A (kind of) Logical Approach to Emotion

Introduction

January 5th, 2021

My mother once told me that when I was a child, all I would do is whine. I was a “very emotional baby and toddler.” Turns out some personality traits really don’t ever change, even as you reach adulthood. I mean sure, I can use my words now and I’m not throwing a tantrum because I can’t have a cookie, but the concept is the same.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been depressed. I’ve never quite figured out what I’m so depressed about, but I always am. Sometimes though, on dark nights, when the moon is full and if the sun is in it’s seventh solar panel house I guess and the Egyptian sacred amulet lines up with the ancient beam of what-have-you and mercury has a retrograde thingy and I had fish for lunch, I can get an idea of what it might be…

- I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.

- I don’t know what I want to do for a career yet.

- I don’t know who I am.

- You know, more of these kinds of things, or whatever.

But these things tend to feel more like symptoms of a larger issue. When I figure out a way to get over the thought of “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life,” it feels more like I’ve found a remedy for that thought, not a solution for my depression. The real issue is something much bigger and buried deep within me. I know this… I’m depressed, not dumb. Ah, and how wonderful it would be to have the luxury of ignorance. Not knowing any better always sounds better than knowing but not knowing how to fix it. (How fancy was that?)

I’ve tried a few different types of anti-depressants, and they never seemed to work for me. They worked wonders for gaining a lot of weight quickly, but not much else. And yes, I’ve been to quite a few therapists in my lifetime. Admittedly, I really did like some of them, and some of the things that a few of them have said to me have really resonated with me, but that always sort of felt like a remedy as well… Not a solution. I tried exercise for a while (they say that’s supposed to help with depression), but it never really got me where I needed to be, either. Except maybe sweaty. I even spent a year ‘putting myself out there’ more to see if socializing would help. Maybe that would give me some more confidence, which would in turn lead to some happiness. Nope.

There is this “thing” inside me. Deep in the basement of my soul that just turns itself over and aches constantly. It’s some sort of burden that I’ve had to just drag around without knowing why. I don’t know what it is, and I can’t figure out how to fix it. (Fig.1) But I’m beginning to have a new idea.

The New Idea

The same one I just said I’m beginning to have in the previous paragraph. (See Figure 1)

I’m starting to think that maybe the solution for depression starts with something internal, instead of with something external. Our usual answers for things like depression seem to always start with something external; anti-depressants, therapy, exercise, and socializing are all things that start by bringing themselves from the external world inward and into your life, with the hopes that they can help alleviate the depression. But how can we hope to fix something internally wrong with us by using something that only exists externally? It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t work as a solution, it only works as a remedy; it hides the real issue, but it never replaces it. Are you following? If not, hang in there, (Fig 2) it gets easier.

So then let’s assume that if this is true, and I need to find a solution for depression by starting within myself, wouldn’t it stand to reason that my depression simply wouldn’t allow me to do so by blocking that notion in its entirety? After all, it is the biggest and most powerful thing in me. Why would it ever let me kill it where it lives? It’s too protected in it’s own home. It’s fortified. Dug in. Well, then if I cannot attack my depression directly, I’m going to need to think more creatively.

Assumptions (I’m good at these)

Assume for a moment that my depression is it’s own living entity. It’s a living being. It’s ugly and has horns or tentacles or whatever (use your imagination). I personally imagine a dragon, but sure, yours can be a levitating one-eyed unicorn. It doesn’t matter. Just live your life. Assume it lives inside of me, all the way down at the bottom of my soul, and it likes it’s home. Why wouldn’t it? It’s had 30 years to set up shop down there and make it’s space all cozy and warm. Let’s also assume that the soul is an enormous and vast landscape, and the depression monster lives there and eats there and sure, maybe it’s the father to a bunch of depressing babies. It walks around and has multiple homes in various parts of the land. Vacation homes and mountain homes and all of that cool stuff. It’s doing very well for itself. Probably a six-figure income, not including bonuses. Either way, it’s happy where it is.

Now let’s assume that it’s diet is my soul. That is what depression eats away at right? Little pieces of your soul. Well, what I know that it doesn’t is that while it’s all happy eating away at me, it’s also eating away at the land, it’s eating away at it’s own home. It doesn’t realize that it’s simultaneously destroying it’s own habitat, it’s too proud and ignorant to realize this. It is at it’s happiest when it knows it’s causing me pain, so it pays no mind to the damage it does to it’s own environment. That is the first thing I’m realizing it doesn’t know that I do; While my depression eats away at my own soul, it’s too ignorant to realize that it’s simultaneously destroying its own home.

Now I know that I can not let it destroy its home, because it’s home is my soul. What I can do is use the knowledge of its ignorance to my advantage by rebuilding enough of what it’s destroyed (in places it can’t see) with a new type of material that is inedible to it. So, what then is this new material?

It stands to reason that the cure for depression must be whatever the opposite of depression itself, is. Now I used to think that the opposite of depression is happiness, but I am now convinced that it actually might be kindness. More specifically, kindness toward yourself.

Happiness cannot be the cure for, or the opposite of depression because for someone suffering from depression, happiness can still exist. It just exists in small, fleeting doses. The therapy, exercise, anti-depressants and socializing can make a depressed person “feel happy.” But we always end up back where we started. Always. Finding happiness is simply not a cure. Happiness is not completely useless though. I can use my fleeting moments of happiness as a tool to further fuel my kindness. If I use these two things in conjunction with each other, then I think I have a fighting chance.

