Fuck Depression

Depression is a thing that will fuck you up, no matter how well things are or seem to be going. It saps the foundations like termites, wears away self-esteem like your own personal, internalized gaslighter. It’s kicked my ass up, down, left, right, sideways, and diagonally, and I am a person routinely mistaken for strong. Depression is a cancer, a colonizer of the soul, dimmer of the spark and whisperer of bitterest nothings in your psyche’s ear. It wears you away, eats you away from the inside.

It is also, in some times and some cases, a perfectly rational and reasonable response to the world we live in, which seems to conspire to create misery for most so a few can accrue — if not always enjoy — prosperity and power and wealth.

So yes, be kind, because you never know what kind of struggle someone’s going through, and kindness costs nothing but pays the highest possible dividends. But as we mourn another dead celebrity, another had-it-all suicide, another loved one or friend or friend of a friend, let’s not just be kind.

Let’s resolve to build a world that makes people happy. That takes care of their needs and provides space and opportunity for them to flourish. That asks what they can give and gives more than they would ask. That takes the prosperity and progress we as a species have achieved — and can achieve — and sees to it everyone gets their share, and that no one gets left behind. No one falls through the cracks.

Let’s build a world that takes care of everybody, that lets everyone live their best, most productive, and happiest possible life, so we don’t have to lose these bright shining stars before their time anymore, and because, goddamit, it’s the right fucking thing to do.

So It’s Come to This

Screen Shot 2018-06-07 at 1.33.07 PM — Now I know my ABCs

What do you even say when you see something like this in a kindergarten classroom? I mean, really, what do you say? Given its placement, the way we read left to right, the Lockdown Song is apparently even more important than learning the alphabet.

How has it come to this?

How have we reached the point where school shootings are such a part of the fabric of our national life that someone decided it was better to start preparing children for the worst than to try and preserve their innocence awhile longer, and provide an environment where what’s best in them might flower and grow?

These questions are rhetorical, obviously. We all know how. A powerful manufacturing lobby made a Faustian bargain with a political party (and possibly, even probably, Russian oligarchs) to sell as much of their product as possible, consequences be damned. For them, from their position and perspective, it’s actually a virtuous circle. Scientific studies have shown that fear makes people more conservative, makes them buy more guns. Once the market reaches a certain saturation (like, idk, one gun per person in the freest, most prosperous nation in modern history), the feedback loop reinforces itself. There are too many guns, and it’s too easy to get them, to make it harder for upright, responsible citizens (or, really, anyone) to buy guns to defend themselves from all the other people with guns. Never mind how your chances of dying from gun violence vastly increase when you purchase a gun.

But that’s just science talking. And science, despite its dedication to reflecting and clarifying actuality, can’t hold a candle to narrative when it comes to getting people to do (or not do) stuff.

But back to the virtuous circle, which is not really virtuous unless it’s in your interest to make people frightened so you can sell them guns and get them to vote for conservative politicians whose policies are generally terrifically unpopular. I mean, does anyone who isn’t rich really think the rich need more money while the rest of us scrabble and scrape? Does anyone really want to live in a world two steps removed from a battle royale where it’s all against all and fuck everybody who ain’t me and mine? Some people might, but fuck them.

So, the circle. How does it work?

Well, what you need is to cultivate an atmosphere of threat, fear, and scarcity. Which isn’t hard, because people are wired to respond to threats. It’s how we survived, evolutionarily, and though we’ve created a situation in which most of our instincts aren’t really optimal, evolution takes a while to catch up. Anyhow, I don’t think it’s a big stretch to say that when things get scary, or scarce, people’s circle of concern tends to tighten up. They start looking out for them and theirs. They also look for targets, because fear and scarcity take their toll on a person. And because fear produces anger and anxiety — which, let’s be honest, don’t exactly lead to clear thinking — it’s easy to divert that fear and anger away from their actual sources, so the underlying causes and problems never get addressed.

Which brings us back to the Lockdown Song. I mean, just think how many guns a whole generation suffering from a lifetime of fear will buy. Long term, school shootings are going to be great for business.

What If the Problem’s Not You?

