Dostoevsky puts the dilemma pretty succintly in Notes: What is better: cheap happiness or noble suffering? It is a sincere question and I think it can take a lifetime to really come to terms with an answer. your mention of the social as the key to happiness, for me anyways, feels like cheap happiness, distraction really. and I can agree that some of the best times I have had had been in social situations… but I hold out hope that there can be genuine enlightenement from the solitary introspection.

my interest right now is to be healthy… to detoxify from everything that is adverse to being able to think clearly and act with conviction. Nietzsche makes mention of the fact that climate can have a lot to do with your capacity to do some things… all the little physiological factors need to be in place before self-actualizing (Maslov’s theory I believe). I think it takes a lot of small steps to get somewhere uncloudy. there are so many distractions along the way, but I think there is something worthwhile to find through introspection… depression is a potential effect of the pursuit, but not neccessarily the inevitable conclusion.

I will check out these podcasts… and if you are on facebook look me up.

You can hear my professor interviewed by Robert Harrison, a Stanford professor of Italian and French, on the podcasts at these links. The first show is about his general philosophy, and second one is about Heidegger’s approach to art and poetry. I recommend both very highly.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/mitchell.html

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/

You might also enjoy Harrison’s whole show, Entitled Opinions. He interviews interesting professors and authors.

I will be trying out another Stanford course this winter titled “Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky: The Crisis in Meaning”, though for reasons mentioned prior, I’m a bit concerned this kind of thing won’t be good for me. But I’ve never really delved deeply into Nietzche, nor read anything by Kierkegaard.

Enjoy your vacation.

where are you taking the class on Hiedegger… I have been listening to a lecture podcast from Berkeley on Hiedegger… fascinating stuff and Hubert Dreyfus is a solid teacher.

I woke up depressed today. I often feel a stab of acute depression upon entry into the waking world. For some reason shame and guilt are the first emotions that present themselves. Why this is the case, I haven’t been able to figure out.

I thought I had dispelled the bleak mood by being productive at a coffee shop later this morning, but the mood returned by noon. Then I went for a long 5-6 mile run, which left me in a much more energetic, positive mood. And yet, by 4 PM the depression was back.

This past fall I attended a two-month cognitive behavior support group for depression. I learned a lot, and I now know a bunch of things I should do instead. Laying in bed during the day achieves nothing. It makes my mood worse. I did just that all summer, often laying in bed until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and it achieved nothing. But for whatever reason, the pull is too strong, and there I was again this afternoon.

All this speaks to melodrama, but to my mind the more accurate description of my experience of depression is a thick layer of banality and boredom wrapped tightly around a core of pain. My pain seems to stem from shame and guilt, though I know for others it is anxiety, anger, disappointment, or grief.

My recurring mistake is to assume that some kind aesthetic therapy will puncture the banality and let me deal with the pain armed with the tools to transform it. To get lost in that beautiful prose, to seize on the right philosophical idea, to hear that gorgeous sequence of sounds- my heart tells me that these experiences are the only ones capable of dealing with the fierceness of the depression. I don’t think it is a coincidence that I came the closest to feeling suicidal this past summer at exactly the same time that I was taking a class on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The class and readings left me spellbound at seeing the world in a fascinating new way, and yet this wonder did not deal with the underlying pain.

I’ve come to know on a certain level that the depression, at least for me, hides in the aesthetic realm. Ideas and art do wonders for the healthy soul, but their powers are limited when dealing with a maimed one.

What kills depression is the social. I would be better off calling friends, seeing family, throwing myself into the world so as to become caught up in the larger narrative playing out beyond my personal drama. But for the life of me (cliche intended), I can’t make myself believe this in my soul. I don’t like parties, I get bored easily in bars, and often find it hard to get up the energy to be a lively companion for excursions. But I know if I am serious about feeling better, I need get out of bed and into the presence of others.

It is to be hoped that this mood will dissipate with the return to work tomorrow after two weeks off. (The benefits of being a school teacher.) I also hope that in the New Year I will be more active at the Pagan Agenda. It’s good to be back.