Need a continuous personal progress. Stagnancy or a rut is going to make you sad and depressed. Keep doing new things that tickle your mind. Meet new people, do new stuff.
You need independence. Depending on others just leads to disappointment.
Travel. Kills both stagnancy and dependence. Take a cheap motel in philly and go photographying.
They say first step to solving a problem is to accept that you have one. And after so many years I believe I can accept that I suffer from depression. I know its not clinical but with a history like mine and mind like mine it is chronic for sure.
Next step is to consciously combat it.
I found the word: Constipated. That is exactly how I feel when any decision is pending inside my brain. However non urgent the situation be, I cannot tolerate when I cannot make a certain decision. My body's metabolism continues along with involuntary, subconscious, routine activities. But rest all comes to a virtual pause.
This is just the diagnosis of a condition I have just passed through. Cure or prevention is yet to be discovered.
The week's passed and I am back :-). Well I certainly am happier and you may ask if I found that bit of pure happiness that I was looking for. No, I haven't. But human mind has it's own way of dealing with depression. Act happy superficially and it seeps in a little. I exaggerated little joys and met new people - seems to be working. Other than that nothing much has changed. I may create an online professional page for myself. Archiving my work in various fields in one place.
It is about six thirty in the evening, Sun's still indian five pm high in the sky. I'm sipping coffee at a cafe situated in one of the internal lanes of the university - looking out the glass wall, observing a whole spectrum of undergraduates walk by.
Sorority girls, footballers, assertive fashion models, skate boarders, an occassional jogger, bunch of playful monkeys, cute kids, a rare interesting looking person - most juveniles, some matured. They look at me, I look at them - I doubt either one of us gets entertained in the process.
What is so special about today? Nothing other than the fact that I have decided to document it. Why? Because I am running short of patience to sit alone and sip coffee. I am just here till I finish this cup of coffee and get a free refill. Then I walk out of here to another spot where I can be alone and try to create a mood to study for the exam tomorrow. Somehow I am not, in the slightest, concerned about studying for it. Past two weeks all I have been looking for is an ounce of pure happiness and then I can move on with life as usual. Why do I need it? Because I need to be reassured that life is lively. Because I need to know I am capable of 'accepting and adjusting' when I bump into a hurdle. Because I need to know I am not simply running laps, that I am broadening my horizon. Because I need to know that even if I am simply running laps I do it with zest swelling inside my chest. Because I need to know that I can channel my fears into courage and curiosity.
Why did I decide to etch this down today? Now? Because I will start studying, enhancing skills and being responsible towards the money that the university pays me. I am in research because there is nothing else that I can imagine doing day in and day out. Atleast here I have the slight hope of broadening my horizon, sharpen or maintain my cognition and metacognition. So before I immerse myself into pursuit of physics tonight and into struggle for survival, I thought I could make a desperate attempt to write down how I really feel.
