sorry in advance for the huge long senseless post, but i think james touched on something important when he talked about our emotions not making us special. i know this is going back a bit, but i wanted to talk about it right away and didn't have the time... i agree with james on this, at least to a certain degree. we've all had times when the giant bluntness of someone else's gloom has been overwhelming -- certainly the intense sadness or frustration or jealousies that we feel are universal. my depression is your depression is his depression etc... i think what makes us human is our emotion -- and what makes us individuals is the complexity of those emotions. to surrender to your feelings of sadness is to let yourself be washed away into the blandest version of being alive. however i don't believe the best escape from depression is the one that james describes. i agree insomuch as to say that seizing control of how you feel is something everyone is at least partially capable of, but thrusting yourself straight upwards when you're miserable is like shoving the heaviest end of a teeter-totter up into the air over your head -- it'll only come crashing back down on you if the weight doesn't first get shifted toward the other end. i don't want to sound like a shrink, though. i'm really not trying to offer anyone advice -- i battle with depression as much as anyone, i think, and i don't claim to be a success story. far from it, in fact. childishly, i cope with my sadness by using it as a great big magnifying lens for other things, like music. or movies, or art. gosh. ...have you ever considered how insignificant music and art would be in your life if you'd never ever felt terribly sad once in your life? i'm trying to think of rich businessmen with happily married parents and luxury automobiles and how they listen to elevator music and hang artwork with big imaginary pricetags over their leather couches -- pleasant people who smile because they really have no idea what they're missing. people who could be driving down the expressway and when "Asleep" by the Smiths comes on over the radio, they never sigh once, never remember listening to that song in the dark, never feel the butterfly of old, lost love rolling over bitterly in the coccoon of their stomachs. they might even change the station in favor of "smooth jazz," "adult contemporary," or "light rock." i feel sorry for these fellows, if they indeed exist. (oh, jeez. i was saying something else though, and now i've forgotten it...) i was in missouri this whole last week -- visiting my father. i drove home late last night. five hours in the car by yourself on I-55 is heavenly. i like to ride with my left leg pulled up on the seat so i can rest my chin on my knee, and i grab the wheel from the bottom & put my other hand on my stomach and listen to quiet music. i take my shoes off and watch the stars... in chicago, you don't see many stars. the air is too thick with the dead skin off of our cars and the warm breath of our factories making the sky steamy and dusty, like dirty glasses that you've touched too much and then come inside out of the cold with. instead of stars, we have airplanes. last time i checked, o'hare was still the busiest airport in the world, and we have lots of beautiful, blinking stars that race each other around the sky. when you get near joliet, there's this big huge factory thing -- i think it's a refinery for Mobil Oil or some such nonsense -- but it's so great, it's like this big smoking city of dingy orange lights on skyscrapers and flames on top, like giant candles burning. there's always big billowing clouds coming out of it, lazy and dreamlike... and i know that it's supposed to be evil -- killing the environment, choking the baby harp seals, etc... but everytime i see it i can't help but think, "god, that is so beautiful..." maybe i'm a sinner. i just think ... i mean, wow. there's this beautiful and complex cult of specific things that make up this universe, and i think that the networkings of our own hearts and thoughts are just as complex, and just as beautiful. maybe somewhere inside me there's an oil refinery that i can't get rid of. hopefully it's as pretty as this one. if i were a religious person, perhaps i'd use this time to also mention the ways that good and evil present themselves in a world that appears from a distance to be haphazardly silent. i'm not religious, of course, but i do think that the metaphor is a nice one when you're feeling a bit sad or disappointed. the truth is that each disappointment happens in one facet of Who We Are and What We Want -- and while the students in room A212 are flunking their midterms, B101 is getting straight A's. when the bell rings they all run out into the same halls and they mingle like red and white blood cells. there are other facets of you, and if you look beyond your sadness -- not outward, but inward -- you can find a richness and depth of color and contrast that far outshines any singular emotion you'll experience. you have a flavor like a deep red wine -- the bitter earth and the sweet rain and all the musics of the wind go into your grapes. the bare feet kissing you down and the oak and chestnut barrels squeezing you in and the yeasts nibbling you and the year of your release... all of these things are the benefactors that finance your flavor. this is where people are the Most Beautiful. maybe it's crazy to think that beauty helps us much when we're miserable. i like it all the same. all of you on the list who've been writing about their sadness -- if it's worth anything, i'd tell you you're beautiful, because you are. you're delicious, even when you're depressed. "i drink you up." love, baker,baker __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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