Reasons To Be Cheerful
Feb. 11th, 2007 04:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmatonakApparently, the title of this entry is the title of an Ian Drury song, or album. It is also the title of a short story by Greg Egan. That story is very important to me. It is the truest description of being depressed that I know.
The story begins:
In September 2004, not long after my twelfth birthday, I entered a state of constant happiness.
It transpires that the narrator, who is never named, is constantly happy because a tumor is causing his brain to overproduce a neurochemical that is one of the basic constituents of the ability to be happy. (The science is a lot more plausible than I am making it sound. I'm condensing several pages of explanation for the sake of brevity.) If left untreated, the tumor will be fatal. A treatment goes awry for unforeseen reasons, killing off every binding site of the neurochemical, and thus wiping out his brain's biological ability to induce the feeling of being happy. The result is, of course, a profound depression.
When I first read this story, and liked it very much, I was not depressed. I was fascinated by the story because its essential theme is the disconnect between what we believe we should feel and what we actually feel. When the narrator is actually undergoing treatment for a possibly-fatal brain tumor, he is a brick. He cannot be anything else. He looks at the future with untroubled, optimistic serenity, because his neurobiology forces that on him. By contrast, after his life is saved, he literally cannot experience joy, relief, or the pleasant freedom of open horizons. Those parts of his brain- not his "mind", but the physical organ- are dying or dead.
Now, my understanding of the story, and my understanding of its theme, is much more subjective. Being depressed can be very puzzling. For one thing, past experience cues you as to when you should feel good... but you don't. Most frequently, you don't even feel neutral.
Why did the sight of the clear blue sky through the window when I opened my eyes every morning- with the freedom to sleep in as long as I chose...letting me sit un-nagged at the computer screen for sixteen hours if I wanted- why did that first glimpse of daylight make me want to bury my face in the pillow, clench my teeth, and whisper "I should have died, I should have died"?
For another, it becomes very, very difficult to properly read the non-verbal cues coming from other people, and your responses to them are often screwed up.
Meeting the gaze of even a recorded face gave me a feeling of intense shame... the pathways that warned of responses like rejection and hostility had not merely remained intact, they'd grown skewed and hypersensitive enough to fill the void with a strong negative signal, whatever the reality.
Depression makes you slow, stupid.
I couldn't bring myself to read a whole page of any book. I couldn't write ten lines of code. I couldn't look my real-world friends in the eye, or face the thought of going online.
My particular symptoms were never as bad as the narrator of the story's are, of course. But... there are a lot of gaps in this livejournal. For large stretches of the past few years, there have only been a handful of people I've been able to talk to. I've put a horrible strain on those relationships. and it seems a few of them have ended. That makes me sad. I think it would make me sad even if I were well, although I can't be sure.
...it remained beyond my power to alter my feelings, or even to draw a clear line between my purely pathological unhappiness, and the perfectly reasonable anxiety that anyone would feel... Wouldn't it be bliss, not to have to fight to tell the difference all the time? Forget happiness; even a future full of abject misery would be a triumph, so long as I knew that it was always for a reason.
In the story, eighteen years pass before the narrator is offered a treatment- a prosthesis, modeled using the neural structures of four thousand men of approximately his age, that will replace the damaged neural pathways and restore his ability to be happy. The theory is that his own latent memories from childhood, of the things that gave him pleasure, will enable the prosthesis to adapt and restore his particular tastes. Instead, he derives pleasure from everything that gave any of those four thousand men pleasure.
All art was sublime to me, and all music. Every kind of food was delicious. Everyone I laid eyes on was a vision of perfection.
A set of software controls for the prosthesis are installed, giving the narrator the ability to adjust his reactions and break the symmetry of the prosthesis. He is able to choose what brings him happiness. But there is, of course, a problem of authenticity.
...happiness itself meant nothing. Life without it was unbearable, but as an end in itself it was not enough. I was free to choose its causes- and to be happy with my choices- but whatever I felt once I'd bootstrapped my new self into existence, the possibility would remain that all my choices had been wrong.
