February 7th, 2014 - Friday - Satiety - It appears to me there are two types of DEPRESSION. One is fated, karmic, biological, hereditary. It's in you and it's the ride you are on in this amusement park. Not much you can do about it except hold and play it out. But there is another type of DEPRESSION... the rational response to the apparently meaninglessness of life. This is GOOD depression. This is when you start to realize that most of your life is 'bullshit'. That you are not living authentically. That you are a false bundle of fear fibers. This is a sign you are getting sick of your tiny prison cell.
Look, if the cell you are in is pleasant and magical and cool, why leave? You only leave when it gets uncomfortable in there. Depression is the world's way of making you uncomfortable. It tells you to get up and get out.
I read this last night: "Rational depression isn't a defect or a disease, it's a perfectly appropriate response to the circumstances we find ourselves in. We have no future, no substance, and no significance; what's not to be depressed about?"
Interesting, right? Sounds like a midlife crisis to me, and the point I'm making is this: It's a good thing.
"Depression is fear with hope removed. It arises as we discover that something we thought could be ours will never be ours. Unhappiness is when we worry about not having something, depression is when we realize we'll never have it, and freedom is when we realize that nothing is ours and nothing CAN be ours, so that, in effect, nothing isn't ours."
It sounds a bit like growing up, yes? "That despair is most often a sign that one is breaking away from the fairy-tale version of life, where good little boys and girls live happily ever after, and move into adulthood."
Whitman tells us: "I don't offer the old smooth prizes but rough new prizes. These are the days that must happen to you."
So what do we do with the depression? We stop struggling. Go INTO the fear. Embrace it. Let go and sink. Just sink into it. It is the fight against it that is causing our stress and unhappiness.
So having read all this the last few days, (and remember, I'm pulling three cards in a row telling me that I'm searching for answers within the shadows), I wake up last night... and out of the blue... I feel a huge burden of depression. It's all meaningless. It's all over. It's done. There is nothing left.
And so... what do I do? I actively surrender to it. I choose to let go and entered into the depression and meaningless. It swallowed me up in darkness and flowed through me like a dark wave of death.
Now granted... I've been opening like this for years now in a dedicated practice, but the fact that it happened in the middle of the night while I was so sleepy and out of context helped me approach it in a new way.
What happened? The depression flowed into me and swallowed me and dragged me down... I didn't resist. Yep... life is meaningless. I didn't argue. And then... it flowed out and away.
It left an empty space that was slowly filled with a sad gratitude. Flow returned, a quiet joy, a calm peace, a precious moment, a.... (wait for it)... SATIETY.
