post the following message on Facebook and also text it directly to me: Someone asked why do you want a homestead? To be independent, get out of the rat race, support local businesses, buy only American made. Stop buying stuff I don’t need to impress people I don’t like. Right now I am working in a big warehouse, for a major online supplier. The stuff is crap all made somewhere else in the world where they don’t have child labor laws, where the workers labor fourteen- to sixteen-hour days without meals or bathroom breaks. There is one million square feet in this warehouse packed with stuff that won’t last a month. It is all going to a landfill. This company has hundreds of warehouses. Our economy is built on the backs of slaves we keep in other countries, like China, India, Mexico, any third world country with a cheap labor force where we don’t have to see them but where we can enjoy the fruits of their labor. This American Corp. is probably the biggest slave owner in the world. After sending that, she continued: Radical I know, but this is what goes through my head when I’m at work. There is nothing in that warehouse of substance. It enslaved the buyers who use their credit to purchase that shit. Keeps them in jobs they hate to pay their debts. It’s really depressing to be there. Linda added that she was coping

Since Jonathan, I had not slept with anyone. I know. Aren’t you disappointed? There was kissing; there were bodies pressed up against the various walls of Cork city night clubs; there were hands in my knickers. There were boys—cute ones, nice ones—who had walked me home after the club kicked out, their jackets draped around my shoulders, their hands laced through mine. But whenever they would imply that they had walked me home for sex, had understood that I wanted to have sex also, I acted all disgraced. “You think I’m that easy, huh?” I said to them, feigning shock that a twenty-one-year-old boy standing without a jacket in February at two in the morning might have an ulterior motive. I would send them packing, triumphant, then I would go inside and feel depressed, stupid and horny. I don’t know who I was trying to impress. I did not want a boyfriend; I did want romance. I wanted passion; I did not want to be someone who was known as easy. I was desperate to be touched; I was terrified of being ruined.

Death had brushed hard against him, and beneath the calculations of a public relations machine, he was struggling mightily within himself. Johnson’s New Deal friend Jim Rowe had sent him a recently published biography on Lincoln, which detailed the profound change Lincoln had undergone during a waiting time when he was out of politics. This was Johnson’s waiting time, a time of gathering strength and direction. When Lincoln had suffered his deep depression he had asked himself: What if I died now? What would I be remembered for? Coming back from “the brink of death,” Johnson asked himself a similar set of questions. He had laid the foundation of a substantial fortune, but what purpose did that serve? He had learned to manipulate the legislative machine of the Senate with a deftness and technical expertise without parallel in American history. But to what end did one accumulate such power? Regardless of one’s impressive title, power without purpose and without vision was not the same thing as leadership.

The clinical hallmark of manic-depressive illness is its recurrent, episodic nature. Byron had this in an almost textbook manner, showing frequent and pronounced fluctuations in mood, energy, sleep patterns, sexual behavior, alcohol and other drug use, and weight (Byron also exhibited extremes in dieting, obsession with his weight, eccentric eating patterns, and excessive use of epsom salts). Although these changes in mood and behavior were dramatic and disruptive when they occurred, it is important to note that Byron was clinically normal most of the time; this, too, is highly characteristic of manic-depressive illness. An inordinate amount of confusion about whether someone does or does not have manic-depressive illness stems from the popular misconception that irrationality of mood and reason are stable rather than fluctuating features of the disease. Some assume that because an individual such as Byron was sane and in impressive control of his reason most of the time, that he could not have been "mad" or have suffered from a major mental illness. Lucidity and normal functioning are, however, perfectly consistent with-indeed, characteristic of-the phasic nature of manic-depressive illness. This is in contrast to schizophrenia, which is usually a chronic and relatively unrelenting illness characterized by, among other things, an inability to reason clearly.

Dear Circle of Life, The impression of you is so unique in the most exquisite ways. With you, there is a beginning and an end. You are the representation of birth and life. The in-between is survival, and the ending is death. The idea of life is just what it is when we arrive on the earth—our life is a circle, if you will, a 360. Once our wheels stop spinning, it rolls slowly until it completely stops. I believe there is a limitation to the circle of life—if there wasn’t, life would continue without end. Things are never certain, for there are always uncertain changes in the circle of life. In this universal symbol, there is repurpose in another life. You are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. How can that be? I guess because you are energetic. We are wholeness in another world, but here on earth, we are here to play the game from the cards that we are dealt until our time runs out. A world without end—that is interesting. I guess it is true because when we go to a new dimension, there is no such thing as an ending. Once we pass over, we originate into our infinite perfection. The self sees and feels no more back- biting, hurt, pain, depression, despair, and all the bullshit that follows. The circle of life has no blame, solitude, or default. Everything is what it is ... because it is perfect! I am aligned with the frequency and vibration of the moon and the stars.

