Tag: Depression

Fiction: ‘If You Really Want One’

Posted on by bryon

“Isn’t this damn line ever going to move?”

“No, Erik, it isn’t,” Lee said. “This is hell, and we’ll be standing here for all eternity. Just to annoy you.”

“I believe it,” Erik said.

“Erik,” Bobby said, “I know we dragged you here against your will, but try to have just the tiniest bit of fun, huh?”

“Yeah, try not to make us wish we were dead, too,” Arthur pleaded.

“I’m told that the dead have very few problems.”

His friends sighed; Erik the Grim had spoken.

Through the tightly packed mass of people thronging the state fair, Erik brightened suddenly as he spotted an old man holding a fresh caramel apple by its stick.

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Fiction: Call and Response

Posted on by bryon

In most of the pews, one hand held half the hymnal, and the other fanned its owner.

This Sunday had been overcast, and the wind, which had whipped ladies’ hats from their heads before morning services, had died away to nothing by the time worshippers arrived for evening services. Now a sticky stillness permeated Cherrydale.

“Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus!” they sang in the sanctuary of the First Lutheran Church, a moderate brick building erected twenty years earlier when the town and the congregation were growing before the Great Depression began. “Thou hast loved us, love us still.”

Eyes kept going from the hymnals to the windows. Evening was coming, to be sure, but too quickly. The unnatural darkness had everyone on edge, even in the house of the Lord.

And so they sang with more feeling than usual: “Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast loved us, love us still.”

The Rev. Morton stepped into his pulpit. “Be seated.” As his flock sat, he stole another glance out the windows himself.

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Pen to Paper: Depression and Creativity

Posted on by bryon

Today’s topic comes from Greg’s second comment on last week’s topic.

Is there, in fact, a link between the depressive personality and the creative one? Do they inhabit the same skin? The answer is a definite maybe. It all depends on the latest study done, which may say the opposite of the study before that. There are some interesting parallels, however, between the manic phase of bipolar disorder and the creative process.

Some research suggests that it is not depression but rather the coming out of depression which engenders a burst of creativity. This seems reasonable; if you’ve been seeing through a glass darkly and daylight begins to break, isn’t that cause for a psalm of joy? Or perhaps an epic tragedy?

The belief that depression is a necessary component of creativity may be a cultural orientation: “In the West many people believe that creativity comes from torment, while in the East there is more of a tradition of great art coming from balance and realization.”

Author, psychologist and creativity coach Eric Maisel is quoted as saying, “Creators are not necessarily afflicted with some biological disease or physiological disorder… They experience depression simply because they are caught up in a struggle to make life seem meaningful to them.”

If you’re a happy and creative person, don’t hunt for reasons to be unhappy on the theory that you’re not down in the trenches with the rest of us. And for those who are depressed, perhaps it will help to believe that although “weeping may endure for the night, joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5, speaking of psalms), and your creative cup will runneth over once more.

UPDATE, 12/16: Health.com has made a list of 10 Careers with High Rates of Depression. “Artist, entertainer, writer” is listed at number six. Right before “teacher.”

Fiction: About the Old Days

Posted on by bryon

I hadn’t known anyone could keep talking while taking a breath. The woman across the way from me on the bus could do it, though.

She filled the aisle seat as full as could be. With the bus being at capacity, that meant she had a trapped audience in the window seat. He was a young man — younger than my 35 years then — and was dressed neatly enough. I sat by the window across from them; your grandma dozed on and off next to me. We were headed home after going to a funeral on her side of the family.

After the first two minutes the young man across the way didn’t so much as grunt to encourage the woman to keep talking or to make her think he was listening. He closed his eyes for a while, either trying to feign or attain sleep. She didn’t mind at all and he gave up on that and stared out the window.

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Fiction: Wishing Well

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Skunk Borster hadn’t heard his right name in so long it was no wonder he didn’t remember it. His own mother had practically renamed the boy – “You little skunk!” “You skunk! Get out of there!” “Skunk! Don’t think I don’t know who did that!” – when he was only four years old. Most folk in the area didn’t know it wasn’t his birth name and wouldn’t have cared had they been told.

Skunk fit him like a glove and it had pleased him for forty-seven years to live down to it.

The Depression and the War had both been over for some years, but tell that to the hills. There was still no industry in these parts and the miracles of the post-war boom steered studiously away.

As most people did, Skunk Borster tended his own little garden to help keep body and soul together. Sure, he ate the vegetables, but by and large it served as bait for small meaty creatures such as raccoons. This way, Skunk didn’t even have to go hunting; the prey came within twenty feet of his back door.

He had also made a study of getting money out of other people with little or no labor on his part. He was a wonderfully charming fellow, until one made his closer acquaintance. He could get anyone to trust him once, and maybe even twice.

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