Tag Archives: depression

Living The Gift of The Cosmos

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Whatever future, whatever past, each day brings us to the very last.

We see our life, but detest the idea of our death. We wait until the very moment, or near the moment, we’re going to die to make amends.

This ability is purely human.

Does a bird tell the bug sorry for eating it, no. Will the parent of a turtle long-buried in the beach, be sorry for leaving its children on the beach, possibly, but humans are the only creature that is truly sorry for things its done, but we don’t say sorry, and mean it, as much as we should.

Our lives are gasps of air in the middle of a cosmos of gasps. We see the stars overhead, but don’t think about the life we’re living, or how it affects the people around us, not to mention the environment.

Our gasps or air are stories in a cosmos of stories. Our lives, deaths and eventual rebirths, are nothing short of miraculous in a cosmos which pays no mind to person in Africa starving, or to the person in America who is doing the same thing.

The difference between the two is the ability to change the way things are.

We see the stories and the little gasps after they’ve happened, but the problem is, we never understand the reasons for our life, or for why we’re here.

We live in a life where the world changes faster than it has at any other point in history, but we never stop to look around, never think about doing things to help those around us, and oftentimes, we don’t think about those we hurt.

Our little gasps are just that, breaths of air escaping through tubes and chambers underneath our skin, but the act of breathing is something we don’t control, it occurs for us without thinking about it.

In a cosmos full of extraordinary things, we still don’t think about what each breath means or what each day is.

In our world, our life is lived day-to-day, but we don’t think about our life as what encompasses it.

Get through the gasps and stare into the cosmos and see your life for what it is, a gift from the creation of the universe.

Ignoring Fear and Living

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Whatever future, whatever past, each day brings us to our very last.

These words are something which ran through my head the other day during meditation. I’m not sure where they came from. Maybe I tapped into something which was screaming to be heard, or my mind thought, “let’s screw with him”.

It’s possibly the first and not the latter, but neither would be surprising.

Our future is there in front of us, yelling at us, telling us we can do amazing things, if we’d just do them and quit stalling or being afraid, but fear is always what keeps us from doing things.

Fear drives us to commit horrible crimes and fear creates people who otherwise wouldn’t be heard if not for their fear.

Stealing away from fear, our lives are our own. They are run by us, and only us. We do the things we want, because fear has less hold on us than anything else, but the fear is always there, it’s just hidden away.

Our past may not be the way we wanted it to be, no ones never truly is, but it’s there to learn from, to destroy the fear residing inside and chase the demons of our past into the night.

The night holds fear, but only for those who fear it. There are many things to fear in our world, none of them are truly about fear, more about we believe fear to be.

Fear is that heartbeat in the bottom of your throat, the gasping for air in pool and lies we’ve told.

Our fear, our past and our future are nothing but what we make them out to be. They stand by waiting to be called into battle, but there is little we can do until the battle call is heard.

Fear keeps us from fulfilling who we should be, and not who others believe we are.

Fear disrupts, causes chaos and changes our very subtle rhythm in our hearts, There is nothing more controlling about fear, than the pain of fear.

This pain causes things to wear us down. Take our mind from us and causes us to question who we are, or who we want to be.

The fear of our lives is under our control, how we control it determines how we live our lives, or if we live our lives.

We fall through our lives, waiting for the very last, living in fear of that last day.

We should ignore the fear of our last day until it arrives and then only at that moment when our last gasp comes out will we know that our fear of death meant nothing.

Stemming the Tide of Depression with Transcendental Meditation

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In September my grandfather passed away and there were a few things about that which set me into a severe depression which no one noticed, not even my wife.

The depression lasted until late February, but it’s been a recurring thing for me since. I’ll get all melancholy, and now that my wife knows what I was going through, she knows what to look for.

Since breaking through the depression, I’d found myself going in and out of depression. Thoughts of suicide ran rampant through my mind on a daily basis during the depression, and lets just say it’s a good thing I don’t own a firearm.

My reasons for trying Transcendental Meditation (TM) stem a lot from the depression I fell into, caused by events following my grandfather’s passing.

In early November I got shingles, I knew this was from the stress of my grandfather’s passing. I also understood that I was beginning to spiral, though I hid it well from my wife, family and co-workers.

The catalyst to get me into TM was a breakdown I had at work, caused by an interaction with a co-worker, who said, “I don’t care what’s wrong with you.” His statement sent me over the cliff.

After work that day I cried in my car for twenty minutes. It was hard sobbing, uncontrollable crying. The type of crying you’d do as a kid. I called my wife on my way home and told her I needed to do something, and soon.

After that day, I knew I had two choices, be done with living, or truly start living. TM is my way to live.

When I attended the first introduction meeting I knew I would do it before I walked in. The next week I took my first lesson. That was one week ago. I feel more awake, and for the first time in a very long time, I feel alive.

TM is a lot like other meditations, except for the mantra. When you learn TM, your teacher gives you a mantra, it’s a word, phrase or combined words which create a tone, that centers you in a way that makes your body drop all its defenses and sends you spiraling into a deep pool of bliss.

I can’t tell you my mantra, because each one is special to each individual. I keep it as a sacred thing.

I can only speak of my experience, but TM was my last stop before jumping. I’ve backed away from the cliff in the last week and I’m now more comfortable in my skin than I’ve been since before my parents were divorced, when I was 8.

If you have any question or comments, please ask them.

 

Writing Through Darkness

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“At the midpoint on the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest, for the clear path was lost.” Canto I, Dante Alighieri

Last week I missed a post for the first time since I started this blog, it has given me something to write about, something that has been plaguing me for most of my adult life.

You’re not told there’s anything wrong with you. People wonder if you’re okay, they ask you questions like, “What’s wrong?” or “Are you okay?”

The truth is I haven’t been okay and there has been something wrong.

Any writer who’s read anything about Hemingway knows he suffered from severe depression and is possibly the reason he took his own life.

Depression and mental disorders run rampant in writers and all creatives, it’s one of the things which make us creative, but if you believe that bullshit, then I want to send you to the moon on a cannon courtesy of Jules Verne.

The truth is depression and mental issues give us something to write about, they make us who we are and along with things we may use to cope with our depression and mental issues–drugs, alcohol, video games, meditation–we have to find a way past the drugs and alcohol and into a place that is safe for us, our family and friends.

I’ve been in a very dark place for the last few months, and though I’ve been writing, it’s been very dark subject matter.

My depression started the end of November, at least that’s what I believe, though it could have begun when my grandfather passed away in September..

His presence when I was a kid and going fishing with him and my cousin are my favorite childhood memories.

Though I’ve reconciled with most of that side of my family. My dad’s reaction to my presence was not as heartwarming as I’d have liked considering the circumstances.

Depression of some sort has been a staple in my life, especially in adolescence. Writing and books were always may way through my depression, though recently my writing has become a subject of my depression– I’m a writer and I believe my writing sucks regardless of what everyone else tells me–these things have caused me to second guess what I write as well as if I should be writing at all.

Though I love writing and enjoy every moment of story creation, depression has been causing me such problems lately that I’ve contemplated quitting writing altogether.

I won’t let depression beat me and I won’t quit writing because it’s become who I am over the last few years and I won’t change who I am for anything or anyone.