Dreams in which the dead interact with the living are typically so powerful and lucid that there is no denying contact was real. They also fill us with renewed life and break up grief or depression. In chapter 16, on communicating with the dead, you will learn how to make such dreams come about. Another set of dreams in which the dead appear can be the stuff of horror. If you have had a nightmare concerning someone who has recently passed, know that you are looking into the face of personal inner conflict. You might dream, for instance, that your dead mother is buried alive or comes out of her grave in a corrupted body in search of you. What you are looking at here is the clash of two sets of ideas about death. On the one hand, a person is dead and rotting; on the other hand, that same person is still alive. The inner self uses the appropriate symbols to try to come to terms with the contradiction of being alive and dead at the same time. I am not sure to what extent people on the other side actually participate in these dreams. My private experience has given me the impression that the dreams are triggered by attempts of the departed for contact. The macabre images we use to deal with the contradiction, however, are ours alone and stem from cultural attitudes about death and the body. The conflict could lie in a different direction altogether. As a demonstration of how complex such dreams can be, I offer a simple one I had shortly after the death of my cat Twyla. It was a nightmare constructed out of human guilt. Even though I loved Twyla, for a combination of reasons she was only second best in the hierarchy of house pets. I had never done anything to hurt her, and her death was natural. Still I felt guilt, as though not giving her the full measure of my love was the direct cause of her death. She came to me in a dream skinned alive, a bloody mass of muscle, sinew, veins, and arteries. I looked at her, horror-struck at what I had done. Given her condition, I could not understand why she seemed perfectly healthy and happy and full of affection for me. I’m ashamed to admit that it took me over a week to understand what this nightmare was about. The skinning depicted the ugly fate of many animals in human hands. For Twyla, the picture was particularly apt because we used to joke about selling her for her fur, which was gorgeous, like the coat of a gray seal. My subconscious had also incorporated the callous adage “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” This multivalent graphic, typical of dreams, brought my feelings of guilt to the surface. But the real meaning was more profound and once discovered assuaged my conscience. Twyla’s coat represented her mortal body, her outer shell. What she showed me was more than “skin deep” — the real Twyla underneath,

General R. E. Lee, Commanding Army of Northern Virginia: Yours of the 8th instant has been received. I am glad to find that you concur so entirely with me as to the want of our country in this trying hour, and am happy to add that after the first depression consequent upon our disasters in the West, indications have appeared that our people will exhibit that fortitude which we agree in believing is alone needful to secure ultimate success. It well became Sidney Johnston, when overwhelmed by a senseless clamor, to admit the rule that success is the test of merit, and yet there has been nothing which I have found to require a greater effort of patience than to bear the criticisms of the ignorant, who pronounce everything a failure which does not equal their expectations or desires, and can see no good result which is not in the line of their own imaginings. I admit the propriety of your conclusions, that an officer who loses the confidence of his troops should have his position changed, whatever may be his ability; but when I read the sentence I was not at all prepared for the application you were about to make. Expressions of discontent in the public journals furnish but little evidence of the sentiment of an army.… But suppose, my dear friend, that I were to admit, with all their implications, the points which you present, where am I to find that new commander who is to possess the greater ability which you believe to be required? I do not doubt the readiness with which you would give way to one who could accomplish all that you have wished, and you will do me the justice to believe that if Providence should kindly offer such a person for our use, I would not hesitate to avail of his services. My sight is not sufficiently penetrating to discover such hidden merit, if it exists, and I have but used to you the language of sober earnestness when I have impressed upon you the propriety of avoiding all unnecessary exposure to danger, because I felt our country could not bear to lose you. To ask me to substitute you by someone in my judgment more fit to command, or who would possess more of the confidence of the army or of the reflecting men in the country, is to demand of me an impossibility. It only remains for me to hope that you will take all possible care of yourself, that your health and strength may be entirely restored, and that the Lord will preserve you for the important duties devolved upon you in the struggle of our suffering country for the independence which we have engaged in war to maintain. As ever, very respectfully and truly yours, JEFFERSON DAVIS

