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January 22, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . Depression

Things have gotten pretty political around here lately, and I know that doesn’t interest everyone, so we’ll put that on hold for a while for your sake, and frankly, for mine. I just can’t take it for too long. I just find myself getting worked up over it all, and I need to take a break, to step away for a bit.

In that vein, I’ve decided it’s time to talk about something a great many people don’t understand. Depression is a very real medical and psychological condition, which isn’t solved by “a little more Jesus,” or “Just get over it,” or “He really should just grow up.” I have heard each of these responses to the topic of depression, and how it’s not real, it’s “just in your head,” and if you were stronger it wouldn’t be a problem.

I think a lot of the ignorant comments surrounding this disease comes from, well, ignorance for one, but it’s a very difficult thing to understand when you don’t know how it feels. I will attempt to dispel the fog surrounding how it feels to be depressed. Understand that how /I/ experience depression may be very different than someone else, but generally, many of the hallmarks are universal. This post is one I have tried to write a number of times, but have never quite been able to come up with the words, but after a particularly tough morning, I sent what follows to a friend, and for the first time, I felt like I had a decent glimpse of what it feels like:

Some days everything just goes wrong all at once and it feels like everything you have is just slipping away into nothingness, and you’ll be left standing there staring into the void wondering what you did to deserve this, what you could have done differently to avoid it. But then you realize that it doesn’t matter anyways, because it’s all gone and there’s no getting it back, no recovery, there’s only you and you have two choices: pick up and move on or stay put and let the void consume you, and you wonder if there’s even a difference.

Imagine you’ve gone to a soothsayer, who has a penchant for never being wrong, and she tells you that “Tomorrow, your world will end. You will not go to heaven, you will not go to hell. You will cease to exist, and everything about you will be forgotten forever. You will leave no legacy, you will simply never have existed.” The opportunists in the crowd will take this advice as carte blanche to have a ball. But really think about it. Look around you at everyone you love, everything you’ve done. All the lives you have touched, and all the lives who have touched you. Nothing. NOTHING will remain. Your life and all the hard work you’ve put in amount to nothing. And nothing meant anything. Why did you even bother?

Pretty depressing, huh? Now imagine waking up with that feeling every morning. Imagine taking a shower, brushing your teeth, doing any of the hundreds of mundane little things you have to do just to get ready to, what, go to work? And what for? Does it matter? Will it ever?

It’s those thoughts that fester in the mind, that gnaw and eat their way through any barriers of thought and reason. They form an impenetrable downward spiral, neigh impossible to stop, even when you know it’s happening. Fear leads to doubt, leads to anxiety, leads to self-doubt, leads to loathing, leads to nothing. All roads lead to Nothingness.

These are feelings that I have lived with since I was about 9 years old. It started off with my just not feeling quite right. I remember not really feeling like all the other kids /looked/ like they felt. So I started to fake it. I kept it to myself because I didn’t understand it, and it was easy enough to keep up the act, but when I got to high school, I began to wear thin. I spoke with a mentor about everything, and started seeing a counselor. I didn’t like him, and quit going. I also got on medication, which I took for a while and quit. That song and dance was repeated often. I’ve been through more medications than I can remember, and I’ve seen a handful of counselors, most of whom I ended up quitting, disappointed in their inattention and silly games. I have continued to quit the medications cold-turkey when I get on them.

It has been a long process, and I have not been the best patient, but I will, this coming week, be visiting the doctor to get back on the medication. It’s occurred to me that maybe I need to get this depression in check, because there are too many people who it affects. My ability to keep up the act 24/7 has waned, and I’m beginning to lash out and hurt people around me. So it’s time to swallow my pride, and get the help I need.

But as for depression itself, some people are depressed because of some major life event they can’t get a handle on. Some people are depressed because of neurochemical imbalance. Some people are depressed for, well, the list goes on and on.

There’s good news, though. Our good friend Science has given us a plethora of anti-depressant medications which fiddle with your brain bits and help you feel normal again. There are counselors, and therapists, and pastors, and gurus, and friends, and chocolate. It’s not the same for everyone, but it’s no less insidious, and it can cause some very real life-altering problems.

So let’s talk. Do you know someone who is clinically depressed? Are you? How do they deal with it? How do you? Do you have any questions about depression? If so, please ask, and I’ll do my best to answer them. So let’s talk. Let’s all gain a little understanding.

January 16, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . Meditation

These last few days, largely as a part of my renewed kick to be healthy, I’ve taken to going for walks after work. I go for about an hour, which end up being a little over 3.5 miles. In that hour, I plug in my headphones, queue up some music from my phone or Spotify and just walk.

It’s become apparent to me that this activity is healthy in a way other than for my heart. It’s a salve for the soul, really. A moment of peace in an otherwise hectic day. I know a good number of you already know this. But it’s a new sensation for me. Rather than getting bored with the monotony, I look forward to a chance to de-stress and decompress at the end of the day. A chance to just drown out any other problems or pending issues, and it just gives me some time to relax. And pant a little. But that’s okay too.