You’re anxious. Depressed. There’s something wrong with your brain, a chemical imbalance that prevents you from being happy. From enjoying life. From being a productive, contributing member of society. It’s not your fault. Your brain just doesn’t work right. It happens. Once you accept that, you can accept help. See a doctor, a therapist. Maybe try taking drugs to alter your brain chemistry. Get you back up and running. Functional, if not happy. Able to contribute, and not be a burden on those who don’t share your curse.

I understand. I am like that, too. Have been for as long as I can remember. It sucks.

But what if the problem’s not you? What if your depression and anxiety are perfectly rational responses to a toxic environment?

There’s a quote usually attributed to William Gibson (but apparently originated by a twitter user named @debihope). “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” It’s pithy, and clever, and wise. I bring it up for those reasons, but also because of the very reasonable suggestion that factors beyond your brain chemistry may and almost certainly do play a part in your subjective experience of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Even if you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

Context, in short, matters.

I mean, let’s face it. Very few human societies have ever been built with happiness and well-being in mind, save for those few at the top of the pyramid scheme. Even in our present abundance, it’s become increasingly rare for the average person to have the kind of stability and prosperity that are the baseline requirements for psychological equilibrium. How many people work jobs they hate? How many are one missed paycheck, one accident or unforeseen illness away from homelessness? How many people have the opportunity to find meaning and significance in their lives? How many people seek shelter and solace in addiction, in overwork, in bullshit hierarch mentalities that take comfort in knowing that however miserable they are, there is someone more misable than they?

What if the real asshole is how we’ve arranged our society?

Look, if you are depressed, or anxious, or have low self-esteem, there could very well be something wrong with your brain. There’s sure as fuck something wrong with mine. But it’s time for us to stop locating the problem solely in individuals, whether we conceive that problem as failing or pathology. It’s time to take a step back and see the forest and the tree. To see that systemic factors play as much of a part as individual ones do, and that fixes, if we want them to be effective, have to take into account more than just whether a sad person has enough serotonin in their brain.

To quote the Guardian article that inspired this:

If you are depressed and anxious, you are not a machine with malfunctioning parts. You are a human being with unmet needs. The only real way out of our epidemic of despair is for all of us, together, to begin to meet those human needs – for deep connection, to the things that really matter in life.

An Open Letter to Don’t-Be-That-Guy Guy

The other day a woman I know posted about narrowly escaping being snatched off the street by a man who intended her harm. The vast majority of comments were what a decent person would expect, things along the line of “OMG I hope you are okay” and “Did you report it?” and “WTF?!?” You know, the kinds of things you say when someone you know tells you they were almost kidnapped and raped and who the fuck knows what else.

Your contribution?

“Would it have been a hot rape at least? Was the guy good looking, or short, fat, and ugly?”

You excused it as gallows humor. You were “trying to make light of [her] horrible situation.” You “meant absolutely no harm.” You told the original poster — the woman, I’ll remind you, writing about almost being kidnapped, raped, and who knows what else — “You obviously don’t like my crude gallows humor. And for that I apologize” which is about the weaselly-est non-apology I’ve ever read.

Then you blocked her, because despite making a show of how little the dogpile of her actual friends calling your sorry ass out affected you, it was clear that it did. So you took the coward’s way out. Because in addition to being a shit-heel of the lowest order, you aren’t man enough to face the consequences of your shitty action, just like you weren’t man enough to make a real apology.

Just like you weren’t man enough to take what happened to my friend seriously in the first place. Continue reading “An Open Letter to Don’t-Be-That-Guy Guy” →

Why I Quit Watching Porn

It started off innocently enough. At least as innocently as any guilty pleasure does. And it wasn’t something I did everyday. Like I said, it was a guilty pleasure, and one that seemed relatively harmless at first. I mean, everybody watches porn, right?

It wasn’t like that when I was growing up. Back in the pre-internet dark ages, porn was one of those things which are not spoken of, the purview of shady businesses with painted windows and sweaty, unsavory men in trenchcoats. Sure, lots of people watched it — and read Playboy and Penthouse and Hustler and Juggs and the million other mags behind paper covers at your local newsstand. But it wasn’t til the internet exploded all over the world that porn really came into the mainstream. And hey, for what it’s worth, I’m not here to judge people who do watch it. I know lots of healthy, well-adjusted people who like, on occasion, to watch people they don’t know have sex while someone films it. If that’s you, awesome. Go on with your bad self.

But, it turns out, it’s not for me. Continue reading “Why I Quit Watching Porn” →