When we reflect on our daily lives, we might look back at a day that was very stressful and think, “Well, that wasn’t my favorite day this week.” When you’re in the middle of one of those days, you might long for a day with less stress in it. But if you put a wider lens on your life and subtract every day that you have experienced as stressful, you won’t find yourself with an ideal life. Instead, you’ll find yourself also subtracting the experiences that have helped you grow, the challenges you are most proud of, and the relationships that define you. You may have spared yourself some discomfort, but you will also have robbed yourself of some meaning. And yet, it’s not at all uncommon to wish for a life without stress. While this is a natural desire, pursuing it comes at a heavy cost. In fact, many of the negative outcomes we associate with stress may actually be the consequence of trying to avoid it. Psychologists have found that trying to avoid stress leads to a significantly reduced sense of well-being, life satisfaction, and happiness. Avoiding stress can also be isolating. In a study of students at Doshisha University in Japan, the goal to avoid stress predicted a drop, over time, in their sense of connection and belonging. Having such a goal can even exhaust you. For example, researchers at the University of Zurich asked students about their goals, then tracked them for one month. Across two typically stressful periods—end-of-semester exams and the winter holidays—those with the strongest desire to avoid stress were the most likely to report declines in concentration, physical energy, and self-control. One particularly impressive study conducted through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in Palo Alto, California, followed more than one thousand adults for ten years. At the beginning of the study, researchers asked the participants about how they dealt with stress. Those who reported trying to avoid stress were more likely to become depressed over the following decade. They also experienced increasing conflict at work and at home, and more negative outcomes, such as being fired or getting divorced. Importantly, avoiding stress predicted the increase in depression, conflict, and negative events above and beyond any symptoms or difficulties reported at the beginning of the study. Wherever a participant started in life, the tendency to avoid stress made things worse over the next decade. Psychologists call this vicious cycle stress generation. It’s the ironic consequence of trying to avoid stress: You end up creating more sources of stress while depleting the resources that should be supporting you. As the stress piles up, you become increasingly overwhelmed and isolated, and therefore even more likely to rely on avoidant coping strategies, like trying to steer clear of stressful situations or to escape your feelings with self-destructive distractions. The more firmly committed you are to avoiding stress, the more likely you are to find yourself in this downward spiral. As psychologists Richard Ryan, Veronika Huta, and Edward Deci write in The Exploration of Happiness, “The more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce instead a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community.

Days like that I feel that my mind is going 1,000,000 miles an hour, visions of the past, present, and future race through my mind. It races, like a train as if I was looking out the window of the car while it is speeding down the line. I am on a track that will never end.' 'I feel that I am going to derail from this runaway train that I am becoming. I cannot sleep at night, because of the fear inside me.' 'I feel restless, depressed, and loveless as well as not content with myself. I would have to say that my passion for life is gone; my imagination is the only thing that keeps me going.' 'I write the day's events that have gone by in my book of life of all the pastimes, while dreaming of what could have been in it, and besides what has not been in it.' 'If this does not stop, I am going to crack. I look into my mirror, and I do not see me, I see an impression of what I used to be.' 'I see my long brown hair that covers part of my face and covers my blue eyes of emotion. I see the cross around my neck that brings me confidence.' 'I hide behind a smile; I see the body in which nobody thinks is without drought flawless.' 'The bare body that is touched in all ways, yet I tried to hide behind my makeup. I gasp at my pale skin and the look of my body.' 'I am 95 pounds, really tiny; surely there is someone that would find me attractive?' 'I wonder if I can find someone who can think for themselves. I want someone who will love me, for who I am- and not what they want me to be.' 'Most importantly, I need someone that will not use me. Is that too much to ask for?' 'Fear!' 'Anxiety is something that I have inside, it is the source of the things which lead to distress. Not finding someone that loves me, for who I am, is some of my fears.' 'I fear the fact that I am most likely going to be alone forever. Another being that everyone that has meaning in my life is fading away from me it seems.' 'I fear not having a family by my side at all times. I have tears about the overwhelming struggle to rebuild my reputation, which has been destroyed.' 'I ask this question if I was to die tomorrow would anybody come to my wake, to see me lying there?' 'I fear what society has done to me. I fear that I have no trust in anyone or anything. I fear that my life has no meaning.' 'I fear that I will never get out of this hell.' 'I just want to start my life and get a degree in nursing someday from- 'The Conemaugh School of Nursing,' if I can make it through all of this. I do not think that is too much to ask for or is it?' 'I think that if I could be left alone, with the one that I want. I could have a life; you know what I am sure of it. I fear that the towering entity will never collapse, and the demons will keep playing in my head. I fear that I will never have a social ability, to be part of the nobility of compatibility.' 'I fear that the terror will never stop in these innocent lives like mine, and they will not be saved. I fear that nobody will ever see my creativity or recognize me for the good in which I do for others. I feel like I am the only one left in this world, that I call my life.' 'All the beauty in life has been dejected, and it is all ablaze around me. Yes, I fear to be in the outside realm of things.' 'I want to scream yet no one is going to hear it. I ask- am I becoming institutionalized?

