Mannion uses it as a launching spot to talk about depression and, especially, how you know if you're really depressed. He talks about a friend of his, who he thinks is walking in Lincoln's footsteps.
Even those of his friends who know the truth forget sometimes. He makes it easy. Around other people, he doesn't mope or whine or withdraw into brown studies. He's a funny guy most of the time. Witty, a great story teller, quick with a comeback. But if you know him well, you can tell he's in a mood by the change in his sense of humor. When he's feeling sad his jokes turn dark, he's more sarcastic, his view of the world and of other people fatalistic and bleak. "Aren't you cynical today," people will say to him after after a surprisingly morbid wisecrack. But they treat what he said as a joke that didn't work, not as what it is, a sign that he's suddenly finding nothing to laugh about.
"And," said my friend, "[Lincoln] knew he was 'depressed.' He wasn't so overwhelmed by how sad he was that he couldn't remember or imagine feeling anything else. He wasn't so sad that the sadness exhausted his ability to feel sad. He wrote that poem."
Which poem.
"This one. 'The Suicide's Soliloquoy.' When he was in his twenties."
Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o'er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens' cry.
Yes! I've resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I'll rush a dagger through
Though I in hell should rue it!
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I'll headlong leap from hell's high brink
And wallow in its waves.
Shakespeare's Sister adds that she too has a friend that Mannion's description of his reminds her of.
The thing is, he’s a writer, and there is, of course, a rich tradition of thought (as alluded to with the reference to Styron in Mannion’s post) that depression, and indeed other afflictions and the addictions appropriated to mask them, are the very things that drive an artist’s artistry, and that seriously addressing something like depression may stifle the muse. Would I be as interesting, as thoughtful, as creative, if I weren’t afflicted? It’s a terrible thing to be scared of one’s potential cure, to worry that the cure might be worse than the disease.
I don’t know that my friend and I will ever talk about these things. I think he knows I’ll listen if he volunteers, and I hope he does, sometime. I would like to tell him that even when the cure has been offered and accepted, the scars of affliction linger. It is a warning, yes—be prepared—and an assurance: You will always be brilliant. The man who inspires me now, even while on the edge of tears, will inspire me still, even if he gets the help he needs, and I find him instead on the edge of a smile.
And where do I come down? Certainly I have been depressed. And I have trouble talking about it too. Part of it is my fear of being thought a "drama queen." It's hard sometimes to think any of my problems are serious enough people should stop their busy lives to help. Even though I know, or at least believe, that there are at least one or two who would be glad to do so.
Do I worry that being "happy" would make me less creative? Yes and no. Being able to reach the little ball of whatever it is inside me that makes me able to create a character like Keitha is so...well in his book A Cure For Gravity Joe Jackson says that for him, music "has been as good a religion as any." That's how I feel about being able to create characters who shine in other people's minds. And I'm very protective about it.
But to be happy...I think the girls would come with me, don't you?
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