I did think that being kind toward yourself, however, is the only thing that someone suffering from depression simply cannot fathom doing. (At least it was in my case.) This is because depression is literally a manifestation of self-loathing. I suppose that I’m only now just realizing this as an option because I have no options left. SO…Assuming kindness is depressions complete opposite, it stands to reason that it is the only thing that could be capable of destroying it.

Hypothesis:

Using kindness toward ourselves as our souls new building material, we can starve out depression and eradicate it from us entirely.

Hypothesis about the Hypothesis:

Sure.

Trials. (Field Notes from the Soul)

March 6th, 2021

It appears that depression is so consumed with itself that it doesn’t realize that I am even capable of feeding my own soul by rebuilding what it’s destroyed using kindness. But I don’t want to risk it getting wise to that fact, so I have to start rebuilding in a place that it can’t currently see, in an older area that it has already gotten bored of and has decided to come back to later. For example, we will start with my middle school years. I haven’t been depressed over that in a really long time. We start rebuilding there. By the time it realizes this area has been repaired, it will be too late, as it will not be able to exist in this area again because it can no longer feed there. In the example of ‘my middle school years,’ I suppose I can start the kindness toward myself by forgiving myself for the way in which my first relationship ended. Why have I been carrying that around with me? That’s ridiculous. I was thirteen. What would I know about relationships?

May 14th, 2021

I theorize that I have to continue the rebuilding in these older areas, as they’ve been temporarily abandoned (repressed) by my depression. (Remember that we have to start with where it can’t see.) And I theorize that the natural growth that I’ve attained through life experience alone will make the oldest memories and perceptions the easiest to repair first.

June 11th, 2021

I feel that I’ve now begun to rebuild and heal my soul using my kindness toward myself, while simultaneously making my depression’s livable area much smaller. It appears to be working, yet I still eagerly await extraction. Comms are still down, but I have managed to build myself a shelter out of mud and the bones of my enemies. It is a dark and cold wasteland.

August 6th, 2021

My depression still hasn’t noticed the repairs I’ve made. If I continue doing this, beginning with the oldest areas, and working forward, it stands to reason that I will eventually have to deal not with what I’ve repressed, but with why I’m depressed right now. (I will eventually have to attempt to rebuild where my depression can see me.) So how can I get around this? I have been trying to whittle a stick in to a spear with another slightly sharper stick, but all I’m creating is fire, which is giving away my position. Cold and weaponless I remain, the only warmth being my thoughts of the ranch back home, my wife Bertha, and whether or not Ol’ Judd finally been learning to be walkin’ right on account the mule kick done made him a little hinky. The memories haunt me…

October 18th, 2021

I’ve now caught up to its current living area. New theory: Patience. This is the hard part. I must be patient and let my depression run it’s course until it runs out of food in its last area. I must let it consume away here until I have simply had my last breakdown. It will defend itself fiercely and I must be prepared for that. But when the fight is over, it is because it will have nowhere else to go and has nothing else to feed on that I can then begin to rebuild right in front of it. And so, once I’ve rebuilt this area using my kindness toward myself, I should be able to say that I’ve healed my soul. All I would have to do then is wait for my depression to starve to death. I’m feeling confident about this concept. Let’s see how it goes.

November 12th, 2021

Mental Breakdown #1 (at work, no less.) Excellent. My depression sees me and is terribly angry. Thank you for the emotional nonsense, depression. I’ve spilled my coffee all over the break room.

December 1st, 2021

Mental Breakdown #2 (at home.) It feels more like a cleanse than a breakdown. Interesting. I’m now late to pick up my son from kindergarten.

January 2nd, 2022

I think I might have actually won. I’ve begun the rebuild in the last area and also in case you were wondering yeah his mom had to pick him up from kindergarten that one time.

January 15th, 2022

The rebuild is complete. Now we wait to see how the depression will react. The assumption is eventual starvation. Also, I’ve just realized I can’t eat kindness either and I’m out of chips ahoy. This was an oversight.

Results

It lives! Well, barely.

My depression’s surprising ability to adapt to new environments is, well, surprising. Haven’t I learned something interesting… My depression won’t die, BUT, it’s form does change. More specifically, from evil monster to sad little puppy.

When it first ran out of food, it began to panic. I could feel this in me because I began to unintentionally “try” and become depressed about other things that didn’t really merit real depression. This was its attempt at digging a hole to find new food in its frustration and ravenous hunger. But there was nothing left to find. Eventually, it started to eat what is inedible to it. It started to actually eat the kindness, which inevitably changed its form.

It is still there, and it’s still angry, but it is now small and weak. It’s gone from evil dragon monster to tired little malnourished puppy. It appears that depression is here to stay, that it might be an integrated and permanent part of me.

This result makes sense. In my own ignorance, I assumed that I could get rid of depression in its entirety when in reality, complete content-ness has never existed for anyone ever, and it’s simply not possible to live without sometimes experiencing depression. It’s only ever been a matter of maintaining how evil our depression monster turns out to be. I can live with enormous dragons, tiny puppies, or anything in between, but it’s form has always been up to me.

Conclusion

If you feed your depression with kindness, it becomes weaker, so it also becomes more docile and manageable. It’s actually kind of… cute now. I think I’ll name him Franklin.

For the year 2022, I will continue to use kindness toward myself in an attempt to study Franklin, the depressing little puppy monster, for there is still much to learn.

I suppose the moral of the story is that it really doesn’t matter how ugly your monster appears to be, there’s a far weaker and scared little animal at its core. If we just keep trying, and don’t give up on ourselves, we can overcome a lot. We can learn to remember more frequently that not everything is always as it seems, and if we continue to be a little kinder to ourselves, we really can learn to love ourselves, and maybe one day learn to love the depression inside of us, too. It really is going to be okay, (See Figure 2).