The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out—if not in the word, in the sound;—and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. Into all of their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this, when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following words:— "I am going away to the Great House Farm! O, yea! O, yea! O!" This they would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul,—and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart." I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

Marvin stood there. ‘Out of my way little robot,’ growled the tank. ‘I’m afraid,’ said Marvin, ‘that I’ve been left here to stop you.’ The probe extended again for a quick recheck. It withdrew again. ‘You? Stop me?’ roared the tank, ‘Go on!’ ‘No, really I have,’ said Marvin simply. ‘What are you armed with?’ roared the tank in disbelief. ‘Guess,’ said Marvin. The tank’s engines rumbled, its gears ground. Molecule-sized electronic relays deep in its micro-brain flipped backwards and forwards in consternation. ‘Guess?’ said the tank. ‘Yes, go on,’ said Marvin to the huge battle machine, ‘you’ll never guess.’ ‘Errrmmm …’ said the machine, vibrating with unaccustomed thought, ‘laser beams?’ Marvin shook his head solemnly. ‘No,’ muttered the machine in its deep gutteral rumble, ‘Too obvious. Anti-matter ray?’ it hazarded. ‘Far too obvious,’ admonished Marvin. ‘Yes,’ grumbled the machine, somewhat abashed, ‘Er … how about an electron ram?’ This was new to Marvin. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘One of these,’ said the machine with enthusiasm. From its turret emerged a sharp prong which spat a single lethal blaze of light. Behind Marvin a wall roared and collapsed as a heap of dust. The dust billowed briefly, then settled. ‘No,’ said Marvin, ‘not one of those.’ ‘Good though, isn’t it?’ ‘Very good,’ agreed Marvin. ‘I know,’ said the Frogstar battle machine, after another moment’s consideration, ‘you must have one of those new Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilized Zenon Emitters!’ 'Nice, aren’t they?’ agreed Marvin. ‘That’s what you’ve got?’ said the machine in condiderable awe. ‘No,’ said Marvin. ‘Oh,’ said the machine, disappointed, ‘then it must be …’ ‘You’re thinking along the wrong lines,’ said Marvin, ‘You’re failing to take into account something fairly basic in the relationship between men and robots.’ ‘Er, I know,’ said the battle machine, 'is it … ’ it tailed off into thought again. ‘Just think,’ urged Marvin, ‘they left me, an ordinary, menial robot, to stop you, a gigantic heavy-duty battle machine, whilst they ran off to save themselves. What do you think they would leave me with?’ ‘Oooh er,’ muttered the machine in alarm, ‘something pretty damn devastating I should expect.’ ‘Expect!’ said Marvin. ‘Oh yes, expect. I’ll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with shall I?’ ‘Yes, alright,’ said the battle machine, bracing itself. ‘Nothing,’ said Marvin. There was a dangerous pause. 'Nothing?’ roared the battle machine. ‘Nothing at all,’ intoned Marvin dismally, ‘not an electronic sausage.’ The machine heaved about with fury. ‘Well doesn’t that just take the biscuit!’ it roared, ‘Nothing, eh?’ Just don’t think, do they?’ ‘And me,’ said Marvin in a soft low voice, ‘with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.’ ‘Makes you spit, doesn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ agreed Marvin with feeling. ‘Hell that makes me angry,’ bellowed the machine, ‘think I’ll smash that wall down!’ The electron ram stabbed out another searing blaze of light and took out the wall next to the machine. ‘How do you think I feel?’ said Marvin bitterly. ‘Just ran off and left you did they?’ the Machine thundered. ‘Yes,’ said Marvin. ‘I think I’ll shoot down their bloody ceiling as well!’ raged the tank. It took out the ceiling of the bridge. ‘That’s very impressive,’ murmured Marvin. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ promised the machine, ‘I can take out this floor too, no trouble!’ It took out the floor too. ‘Hells bells!’ the machine roared as it plummeted fifteen storeys and smashed itself to bits on the ground below. ‘What a depressingly stupid machine,’ said Marvin and trudged away.

