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From: kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: responsibility, sensitivity, (actually "Depression")
Message-ID: <467@hounx.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 11:52:59 EST
Article-I.D.: hounx.467
Posted: Wed Jan  8 11:52:59 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jan-86 02:49:46 EST
References: <2338@pyuxd.UUCP>, <26600151@uiucdcs>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
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Depression is a curious state, that frequently baffles and
vexes the friends of the depressed person.  One thesis is
that the depressed person has lost touch with reality.

Permit me to suggest an alternate thesis.  I have been
profoundly depressed exactly three times in my life.  In
each case it followed an episode in which I got in touch
with reality, and reality turned out to fall short of my
expectations of it.  The painful process of coming to terms
with reality, and adjusting one's mental set to model reality
as it really is (and not how we wished or expected it to be)
can be very depressing.  Imagine how Gallileo felt, or Spinoza,
or Alan Turing, when, at the time they were active, their
community failed to appreciate their work, rejected it,
rejected them.  I suspect they had bouts of depression.
Turing committed suicide.  Here we are thirty years later,
and a tiny fraction of society are able to appreciate
Turing's work.  How many people comprehend Einstein's thinking?
Look at the work of the great minds of Philosophy and Religion:
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hillel, Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tse,
Maimonides. Consider Jefferson, Gandhi, Kennedy, or King.
Do you think they achieved ecstasy in their work?  More
likely they were continually vexed and frustrated by the
glacial pace at which society advanced toward clear thinking.

That's an inescapable chunk of reality that one has to come
to terms with.  And I dare say it's a depressing reality
to contemplate.  Humorists like Mark Twain discovered how
to make light of it without incurring the wrath of those
whom he was caricaturing.  Awareness does not come without
a price.  Sometimes the price is depression.

				-- Barry Kort
				...ihnp4!houxm!hounx!kort

	A door opens.  You are entering another dementia.
	The dementia of the mind.