Drink Giveth the Desire

There is an old saying on alcohol’s effects on male lust that I will not repeat since I cannot vouch for its accuracy (he said, modestly alluding to his laudable lifetime adherence to the Word of Wisdom).

There isn’t a similar saying about depression.  There should be, and it goes like this.

Depression gives you the insight, but takes away the ability to act on the insight.

Certain levels of depression really do give you extra insight into the world.  Depressing insight, usually, but not always.  It doesn’t help you much, because the depression also stops you from doing anything about the insight.  There you still sit.

I believe that I held on to some of my depression for longer than I needed to because I loved the extra insights.

But everything is all tied together.  The insight came at a cost that gradually got too high.  That’s one reason  I’m sceptical of the latest techie trend to use LSD or mushrooms or whatever as a way of generating insight.  The implicit notion is that you have a box labeled insight and the LSD will stay safely inside that box, not leaking out into character and aspirations and motivation and vigor.  It won’t.

Denethor and the palantir is a symbol of depression.