Some at SpaceX who have not been through a public company experience may think that being public is desirable. This is not so. Public company stocks, particularly if big step changes in technology are involved, go through extreme volatility, both for reasons of internal execution and for reasons that have nothing to do with anything except the economy. This causes people to be distracted by the manic-depressive nature of the stock instead of creating great products. For those who are under the impression that they are so clever that they can outsmart public market investors and would sell SpaceX stock at the “right time,” let me relieve you of any such notion. If you really are better than most hedge fund managers, then there is no need to worry about the value of your SpaceX stock, as you can just invest in other public company stocks and make billions of dollars in the market. Elon

Any dictatorship takes a psychological toll on its subjects. If you are treated as an untrustworthy person-a potential slacker, drug addict, or thief-you may begin to feel less trust worthy yourself. If you are constantly reminded of your lowly position in the social hierarchy, whether by individual managers or by a plethora of impersonal rules, you begin to accept that unfortunate status. To draw for a moment from an entirely different corner of my life, that part of me still attached to the biological sciences, there is ample evidence that animals-rats and monkeys, for example-that are forced into a subordinate status within their social systems adapt their brain chemistry accordingly, becoming "depressed" in humanlike ways. Their behavior is anxious and withdrawn; the level of serotonin (the neurotransmitter boosted by some antidepressants) declines in their brains. And-what is especially relevant here-they avoid fighting even in self-defense. Humans are, of course, vastly more complicated; even in situations of extreme subordination, we can pump up our self-esteem with thoughts of our families, our religion, our hopes for the future. But as much as any other social animal, and more so than many, we depend for our self-image on the humans immediately around us-to the point of altering our perceptions of the world so as to fit in with theirs. My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers - the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being "reamed out" by managers - are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth. It is hard to imagine any other function for workplace authoritarianism. Managers may truly believe that, without their unremitting efforts, all work would quickly grind to a halt. That is not my impression. While I encountered some cynics and plenty of people who had learned to budget their energy, I never met an actual slacker or, for that matter, a drug addict or thief. On the contrary, I was amazed and sometimes saddened by the pride people took in jobs that rewarded them so meagerly, either in wages or in recognition. Often, in fact, these people experienced management as an obstacle to getting the job done as it should be done.

Another thing etched into my memory, was that someone stole my swimming suit from the wash line that ran from an upstairs window to a rickety wooden pole behind the house. That someone would steal clothing from a clothesline puts the desperation of people during the depression years into focus. Discovering this, I ran to tell Charlie the Cop…. Charlie was a mounted policeman who sat tall in the saddle, and he was my idol. He cut quite an impressive figure of authority in his blue uniform, badge, and highly shined, black riding boots. Charlie, Jersey City’s finest, carefully listened to my tale of woe and promised to get to the bottom of this serious criminal matter. I believed what he said and trusted him to get my itchy two- piece, woolen, swimsuit back. Years went by and he never did apprehend the culprits, but in my heart I know that this is still an open case with the Jersey City Police Department and Charlie is still out there looking! We respected the police and thought of them as friends. Charlie on his horse patrolled our area and was known and trusted by everyone. I wish that the police were thought of in the same way today.

Marco, remember early on when we discussed your frustration, and you determined that it was the defender part that wanted you to get back into the game of life? And that your anxiety was your fear-based defender part that was alerting you of the impending doom if you slipped and went back to your inappropriate behaviors? Or how about when the depression part stepped in, and you resolved that it was a reminder of your past actions? These are the physical symptoms of the defender parts.” I felt that if a light bulb was hanging over my head, it had now lit up. I was impressed with Keith’s memory of what I had said and the affection in his tone. At this moment, I trusted my therapist implicitly— he was the real deal. “Marco, identifying the defender part’s physical symptoms first is key to acknowledging when that part is coming in to control a situation or thought and identifying which one it is. Catching the defender part at this point is crucial to prevent it from starting to control the situation in an unhealthy manner or overwhelming your emotions with negative judgments.

Depressive realism has a very impressive pedigree. The Buddha pronounced that “all life is suffering” about 2,500 years ago, at roughly the time when the original Greek tragedies were composed. The Old Testament writers and prophets bequeathed us the concepts of human evil, sin, and the Fall, all this stemming from about the 5th century BCE when Adam behaved badly and doomed us all to suffering and death. From Paul through Augustine and Aquinas we have inherited the concept of original sin. The idea that we live in a “vale of tears” is probably from a Catholic hymn. Shakespeare put the phrases “to be or not to be” and “shuffle off our mortal coil” in Hamlet’s mouth in 1603. Robert Burton’s monumental The Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1621 and George Cheyne’s The English Malady in 1733. DR is hardly a wacky modern idea owing its existence to Enlightenment- denying pessimists or to 20th century existentialists.

My own mother was much the same,’ she said. ‘That’s how I knew. Nothing you do is ever right, no achievement is ever good enough. Children grow up with a need to be praised, to impress their parents, and if every achievement is lambasted or denigrated, they quickly develop a sense of disillusionment. They go the opposite way, either outwardly into rebellion, or inwardly into depression.