The narrator falls back on research into his own past, trying to recover what made him happy and learn enough about himself to choose "appropriately" among the many kinds of adult experience he never had before becoming sick. He has to function through a series of educated guesses most of the time.
I don't know if posting all this is rude, or cowardly, or passive-aggressive, or self-indulgent... or brave, or enlightening, or a decent way to kill some time because I can't sleep. (Intellectually, I know it's probably a mix of a lot of those. I just, honestly, can't tell which.) I don't want to whine. I don't want to clam up and suffer in silence and not say anything at all. I can't really articulate anything I *do* want. The most I can muster is a kind of half-hearted agreement: yeah, getting all my bills paid off would be nice.
Much of the time, I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing- not morally right, but the healthy, appropriate thing that will help me get well and lead me to where I want to be. It's easy to feel despondent about that. I have to do my best to do an impression of what I was like when I was well. It's confusing. It's hard. And I'm not sure what "well" means anymore.
In the story, the narrator goes through a number of experiences, including getting a job and starting an affair. The affair ends badly when his condition is just too weird for his partner, and he is very unhappy... but he is able to decide to let himself experience that.
I let things run their course, I didn't touch the controls- but just knowing that I could have changed everything. And I realized that, even if I... said, I'm cured, take the software away, I don't want the power to choose anymore... I'd never be able to forget where everything I felt had come from.
The first time I read the story, I found the ending tremendously uplifting. The narrator looks around at his neighborhood, and he is able to say I like it here. He has the self-confidence not to worry so much about what his "authentic" reactions should be... and just react.
I realize I'm in need of a similar moment. As soon as I can stop doing an impression of me and just be me, things will start to get better. When I can say I like this with a whole heart, I won't be sick any more. Unfortunately, just realizing that you need more self-confidence doesn't make you less confused and insecure.
So I take my pills and I go to my doctor and I try to have hope. But I don't feel it. It still isn't me.
If you read all the way to the end of that... thank you. And "Reasons to be Cheerful" is a really good short story.
The story begins:
In September 2004, not long after my twelfth birthday, I entered a state of constant happiness.
It transpires that the narrator, who is never named, is constantly happy because a tumor is causing his brain to overproduce a neurochemical that is one of the basic constituents of the ability to be happy. (The science is a lot more plausible than I am making it sound. I'm condensing several pages of explanation for the sake of brevity.) If left untreated, the tumor will be fatal. A treatment goes awry for unforeseen reasons, killing off every binding site of the neurochemical, and thus wiping out his brain's biological ability to induce the feeling of being happy. The result is, of course, a profound depression.
When I first read this story, and liked it very much, I was not depressed. I was fascinated by the story because its essential theme is the disconnect between what we believe we should feel and what we actually feel. When the narrator is actually undergoing treatment for a possibly-fatal brain tumor, he is a brick. He cannot be anything else. He looks at the future with untroubled, optimistic serenity, because his neurobiology forces that on him. By contrast, after his life is saved, he literally cannot experience joy, relief, or the pleasant freedom of open horizons. Those parts of his brain- not his "mind", but the physical organ- are dying or dead.
Now, my understanding of the story, and my understanding of its theme, is much more subjective. Being depressed can be very puzzling. For one thing, past experience cues you as to when you should feel good... but you don't. Most frequently, you don't even feel neutral.
Why did the sight of the clear blue sky through the window when I opened my eyes every morning- with the freedom to sleep in as long as I chose...letting me sit un-nagged at the computer screen for sixteen hours if I wanted- why did that first glimpse of daylight make me want to bury my face in the pillow, clench my teeth, and whisper "I should have died, I should have died"?
For another, it becomes very, very difficult to properly read the non-verbal cues coming from other people, and your responses to them are often screwed up.
