I thought this might be a good time to talk about depression as it relates to current events, since there seems to be a lot of them events currently. Contentious politics, shaky democracy, a pandemic, culture wars, and now an actual war in Europe, amongst whatever local crises might be happening for us individually. The basic question here is how, in depressing times, we can avoid becoming depressed.
There are a lot of facets to the question—it goes to the heart of what depression actually is—but in this newsletter, I’ll just address the general subject, and in future letters, more granular parts.
In line with that: may you find, even with all that’s going on, some appreciation of the changing seasons, and some portion of an absurd, indefensible, dog-with-a-bone hope and trust in the Goodness of things.