You don't worry unless you care. Concern reveals thoughtfulness and sensitivity. Insecurity reflects a desire to do well and to prove yourself. Shyness reminds you that you want to be liked and to make a good impression. Anger indicates passionate involvement or desire to be involved. Depression may indicate a sensitive soul, grieving for the world. Accepting your emotions sometimes means appreciating the positive lessons contained in negative emotions.

One of the few perks of major depression was that your lifestyle—excessive TV watching, a reluctance to bathe or brush your teeth—impressed children.

Consistent with clinical reports and patients’ own impressions, studies have found that serious depression can weaken several aspects of executive functioning.23 And it is this weakening—marked by an impaired ability to focus and concentrate effectively on a job or schoolwork—that often drives even the most reluctant sufferer into treatment. We do not yet have a detailed understanding of when and where low mood becomes costly. Few scientists have tried to reconcile the evidence that low mood has both benefits and costs.24 Most of the debate about depression has been polarized into mutually exclusive depression-is-good versus depression-is-bad camps.25 The time has come to bring these camps together to a more nuanced position.

Desperate to join the medical mainstream, psychiatry recognized that its diagnostic system was grossly inadequate. For instance, in the 1968 second edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II), depressive neurosis was defined as “An excessive reaction of depression due to an internal conflict or to an identifiable event such as the loss of a love object or cherished possession.”4 Is moderate depression a week after the loss of a favorite cat “excessive”? One diagnostician would say, “No, not at all, people love their cats”; another, “After a week, it is obviously excessive!” Such disagreements made psychiatry’s scientific aspirations laughable. The solution was a radical revision, DSM-III, published in 1980.5 Written by a task force of the American Psychiatric Association under the leadership of psychiatry researcher Robert Spitzer, it purged psychoanalytic theory from DSM-II and replaced its 134 pages of clinical impressions describing 182 disorders with 494 pages of symptom checklists that defined 265 disorders. “Depressive neurosis” was eliminated. The definition of a new diagnosis, “major depressive disorder,” said nothing about internal conflict; it only required the presence of at least five of nine possible symptoms for at least two weeks. Every diagnosis was now defined by a checklist of necessary and sufficient symptoms. DSM-III transformed psychiatry.6 It made possible standardized interviews that epidemiologists could use to measure the prevalence of specific disorders.

The Goal of Pleasing God by Obeying His Commands (4: 1-2)American culture is caught up with the grand goal of enjoying life and pleasing oneself. For example, a recent magazine article discussing vacation homes as investments led with the caption: "The No. 1 reason to build a vacation home is to enjoy yourself. " Today more than ever society is caught up in concern for health and personal well-being. Churches sometimes try to attract people to their services by advertising that what goes on at church will be enjoyable to them. Some churches advertise that contemporary music and coffee will be served throughout the service. One can even enjoy breakfast beforehand at a church cafeteria or be entertained by "sitcom-like" plays. Some of these things may not be bad in themselves, but the impression is that of the church attempting to attract people by dangling before them the kinds of pleasures that they can find outside the church. If a church does this too consistently, then what it may have to offer may be no different, ultimately, than what the world offers. We must not fool ourselves and think that things were radically different in the first century. A few years ago I went to Turkey (old Asia Minor) to see the ancient sites of the towns where the seven churches of Revelation were located. At Pergamum I visited the ruins of an ancient Roman health spa, where, among other things, people would go to be rejuvenated emotionally because of depression. There were even rooms where a patient could rest; in the ceiling were little holes through which the priestly attendants of the spa would whisper encouraging things to help the victims recuperate psychologically. Whether in the ancient world or today, the chief end of humanity has often been to take pleasure in this life. In contrast, our passage begins by affirming the opposite: humanity's chief goal ought to be to take pleasure in pleasing God. Such passages in Scripture as this fueled the great confession, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. " Granted, Christians enjoy the material pleasures of this life, but only as a gift from the gracious God whom they serve (1 Tim 4: 4). This world is not an end in itself to be enjoyed. On the basis that God has begun to work in the readers and that they are beginning to live in order to please God, Paul appeals to them to excel in this: we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. The main point of 4: 1 is that the ultimate purpose of living as a Christian is not to please oneself but increasingly to please God (Rom 8: 8; 15: 1-6). This develops further the earlier reference to pleasing God (2: 4) and walking worthily for the goal of achieving God's glory for which they have been called (2: 12). The Greek text of 4: 1 reads "just as you received from us how it is necessary for you to walk so as to please God. " Although the NIV leaves out "it is necessary" (dei; so also Moffatt 1970 and NLT), most other translations attempt to express it, typically by "you must" or "you ought. " Some readers may understand this to mean that Christians should live in the way Paul had instructed, but if they do not they will not experience the full blessing they could otherwise. Paul's urging of them to excel, however, suggests that there is a necessity that his readers live this lifestyle and that such living is not optional for less seriously minded Christians. Indeed, this necessity is heightened by the fact that such a lifestyle is a divine commandment (4: 2), that God has called believers to this conduct (4: 7), that God has given true believers the power to fulfill this commandment (3: 12-13) and that to reject living in this manner is tantamount to rejecting God (4: 8). Consequently, it is necessary that God's true people live this way if they want to avoid the inevitable last judgment (4: 6). Paul says the basis for his appeal that they please God is grounded in the authority of the Lord Jesus

