The Public Journal

I am not a natively optimistic person, I’m not a “look on the bright side” pollyanna who ignores negative things.

But breaking your cycle of negative thoughts/fixations by spending a little bit of time every day going “you know what, I heard Judas Priest on the radio today and found out that Rob Halford wrote a book and that’s cool” or “wow the sunset was very pretty so even if everything else sucked there’s that” or “my social media friend is having a good day” will make you feel better and will make the world seem like less of an oppressive, insurmountable slog of misery IF ONLY because your negative depression brain isn’t getting constant reinforcement from your negative thoughts.

I know it sounds like I’m saying “Think happy thoughts to make the depression go away” but what I’m saying is “make yourself think about happy - or at least not actively miserable - things once or twice a day to remind your lying piece of shit depression brain that not literally every single thing in the world contributes to your misery”

Like. When you’re depressed you can’t remember happy. You’re Frodo in Mordor:

I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing - no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.

And your journal of things that made you feel happy or grateful is Sam:

Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. I can’t carry the ring for you, but I can carry you!

Frodo wouldn’t have gotten very far without Sam. Don’t go walking into Mordor alone.

I’m not super keen on the concept of “gratitude” - it can be extremely difficult to feel thankful or grateful when you’re depressed and often there’s nothing that I feel thankful or grateful *to* - gratitude is an emotion that doesn’t resonate with me very well.

Hedonism, though.

Write down when you were happy because of how soft a cat’s head was when you petted it. Write down that you really enjoyed your first PSL of the season. Write down that it felt good to sit with your partner and watch bad TV. Write down that it was nice to go for a drive and take photos out the window. Write down that you felt accomplished after you finished an essay and turned it in. Write down that you liked seeing how many rows you’d added to a crochet project.

It’s not just that depression numbs you to the world and makes everything seem pointless; if your depression is bad enough you can’t actually remember pleasure.

So write it down when something feels good and when you’re sitting there going “what the fuck is the point of all of this, nothing means anything” you remember that cats are soft, that sunshine is warm, that you can laugh with people you love, sometimes, and all of *that* will remind you that your depression brain is a lying sack of shit.

“When was the last time you were really happy,” depression brain says.

“Three weeks and two days ago when I had a nice phone call with my friend, shut the fuck up, you lying piece of shit,” you answer back. It’s in the journal, after all.

Monschau Germany

Monschau is a small historical town located in the hills of the North Eifel in North Rhine-Westphalia (German: Nordrhein-Westfalen) in Germany, situated just 4 km across the Belgian border. The picturesque old town center has many preserved 300 years old half-timbered houses along the river Rur.

Mahmoud Darwish, “Like a Small Café, That’s Love,” in Almond Blossoms and Beyond, tr. Mohammad Shaheen [text ID under the cut]

“Becoming literate, then, means far more than learning to decode the written representation of a sound system. It is truly an act of knowing, through which a person is able to look critically at the world he/she lives in, and to reflect and act upon it.” — Paulo Freire, Cultural Action for Freedom