It got me to thinking as I walked this evening, how much such a routine could be beneficial for everyone. My wife has recently purchased a rabbit which lives in our guest room. Before bed, she goes to let it out of its hutch, run around a bit, eat some hay and oats, and just generally be cute. Don’t believe me?

20120116-192508.jpg
See? Told you so.

When she gave that as a reason for purchasing the rabbit, I scoffed a bit, but now I see the value in it. You’ve got to have something to release, to switch-off, at least for a while. It helps you re-focus, re-evaluate your position, and just generally be a little more content than with what you’ve got, and where you are.

It gives you a chance to think, too, if you like. To work out a problem in a non-threatening, non-pressing environment. During that time of meditation, whatever form it may take, lets you take a fresh look at whatever’s been bothering you lately, and often, you can find a solution, or at least figure out something to try. Somehow, not being under pressure allows you to think a little less “in-the-box”, allows you to be a little more creative.

Let’s talk. So how about you? What’s your outlet? Your time of meditation? What do you do so you don’t have any responsibility, and can just relax for a while? If you don’t have that time, I’d challenge you to try it for a week. Even just a few days, and report back with what you’ve found out about yourself. Let’s all just sit back, relax, and enjoy ourselves for a few minutes a day.

January 12, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . SOPA

Stop Sopa, from Joystiq Image from Joystiq

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act and its sister bill PIPA, or the Protect Intellectual Property Act, are two of the latest in the corporate war on piracy. At least ostensibly. Point of fact, the wording of the laws are so incredibly invasive, their constitutionality should really called into question by our congressmen, much as the DMCA’s should have been. I wrote a paper about the DMCA, and a lot of my research kept taking me back to the EFF and their work to brief congress on the ill effects of such ridiculously unbalanced law. (If on the off chance anyone wants to read it, let me know. I’ll dig it up and post a PDF.)

A quick history of Copyright Legislation

The DMCA was a piece of protective legislation that applied extremely lateral judicial powers to the whims of the copyright holders. At the time, the major culprits were the RIAA and the MPAA, though the RIAA was considered the worse of the two. What the DMCA allowed the RIAA to do was request–and receive–subpoenas without having a name or really any information more identifying than an IP address. What’s worse, is there was no judicial oversight on the issuance of these subpoeans. All it took, to simplify, was filling out a form. No judge ever saw the documents, or approved the subpoena. Crazy, right?

These nameless subpoenas were served to ISPs across the nation demanding the names and addresses of the users to whom those IPs belonged. Verizon took exception to this, and refused, so the RIAA sued. A federal court ruled Verizon must comply, but it was appealed and a federal appeals court ruled against the RIAA.

SOPA and PIPA

Fast-forward to last year, when SOPA and PIPA were introduced. These two bills offer rights-holders similar widely lateral judicial leeway, but it extends so much further now. Instead of merely demanding a user, the media companies can hold hostage a website which had a user post a link to another site that has something copyrighted on it. What’s worse, the rights holders can request damages from the website with the offending user, as if the website itself were responsible! The law is so broad, and provides such unilateral judiciary power to bodies well outside the scope of judiciary authority, and all it takes a complaint form, and out go the lights. It nearly seems guilty until proven innocent.

Think about the real world repercussions of such a law. Facebook has something like 800 million active users. If 1 of those 800 million people, even one who lives outside of the USA, post a screenshot from the latest Warner Brothers film, Facebook could be blacklisted because it aided copyright infringement. Youtube has around 350 or 400 million active users. If ONE person posts a clip from the latest episode of Family Guy, Fox could pull the plug on Youtube. If Google crawls and indexes a link to a fan’s painstaking transcription of the latest Nickleback album, it just takes a complaint. And you’ve lost Google.

This is pure madness. There are no real checks and balances in place, seemingly no real recourse for the targeted site. No “innocent until proven guilty.” Just any vaguely related post by any user about anything copyrighted can land a site and its owners in hot water. It’s a piece of legislation that will breed paranoia, fear, and corporate censorship of the Internet, which has been a relatively unbridled mode of free speech for decades.

Where will it leave us?

Would you want to live on an Internet where you’ve got to mind your Ps and Qs because you don’t know if big brother is watching? What if big brother were watching, and what if big brother weren’t even your government. It was corporate fat cats, waiting in the wings to censor anyone who dares talk about the product they’re trying so hard to sell? Wait a tic. Doesn’t that seem a little backward? You’re going to censor out your own product from the system by which you are likely to get the most exposure? It just makes bad business sense. Frankly, the idea is utterly terrifying to me. While I’m not typically an overly-paranoid conspiracy theory kind of guy, but the sheer invasiveness of this legislation tickles my privacy bone all kinds of wrong.