In the other method, the potro, a type of waterboarding (the Inquisition considered waterboarding a form of torture), the victim was tied lying down on a trellis with the head in a depression lower than the feet. The head was bound with an iron band, while tight cords tied the victim’s arms and legs to the trellis. The toca, a linen strip, was stuffed into the mouth. A jar holding about a quart of water dripped onto the toca, slowly saturating it, and thereby giving the victim the impression of drowning. The victim would flail about, but the movements of the limbs only made the restraints, sometimes tightened by tourniquets twisted into the cords, dig into the victim’s flesh. The intensity of the torture session could be measured by the amount of water consumed. A lengthy session would require six or eight jars. The victim, male or female, wore no or minimal clothing during the torture session. Nudity induced shame, but the primary reason for nudity was that clothes interfered with the torture restraints.

Susan, another client, is a part-time college teacher. She works too little and recovers too much. When she first came to us, at the age of 42, our first impression of her was that she was depressed. She told us that she never liked to exercise, and even the idea of exercise was repugnant to her. What she loved to do was go to concerts and museums, read books, meditate, and go to fine restaurants.

Going Public Per my recent comments, I am increasingly concerned about SpaceX going public before the Mars transport system is in place. Creating the technology needed to establish life on Mars is and always has been the fundamental goal of SpaceX. If being a public company diminishes that likelihood, then we should not do so until Mars is secure. This is something that I am open to reconsidering, but, given my experiences with Tesla and SolarCity, I am hesitant to foist being public on SpaceX, especially given the long term nature of our mission. Some at SpaceX who have not been through a public company experience may think that being public is desirable. This is not so. Public company stocks, particularly if big step changes in technology are involved, go through extreme volatility, both for reasons of internal execution and for reasons that have nothing to do with anything except the economy. This causes people to be distracted by the manic-depressive nature of the stock instead of creating great products. For those who are under the impression that they are so clever that they can outsmart public market investors and would sell SpaceX stock at the “right time,” let me relieve you of any such notion. If you really are better than most hedge fund managers, then there is no need to worry about the value of your SpaceX stock, as you can just invest in other public company stocks and make billions of dollars in the market.

Entrepreneur, your distinction can be found on Twitter, so, is your thought leadership impressing or depressing?

The way you walk, talk, stand, and carry yourself sends messages to others that can attract or repel, encourage or discourage, and impress or depress.

He was a mild-voiced man with the face of a depressed St. Bernard dog who gave the impression of having wandered into the proceedings by mistake.

Pomegranates inhibit breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, and leukemia, and prevent vascular changes that promote tumor growth in lab animals.55 2. Pomegranates inhibit angiotensin-converting enzymes and naturally lower blood pressure. (Angiotensin, as you may recall, is a hormone that promotes angiogenesis.)56 3. The potent antioxidative compounds in pomegranates reverse atherosclerosis and reduce excessive blood clotting and platelet clumping, factors that can lead to heart attacks and strokes.57 4. Pomegranates have estrogen-like compounds that stimulate serotonin and estrogen receptors, improving symptoms of depression and helping build bone mass in lab animals.58 5. Pomegranates reduce tissue damage in those with kidney problems, reduce the incidence of infections, and prevent serious infections.59 6. Lastly but impressively, pomegranates improve heart health. Heart patients with severe carotid artery blockages were given a daily dose of less than an ounce of pomegranate juice for a year. Not only did their blood pressure decrease by over 20 percent, but there was a 30 percent reduction in atherosclerotic plaque.60

