Rx: Take a tablet of melancholy after every meal. May cause great insights.

I hate doing mundane research. It’s painful. Physically and emotionally. I can’t keep a chain on my ADD long enough to finish normally interesting assignments and here you have me taking notes of the history of psychology. UGH.

Turns out…the pain had a positive (doesn’t it always) I found something interesting along the way. Allow me to introduce you to Gustav Fechner.

I take walks in the dark to ease my boredom and gloom and love wine soaked ham and check out my mullet.

This fantastic human accurately describes what is going on in my life right about now. Small history lesson…Fechner was born in Germany studied at University of Leipzig (which is a big deal just fyi). He studied a diverse range of topics including physiology, aesthetics,  philosophy, and psychophysics. Fechner’s contribution to psychology and essentially philosophy was finding a quantitative relationship between a mental sensation and a material stimulus.

After becoming a professor at Leipzig, he fell into an episode of kinds. He was depressed, exhausted, approached starvation and was strangely sensitive to light. Fechner began to just stay in his room trying to keep his mind active by writing riddles and doing banal activities like knitting. He took the dreams of friends as gospel and made changes to his diet based on what they saw him eating (hence the ham). This lasted for quite some time…in fact 77 days. Fechner had a dream that he would be cured in 77 days…and so he was (magic!)

 Great guy, right? What struck with me is this quote…

“Fechner wrote, ‘I had the distinct feeling that my mind was hopelessly lost unless I could stem the flood of disturbing thoughts. Often the least important matter bothered me in this manner and it took me often hours, even days to rid myself of these worries.’… His depression turned to euphoria and delusions of grandeur, and he claimed God had chosen him to solve all the world’s mysteries. Out of this experience he developed the notion of the pleasure principle (which many years later influenced the work of Sigmund Freud.)”

I am sure you are all aware of the research on the link between depression and artists, or moreover depression and creativity. Nothing new I hope. From all my readings thus far in life, throughout all disciplines, it seems two themes reoccur with the great artists, scientists, poets, writers, and/or musicians…they were a bit off (usually more than a bit) and they were generally jeered at and denied credibility to their works . Whether it’s cutting an ear off or being deathly afraid of ravens, there is something about creativity that becomes threatening to “normal” people. Likewise, there is something in the artist himself that leads him to such a life, shall we say a sensitivity of sorts.  Eventually, they get pushed to the outskirts of society and left to join the ranks with the rest of the misunderstood, sad, and lonely.

actual place called “EMO” exists in Ontario full of the gloomy, self involved, melodramatic teenagers.

I understand I am blanket statementing here. You see readers, I was writing a different post (about toast) which was less historically infused, but after a call from my mother, I decided to write this. So apparently sharing my blog with my family ultimately means that they think everything I write is a direct reflection of my mental condition…and the reflection they see is of depression (or at least, what they call “troubled”). They were concerned that I was studying too much and “thinking too much.” etc.

So I have had to make this post to explain to her that depression isn’t anything to be afraid of, unless of course you are clinically depressed then please seek help. And of course one must realize there is a difference between being clinically depressed and being in a depressive state or in a bad mood. I’m not trying to say you must be depressed to be an academic or artist, God no. Depression is a struggle, it’s painful, it like quick sand, it is very serious…but it can also be seriously inspirational (does that make sense?).

Just skimming through historical references alone, I must confess that I think a little melancholy is good for you. At least every once in a while. A little depression tossed with an existential crisis, in my opinion, let’s you know you’re existing. If anything, being sad or in “bad mood” makes you more analytical. Hey, if Fechner was depressed and pacing his room in the dark with ham, and he gave the entire discipline of psychology it’s roots and therefore debunked Kant’s assertions about the discipline,  than it must be okay. Besides, there’s this list of amazing people that were “depressed.” So, I understand the concern but I assure you (yes, you Mom) I’m functioning at a perfectly human level. The day I start acting “normal” is when you should be concerned.

Cryptic answer. Yes, good eye reader.