Meeting the gaze of even a recorded face gave me a feeling of intense shame... the pathways that warned of responses like rejection and hostility had not merely remained intact, they'd grown skewed and hypersensitive enough to fill the void with a strong negative signal, whatever the reality.
Depression makes you slow, stupid.
I couldn't bring myself to read a whole page of any book. I couldn't write ten lines of code. I couldn't look my real-world friends in the eye, or face the thought of going online.
My particular symptoms were never as bad as the narrator of the story's are, of course. But... there are a lot of gaps in this livejournal. For large stretches of the past few years, there have only been a handful of people I've been able to talk to. I've put a horrible strain on those relationships. and it seems a few of them have ended. That makes me sad. I think it would make me sad even if I were well, although I can't be sure.
...it remained beyond my power to alter my feelings, or even to draw a clear line between my purely pathological unhappiness, and the perfectly reasonable anxiety that anyone would feel... Wouldn't it be bliss, not to have to fight to tell the difference all the time? Forget happiness; even a future full of abject misery would be a triumph, so long as I knew that it was always for a reason.
In the story, eighteen years pass before the narrator is offered a treatment- a prosthesis, modeled using the neural structures of four thousand men of approximately his age, that will replace the damaged neural pathways and restore his ability to be happy. The theory is that his own latent memories from childhood, of the things that gave him pleasure, will enable the prosthesis to adapt and restore his particular tastes. Instead, he derives pleasure from everything that gave any of those four thousand men pleasure.
All art was sublime to me, and all music. Every kind of food was delicious. Everyone I laid eyes on was a vision of perfection.
A set of software controls for the prosthesis are installed, giving the narrator the ability to adjust his reactions and break the symmetry of the prosthesis. He is able to choose what brings him happiness. But there is, of course, a problem of authenticity.
...happiness itself meant nothing. Life without it was unbearable, but as an end in itself it was not enough. I was free to choose its causes- and to be happy with my choices- but whatever I felt once I'd bootstrapped my new self into existence, the possibility would remain that all my choices had been wrong.
The narrator falls back on research into his own past, trying to recover what made him happy and learn enough about himself to choose "appropriately" among the many kinds of adult experience he never had before becoming sick. He has to function through a series of educated guesses most of the time.
I don't know if posting all this is rude, or cowardly, or passive-aggressive, or self-indulgent... or brave, or enlightening, or a decent way to kill some time because I can't sleep. (Intellectually, I know it's probably a mix of a lot of those. I just, honestly, can't tell which.) I don't want to whine. I don't want to clam up and suffer in silence and not say anything at all. I can't really articulate anything I *do* want. The most I can muster is a kind of half-hearted agreement: yeah, getting all my bills paid off would be nice.
Much of the time, I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing- not morally right, but the healthy, appropriate thing that will help me get well and lead me to where I want to be. It's easy to feel despondent about that. I have to do my best to do an impression of what I was like when I was well. It's confusing. It's hard. And I'm not sure what "well" means anymore.
In the story, the narrator goes through a number of experiences, including getting a job and starting an affair. The affair ends badly when his condition is just too weird for his partner, and he is very unhappy... but he is able to decide to let himself experience that.
I let things run their course, I didn't touch the controls- but just knowing that I could have changed everything. And I realized that, even if I... said, I'm cured, take the software away, I don't want the power to choose anymore... I'd never be able to forget where everything I felt had come from.
The first time I read the story, I found the ending tremendously uplifting. The narrator looks around at his neighborhood, and he is able to say I like it here. He has the self-confidence not to worry so much about what his "authentic" reactions should be... and just react.
I realize I'm in need of a similar moment. As soon as I can stop doing an impression of me and just be me, things will start to get better. When I can say I like this with a whole heart, I won't be sick any more. Unfortunately, just realizing that you need more self-confidence doesn't make you less confused and insecure.
So I take my pills and I go to my doctor and I try to have hope. But I don't feel it. It still isn't me.
If you read all the way to the end of that... thank you. And "Reasons to be Cheerful" is a really good short story.
