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As the equinox approaches and imagry takes a
turn towards holly, snow, and purchasing frenzy,
you start to realize that 'tis, indeed, the season.
The season, specifically, for Seasonal Affective
Disorder. In case you've never heard of the
appropiately-anacronymized SAD, it means
Depression. Pop-shrinks coined the term in order to
make naive laypersons aware of the fact that people
get depressed during depressing weather. And that
it's mysteriously not improved by being bombarded
with a steep flurry of seasonal expenses and
ubiquitous media messages that if you aren't
well-fed, well-beloved, and deliriously happy there
is something wrong with you. Call it what you will,
it means winter and it means depression, so let's
get on with it.
Our society offers the usual "cure" for being
unhappy and having something wrong with you--drugs.
Prozac could become the first chemical named "Time"
magazine's "Man of the Year". Don't be taken in:
Prozac is as rivaled only by another 1994 media
star, the Wonderbra" at offering an illusory
solution for problems that exist only in the minds
of beholders and offering a spurious sense of
upliftedness. Maybe it works, but how necessary is
it to the average Northwesterner?
Just as cleavage brinksmanship is a bit
ludicrous under a down parka, how practical is a
Prosacian outlook when you live in Western
Washington? If we couldn't handle depression would
we be living in an area where winter features
dishwater skies, perpetual clamminess and invisible
sunsets in the early afternoon? Of course not.
Prozac is for wimps that can't handle the cold grey
reality of a depressed affect. Drugs are a cheap
crutch that only appeal to those without the
fortitude to tackle emotional bankruptcy with a
straight face. Hip Nor'westers just say "No" and
look for ways to enjoy their depression with a
little flair.
A perennially popular style of fashionable
depression is existential angst...roughly expressed
as a desperate lack of essential meaninglessness.
Take a Gallic, Left Bank approach to it, smoking
Galouises and sipping absinthe or bitter wine dregs
as you read "Nausea" or some other bummers by
French cyclothymics like Gide and Sartre. Sartre
was a sort of patron saint of depression, who
propounded a philosophy of total freedom of
existence before deciding that it would make even
more sense to be a Maoist. Which may be an
intellectual non sequitur, but makes perfect sense
when viewed through the jaundiced eye of a
depression aficionado.
Another traditional flavor of depression is
romantic/poetic license, generally used to woo
artistic success or members of the opposite sex.
Wax very wan, get fey and cadaverous. Your skin
should hover on the border of deathly and luminous.
It's been a hit look from La Boheme to Kate Moss
and the Cruise LeStat. Moon and pine away; consider
some sort of "Love Story" wasting disease. But call
it consumption; so much more romantic than
tuberculosis. If need be, go ahead and die of it.
Dying for love is always the rage--just let word
get around that dying or killing yourself for
romance is your customary procedure and watch your
social calendar start filling up. See, even
suicidal depression can work to advantage.
Easier for modern Eastsiders to master, perhaps,
is post-quasi-modern, semi-demi punque, new
age/wave nadaville. Recall that you are a pampered,
middle-class American; overschooled but
under-educated and member of the most privileged
and spoiled class in history. No excuses; nowhere
to go but downhill. Sit in a cold, sterile mall and
contemplate the fact that you are lost and unhappy.
In no time you'll be totally depressed and ready to
sally forth and meet the seasonal crud on its own
terms. A good depression, not a Great
Depression.
It's been discovered what clothing has a lot to
do with mental outlook. Apparel therapists suggest
bright colors and jaunty styles to combat the
blues. In the Northwest we favor "grunge" and
"down". We don't need no steenking jaunty. Among
the younger and more energetically depressed, black
clothing is popular to the point of becoming a
cliche. Everyone's into being nihilistic for its
own sake, apparently not realizing that if you
don't put nothing into nothingness, you don't get
nothing out of it. And out of it, need we remind
you, is where depression is supposed to get you in
the first place.
If, despite your best efforts, things persist in
looking up, just repeat to yourself the phrase,
"This, too, shall pass." Hang on, normality will
reassert itself. Gloom is just around the corner,
so have another cup of absinthe and another
non-filter cigarette and hang tough.
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THE WEEKEND WARRIOR
SAMPLE TEXTS
by Linton Robinson
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