Today, as provost of Harvard University, Steve Hyman is mostly engaged in the many political and administrative tasks that come with leading a large institution. But he is a neuroscientist by training, and in 1996 to 2001, when he was the director of the NIMH, he wrote a paper, one both memorable and provocative in kind, that summed up all that had been learned about psychiatric drugs. Titled “Initiation and Adaptation: A Paradigm for Understanding Psychotropic Drug Action,” it was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, and it told of how all psychotropic drugs could be understood to act on the brain in a common way.46 Antipsychotics, antidepressants, and other psychotropic drugs, he wrote, “create perturbations in neurotransmitter functions.” In response, the brain goes through a series of compensatory adaptations. If a drug blocks a neurotransmitter (as an antipsychotic does), the presynaptic neurons spring into hyper gear and release more of it, and the postsynaptic neurons increase the density of their receptors for that chemical messenger. Conversely, if a drug increases the synaptic levels of a neurotransmitter (as an antidepressant does), it provokes the opposite response: The presynaptic neurons decrease their firing rates and the postsynaptic neurons decrease the density of their receptors for the neurotransmitter. In each instance, the brain is trying to nullify the drug’s effects. “These adaptations,” Hyman explained, “are rooted in homeostatic mechanisms that exist, presumably, to permit cells to maintain their equilibrium in the face of alterations in the environment or changes in the internal milieu.” However, after a period of time, these compensatory mechanisms break down. The “chronic administration” of the drug then causes “substantial and long-lasting alterations in neural function,” Hyman wrote. As part of this long-term adaptation process, there are changes in intracellular signaling pathways and gene expression. After a few weeks, he concluded, the person’s brain is functioning in a manner that is “qualitatively as well as quantitatively different from the normal state.” His was an elegant paper, and it summed up what had been learned from decades of impressive scientific work. Forty years earlier, when Thorazine and the other first-generation psychiatric drugs were discovered, scientists had little understanding of how neurons communicated with one another. Now they had a remarkably detailed understanding of neurotransmitter systems in the brain and of how drugs acted on them. And what science had revealed was this: Prior to treatment, patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, and other psychiatric disorders do not suffer from any known “chemical imbalance.” However, once a person is put on a psychiatric medication, which, in one manner or another, throws a wrench into the usual mechanics of a neuronal pathway, his or her brain begins to function, as Hyman observed, abnormally.

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We forget all the time. We forget very nearly every single impression that passes through our minds. What we ate for lunch: who our roommate was ten years ago: what we pid for a soda in 1982: what we just came from the living room to the kitchen for. It is constant and vital, and we only notice it if everyday useful things go missing. Every moment gets thrown out like so much garbage - which, in a sense, is what the past is. Memory is a toxin, and its overretention - the constant replaying of the past - is the hallmark of stress disorders and clinical depression. The elimination of memory is a bodily function, like the elimination of urine. Stop urinating and you have renal failure: stop forgetting and you go mad. And so it is that the details of nearly every single day that we have lived, nearly every single moment of each day, nearly every person that we have met and spoken to, the exact wording kf the paragraph that you have just read... gone.

One of the most universal causes of self-doubt and depression: trying to impress people you don’t like. Stressing to impress is fine, but do it for the right people—those you want to emulate.

The lieutenant's impression that here was a young man unhealthily preoccupied with himself was confirmed by Port's next words. "It's strange," he said with a deprecatory smile, "how, ever since I discovered that my passport was gone, I've felt only half alive. But it's a very depressing thing in a place like this to have no proof of who you are, you know.

Likewise, the hüzün in Turkish poetry after the foundation of the Republic, as it, too, expresses the same grief that no one can or would wish to escape, an ache that finally saves our souls and also gives them depth. For the poet, hüzün is the smoky window between him and the world. The screen he projects over life is painful because life itself is painful. So it is, too, for the residents of Istanbul as they resign themselves to poverty and depression. Imbued still with the honour accorded it in Sufi literature, hüzün gives their resignation an air of dignity, but it also explains why it is their choice to embrace failure, indecision, defeat and poverty so philosophically and with such pride, suggesting that hüzün is not the outcome of life’s worries and great losses, but their principal cause. So it was for the heroes of the Turkish films of my childhood and youth, and also for many of my real-life heroes during the same period: they all gave the impression that, because of this hüzün they’d been carrying around in their hearts since birth that they could not appear desirous in the face of money, success, or the women they loved. Hüzün does not just paralyse the inhabitants of Istanbul; it also gives them poetic licence to be paralysed.

I went to see his show at Earls Court, and found the experience had an astonishingly depressing effect on me. The first half was made up of Floyd numbers and gave me the impression of being a (rather elderly) Peter Pan at the nursery window – that was my part being played by someone else. In retrospect this one event probably had as much to do in galvanising me as anything else. I realised I could not quite so easily let go and watch the train roll on without me.

There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called “Contemplation.” There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is “contemplating.” If any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many “contemplatives” among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why.

There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called “Contemplation.” There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is “contemplating.” If any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many “contemplatives” among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why

The poets of past and present, sing of heartbreaks and depressions, making the full moon quietly crescent, causing the world to stir with impressions.