Depression and, like, Mortality!
Depression and, like, Mortality!
Like I was telling my second wife, facing one's mortality, as one does tends to do with OHS, can be, like, metaphysical, with significant psycho-spiritual and philosphical aftereffects. I think it inevitably alters one's outlook, whether for better or for worse I can't say, or maybe it goes beyond better and worse to the cosmic zone or to misery, depression, or whatever.. I usually prefer to stay in the physical dimension since this is murky terrain and is probably beyond language. The mysteries of life and the universe are simply mysterious.
In Wittgenstein's immortal words: "In Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen."
Translated: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Amen. About 16 months after my AVR surgery, I couldn't believe how depressed I was feeling. I googled my heart medications and found that Metoprolol has been found in some studies to be linked to major depression, but there is no scientific concensus. I told my GP, who set me up for a Psycho-evaluation. He prescribed an anti-depressant and said it had to accompany either 1-on-1 talk therapy or group therapy. I chose the group version and it has been amazing -- very, very helpful. It consists of several other heart and cancer patients, all folks who had faced or were facing death, and it has been a great thing for me. We wax metaphysical quite often. But what actually got me thinking about all this today was a strange tale that I found somewhere recently. I guess it is unusual, but here it is below:
How I became a clown
I was feeling perplexed and uncomfortable. There's a period of depression and despair that follows a life-threatening event like heart surgery, a bereftness of spirit that doesn't happen suddenly or right away but creeps up on you after several months of recovery, when there is no longer any doubt that you've made it through the ordeal and are going to live. You've beaten the reaper, faced down death, and in the process of doing that you invested an extra value into your existence that it didn't have before. You feel that your life must really be worth living, since otherwise there would be no point in going through the difficulty of a hospital stay and major surgery. Only when your health improves and you start feeling normal again do you come to suspect that this higher value is inflated and that your newly found faith is just a temporary religion that helped you survive the ordeal, because life returns to be no more than it was, and it's full of pain and ambiguity and discomfort and might not even be worth living at all depending on how you choose to live it. It is a sorrowful realization that might take on a tragic dimension, similar in magnitude to a devastating loss of religious faith. You feel cheated of the shining value you imagined and that was your reason to go on fighting, and the reality seems paltry by comparison.
I missed the passion I had felt so strongly and I set out to find it in a dream. I climbed the mountain for a consultation with the Master, who looked exactly like Wayne Dyer with a beard and, in fact, was Wayne Dyer with a beard. Sitting in the dirt at his knees, I asked him what to do. "I don't know," he began. "Do you like bowling?" I told him that I did not. "How about baseball?" Again I answered in the negative. With long, serpentine fingers that reminded me of photos I'd seen of the hands of Osama Bin Laden, he combed through his explosively blossoming beard. "I see that you are not a sportsman," he mumbled finally with unconcealed disappointment. "No," I agreed, "apparently not." He exhaled in a long and weary sigh, then got up from his rock to rearrange his robes and consider how to address my profound spiritual and philosophical predicament without loss of prestige or potential future income. As he paced nervously back and forth in the small cave, I emptied my mind of distraction and focused my psychic energy on the problem at hand. I felt sorry that I wasn't a sports fan since it would have made his job so much easier and I wanted to be helpful to his ruminations, though I couldn't suppress a persistent feeling of unease at how different he looks on TV.
"I have it!" he suddenly shouted, leaping into the air with his eyes blazing like Ken Kesey's on LSD as described by Tom Wolf in The Electric Koolaid Acid Test. "You should put on a clown suit and play the accordion for the amusement of wealthy east-side uptowners!"
"That's brilliant, oh thank you Master!" I replied with heartfelt enthusiasm and gratitude and, as my feet flew without effort back down the mountain trail to the crystaline city, I felt a lightness of heart that I hadn't experienced since the surgeon temporarily removed it from my chest. Firm in my new resolve, I proceeded to follow the wise directives of the Master.
The clown suit was easily taken care of since, luckily for me, Macy's was having a 2-for-the-price-of-1 BIG SALE on clown apparel the following weekend. The accordion, however, was another matter entirely, since I realized that it was necessary for me to learn how to play the damned thing. I bought a beginner's book with training video, but I couldn't seem to acquire the actual instrument because I got hung up on the question of whether to get one with buttons or piano keys. I was inclined toward buttons since I have never managed to conquer an old childhood fear of piano keyboards, but I also understood that a basic familiarity with the intervals between black and white keys forms a foundation for an almost unlimited range of musical experience. The decision is not dissimilar to that of choosing between learning Norwegian or Japanese. Which language would be more useful? In the end I was unable to finally make up my mind and, after another agonized period of indecision, the whole accordion/clown thing just sort of drifted away, leaving behind a remorseful feeling of yet another path not taken, a tributary not followed, a passionate ambition not pursued and a life not fully lived.
On the positive side, the clown suit fits me perfectly. I've thrown out all my other outfits, and people tell me I look pretty good in polka dots.