Many of you have your own websites. What happens if you have a commenter post a link to a youtube video–assuming Youtube still exists–of a copyrighted song as a response to your funny picture of a weasel? Well, if SOPA passes, YOU could be responsible. Wouldn’t that make you think twice about keeping that blog? Because you can’t control your users, and you can’t probably police everything they might post. (Well, I can. 0-4 comments per post would be pretty easy, especially since half of those are me.) This legislation would destroy the open–free–Internet as we know it.

If you don’t believe me, go take a look at the big websites around. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and a number of others I’m sure are considering a blackout for a day in protest of SOPA. Think about that. These are websites with MILLIONS of page hits a day, generating BILLIONS of dollars in ad revenues. And they feel so strongly about this legislation they’re willing to give it all up just to prove they’re serious.

Think about it. Do you want an Internet without Google? Without Reddit? Without Wikipedia? Without Youtube? Do you want an internet–an international community–which runs in fear of AMERICAN corporate interpretations of fair use? It’s a trick question, of course. You could want it all you like, but it would never exist. How could it? Corporate webmasters would be so neutered, they would just shutter their sites and move on to other ventures. Site like twitter, which were so instrumental in the OWS protests, not to mention any number of the foreign protests, could never exist. Too many users to police, too few dollars, too much risk.

What now?

We’re on the precipice of a real world-changing piece of legislation. While I wish it were something more akin to a national ban on fossil fuels, or nationalized health care, it’s an all-out assault on our first amendment rights. No. We do not have the right to thievery. We do not have a right to share anything and everything ever created. The corporations have their right to make money, too. But not at the expense of civil liberties. Not at the expense of an international tool, one considered by the UN to be a basic human need now.

Do what you can. Write your congressmen and women. Write your mom. Write your aunt. Tell them they’re at risk of losing their farmville. Whatever it takes, but do SOMETHING. We’re standing at a precipice. Don’t stand idly by while we step off it.

January 10, 2012 

Let’s talk about . . . People

No. Not like that. I mean people we meet, spend time with, befriend, and ultimately, drift apart from. It’s a fact of life, not everyone you were friends with back in elementary school is still your friend now. Not your first crush, not your second crush, not your best friend who you dodged all kinds of trouble with back in high school.  People move apart. Simple as that.

A recent conversation with Rachelskirts brought a lot of thoughts about this phenomenon to the surface, and I think it’s something worth visiting, as we enter a new year, when we’re all usually feeling a bit over-nostalgic anyhow. She pointed me to this post by Sarah Brown  (who I think we can credit as being a major influence for Rachelskirts). It’s short, so it’s worth a read, but to summarize: letting go of people is tough because they impacted you so deeply, you hold out for hope that you can always be close.

This is an exceptionally sunny and, potentially, heartbreaking approach to the matter. And this way of coping with these events is not without merit. It espouses a more optimistic outlook. It makes your memories more keen, less dull. It allows for the full spectrum of emotion in your thought-life as you reminisce when you pass an old haunt: coffee shop, school, perhaps even motel. You feel deeply, but it also means that when things come to an end you hurt deeply. You long for those good times again, and you have trouble letting go. A deeper felt hurt lends to more fond memories of the past. You live in the moment, and then in the past. But in the moment, you’re really living. You just have to make sure not to get stuck in the past.

I, on the other hand, don’t really deal with the situation that way. I’m not very good at living in the moment. I tend to live in the future, always looking for what’s next. I don’t mean to say I’m constantly unhappy with my present–quite the contrary, I feel like I’m in a pretty good position in life right now–but that does not mean that I stop and try to look into the future for what’s next. The same goes with people. I suppose I always have some subconscious reticence to forge deep ties with my peers.

I have had any friends, many good friends along the way. Many people who have left impregnable marks upon me and who I am, as I have upon them. But people are transient. Many of these people I’ll never see again, never even talk to again. Sure, there’s maybe the odd “Happy Birthday” on Facebook, but that doesn’t really mean much. And while some would view it as sad that these connections are lost, I just see it as a naturally occurring part of life. People flow in and out of our lives, no one more or less important than any one else, just some sticking around longer than others. We learn from, grow with, and impress ourselves on each other, but then it ends. They go do the same with someone else, and so do you. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

I guess maybe it sounds cold and cynical, but that’s not really it at all. It’s just an acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to let someone grow into who they’re going to be, and it’s okay to let yourself grow into who you’re going to be, and that often means you’re growing in two different directions. In many ways, you helped shape those paths for each other, if you’re feeling the cosmic irony of it all.

But every person from the past is worth remembering, worth thinking about, but ultimately not worth regretting the decisions you’ve made that led to your separation. Because those decisions got you to where you can make new friends, as long as you’re willing to let the old ones go. These too will likely not last forever, but you know what? That’s okay. It’s just another step, and it’s your job to help each other get where you’re going, wherever that may lead.

So. Let’s talk. How do you handle the ebbs and flows of people and friends through your life? Do you cling for dear life, or do you just see where it’ll take you. Do you mourn the loss, or do you get excited for what’s next? Am I full of crap? Maybe! Let me know.

Let’s talk.

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