51. Piled On

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From the vantage point of this respite I'm having from depression, thanks to therapy, medication and love; I can describe a bit how it felt. Not only does it not help knowing that you have 'no reason to be depressed', that knowledge is part of the stereophonic,self-hating dialogue that keeps you depressed. Guilt and depression like to hang out together, but the truth is that depression doesn't care about success. So don't be too hard on the successful depressed, their suffering is likely as real as anybody's. 

Comments

  1. saraJanuary 10, 2019 at 1:03 PM

    I don't need a reason to understand your depression and I don't have an answer on how to fix it.
    I am here for you. I'll sit next to you silently and just keep you company. I'll write you and won't need an answer. I'll send you a quote or a photo every day.... just because I want to. Just know I see you. You don't need to pretend with me. I'll watch TV while you nap. I am here for you. All I ask is that you allow me to care for you, to love you and that you will not question why I am here for you.
    It is what it is.

    - Those are the answers to the question of "I'm a little depress" that matter the most. Just because my life is better than others doe snot diminished my pain.

    PS: Of course I learn that thanks to therapy, medication and love.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. malingenieJanuary 10, 2019 at 1:28 PM

      The only thing that matters is getting help. There is help. Many kinds. Some will click better than others.

      Delete

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128. Connections

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When I went to grad school I had a great advisor. However, he once said something that I wasn’t able to understand at the time. He said that 90% of my success at work will be determined by my sociability, rather than the abilities I was learning in grad school. He went as far as making us read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. I was appalled. I’m paying this guy like $1000* a minute for him to tell me that it will all come down to social skills? 
He was absolutely, completely, entirely, and annoyingly right.  The tools and reasoning skills I learned in college have served me well, but they have paled in comparison to how my social skills have served me. Being able to make connections, humbling myself, expressing interest in others, those skills have allowed me to be a catalyst for change more often than the statistical and organizational tools I’ve learned. 
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127. Flawless-ish

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My wife truly is as close to perfect for me as I can even imagine. That’s why I relish on the few, beautiful flaws she has. The way she says “Jewlery” instead of “Jewelry”, her creative pronunciation of “Realtor”, her terrible choice in a husband; all this makes her even more magnificent to me.

I never liked Superman. Not even Alan Moore, one of my favorite writers, could make this boyscout interesting. After a lifetime of mistakes, I discovered the reason why. He’s too dang perfect. I like my fictional heroes to have huge gaping flaws. Perhaps this says more about me than a real critique towards the god archetype.

At work, one of the things I fight against the most is perfectionism. We are often so worried about getting a mythical perfect product that often times we drop improvements. “Don’t let perfect get in the way of better” ranks right up there with “make it a double” and “Sorry, I’m foreign” among my most uttered phrases.

So that’s my bias against perfection. If I waited to be…
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130. Hair

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Nobody tells you about the hair. I have been bald or balding for over twenty years. My drains have never clogged. Since moving in with the love of my life about one year ago, I’ve collected enough strands of hair from my bathroom drain to refurbish a couch.

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129. That Sinking Feeling

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Dear readers, politics in the United States are a mess. The right, in particular, has become meaningless. The right was the party of law and order, at one time. Under Trump, however, they are anti-FBI. They were for economic conservatism, but now they support the largest budget ever. They say they have an issue only with illegal immigration, and yet they cheer Donald Trump when he curtails legal immigration. The right under Trump only makes sense if you really see them as (poorly written) evil characters.

The Hidden Brain podcast has an interesting episode called “More Divided than Ever”. It was really interesting, especially the part with John Hibbing, who talks about the biological nature of our political views. For instance, people who lean conservative tend to also dislike spicy food [duh, says my anecdotal experience]. I feel like understanding there’s a biological component to our stances does help me empathize more with an opposing political position.

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131. Hammer Mode

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I wouldn’t give anyone a bj in an alley for access to a smartphone. Using this slim, utilitarian and utterly disrespectful definition of addiction, I am not addicted to my smartphone. In almost all other definitions, I probably am (scratches neck). These days I’m frequently using twitter for political news, instagram for art and facebook for friends and family.
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126. The Return of the Suit

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Yes, dear readers. I found a new job. I am an extremely lucky individual. I am lucky to have found a job doing pretty much what I was doing before (whatever that was), locally, and with a great group of people. Even during the occasional depression, anxiety and existential malaise I've experienced in my life, I've always known how lucky I am. I have a one in a million mom, a one in a million wife, a one in a million cat (Khaleesi), and one in a million friends. I also have to contractually acknowledge that I have another cat (Eris) and an immediate sibling.

When this unemployment journey started, man, I had a plan. I spent a portion of the day learning, a portion of the day exercising, a portion of the day applying for jobs and interviewing. That lasted maybe a week. As certainty about my new job increased, I began to regress to a twenty year old version of myself. By now, I'm close to buying cases of Lebatt Blue and sending drunk ICQ messages. (Ask your grandpa if you do…
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125. Conventional Titles

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Recently, I was hanging out in the job market. It's a market I hadn't visited in 16 years. It looks and feels like a lot has changed!

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124. Casa/home

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ENGLISH VERSION BELOW

“No Podemos Regresar a Casa”
Cuando decimos eso, casi siempre queremos decir que tú o el lugar donde crecistes han cambiado muchísimo. En el caso de Venezuela, nuestra casa literalmente no existe. Yo se que no se compara con lugares como Siria, pero es impresionante como todo un país fue eliminado por las terribles decisiones gubernamentales.
Desde que abandoné  (todavía se siente como que la abandone) a mi Caracas en el 2003, se ha convertido en uno de los países más pobres en la región y el crimen se ha vuelto insoportable. La última vez que fui fue en el 2011 y no la pude reconocer, a mi Venezuela. Todos estaban cuidadosos, estresados y asustados. Mi corazón siempre piensa en los que se quedaron atrás.
Cuando veo fotos de mi valle, el valle de la ciudad de Caracas, yo y miles de mis compatriotas soltamos un suspiro grande. Yo la tome por sentado por 25 años, pero nuestra preciosa cordillera es una de las maravillas del planeta.
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109. Accidental Excercise

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I will never enjoy working out. I know that people in the self-help fields try to stay away from ‘always’ and ‘never’ statements.  Well in this instance, they are wrong. I will never enjoy working out.

However, I do enjoy walking nearly 10,000 steps every day and it is because I get to walk to work. So that has to count towards my fitness goals, right? Right? *crickets*

I like the concept of accidental exercise. Somebody should write a book about the micro-exercises that we could do all day that could have a non-infinitesimal effect.

Parking far away from your your destination.Standing up at work.Carrying weight when walking from meeting to meeting.Gesturing maniacally while talking.Forgetting stuff in your car a few times a day.Taking the stairs I hope someone writes this book that confirms my bias that I am doing ok.
Extra Panel:
One way to become more absent-minded.



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