Feeling depressed? Now French people consume 80 million anxiety pills a year. And you wonder where the smiles have gone. Anxiety is a natural corollary to intellectual capabilities, as we tend to anticipate more than animals.
So why is it that anxiety has become so vile that we want to eradicate it? Is it another resurgence of Cassandra’s dramatic fate? Because the so-called “negativists” are perhaps right, or at least because they strike a chord within ourselves.
I feel anxious, very much so. After the death of Mom, I was in shock, not thinking. Just living the material life of getting up, eating, moving, eating and sleeping. Now anxiety is like a dark shadow, a ghost, which I can detect in everything, and everywhere.
So it happens that children wake up at night crying out, because they had dreams of falling, and some scientists believe it is part of our past as mammals hugging trees and branches for safety. Falling was death.
Ever wondered why there is the tree standing between Adam and Eve in Paradise, and why the Snake with a human face is hugging that tree? I know I have strange ideas, but don’t you think it is weird, huh?
Okay, okay, back to the subject. I wanted to write about the French Raison d’Etre, or Reason to Be, something quite thought challenging. Does it mean we need a reason to live, that life is part of the rational process, and that there is a life outside of the rational process, call it ante-life, if you want. I like the expression “to live in the blue”.
I have spent so much time living in the blue. Where decisions are not rational at all. Say, planting 20.000 trees is not rational at all. But eventually it makes sense in the larger picture, I mean, it is positive action for all of us. I wonder if Jesus Christ was driven by Reason, oh no, don’t we say “Passion of Christ”?
All of this to say that leaving outside the rational loop does not mean you are irrational, but perhaps visionary, or driven by passion. So it is interesting to know that rationally speaking, I know that my depression is not going to last, that I will get out of it, eventually, and that there are seven levels of grief, from denial to anger, frustration and depression.
Does it help? I bet you would say “No!” Because we are also passionate beings, and that the grieving process is so intimate and tender, all the more so because of the love we have for the departed ones, that we intimately know it is right to feel bad, ill, irresponsible and depressed.
There are some considerations. For instance, I have been very, very depressed in my life. Say, as a child as I returned to Paris after the marvelous sea life of Algeria. Hmm, or as a soldier when they put me in an office, whole day long, and my blood was boiling to run in the snow with backpack and rifle. I have been very depressed with my mother, as the road was sometimes quite bumpy.
So what is so special this time that I am truly scared of my depression? That fear is insinuating itself in my mind, and confusing my behavior? It is discontinuity. Discontinuity of being. A time of fundamental doubt about the Raison d’Etre.
The Mexicans believed that only continual sacrifices in blood could preserve the world from Chaos. So it is the Reason the Greek philosophers before the time of Socrates put on the altar, which really constituted the dawn of a new future, based on reasonable understanding and approach to the terrifying surrounding world.
And yet I have said that Reason is not helping me right now, and that I feel like doing things, quite unreasonable, like spending 10 hours making love to my beloved, something I promised her I would do, whatever happens. I have dreams of foreign cities of lust, power and sex, with hard tits, and say, luscious situations.
Sex is a good remedy to fear, but again, it is not the right one, because every action inspired by fear, especially as reaction to fear, is spoiled, perverted. There is no denying that the perspective of ten hours of sex is appealing, but I don’t think this is the Raison d’Etre of my love.
I believe that depression is stirring something, which I would call an instinctive vital reaction to fear and anxiety. And sex is part of that instinctive response. If we knew, I mean we know it, but we don’t want to talk about it, that we are going to die, and that every single person we know is also going to die, so what are we waiting for? So why are we not fucking like rabbits?
Oh, there are answers to that, like decency or dignity. But death and illness, corruption of loved flesh is not decent or something with dignity. It is merciless, unforgiving, terrible, and relentless. I think that the true answer is that we need a Light, and that this Light is Love. Love is my Raison d’Etre. I have chosen that way.
And Love is anything but generic. It is as much about Light, Soul, than body fluids, sweating flesh and salty taste in mouth. It is human. Period. And depression is human, too. I think so shall I be. I would say I fear so Shall I become. In Love.
I like that story of Joseph Conrad, “Typhoon”. Because there is something so stupid in the decision to ride the storm, instead of avoiding it. And indeed it is not reasonable, but instinct kicking in. It is the sacrifice of 300 Spartans at the Thermopiles, as instinctive answer to the fear of that Persian Behemoth.
Dogs attack when they are in fear, and we have that instinct to counter-attack even if the odds are not good, because we know that if we stay reasonable, and spend the day thinking about rational way out, we are going to get stomped. Call it courage of despair, perhaps.
Because if we know that eventually there is a way out of depression, what ultimately matters, all things rationally considered, is how we behaved on the path. Not that it matters much to the great evolution of things. As I am writing this, more than 1.5 billion of human beings are in hunger, and really no one gives a shit about my depression.
But, I say, but… This is not important, because we said that depression is intimate, so what matters is how we fought it, not if we won. Because there is no winning, no money, or laurels. Either you get out of there as a human being, as the Jews rightly say, a Mensch, fragile and yet toughened by the fire of your grief, or you come out, fierce and apparently stronger, but scared shitless to relive that depression.
And I have already said that anything, which is inspired by fear is perverted. If someone is scared shitless to do something dangerous, then he should consider not doing it. I really believe again in the instinctive answer to fear, which is illuminated by Love, and with this, I mean that there is nobility to do dangerous things out of love, out of care, and then you see, we do it not for us, but for another person.
Love Thyself, so you Love? I don’t know, I really don’t. I love Belka of the alluring voice, and yet I only love myself, deeply, truly, when I am seeing myself with her eyes, as we are lying together, in the sweet balsamic scent of sexual love.
