"Why Do Some People Never Get Depressed?"

I was reading an article with that title on the BBC website today. There's basically these doctors in Manchester who are doing a study to pin down the factors that allow some people to overcome the most incredible hardships without falling into depression, something that in medical terms is known as "resilience". In contrast, there are 121 million people in the world today that, trauma or not, are suffering from depression. It seems most everyone else is somewhere on a continuum between these two extremes.

Basically, the doctors want to see how much resilience is determined by innate characteristics of our brains and how much by our experiences or education.

The part i found most interesting about the article was a quote by a certain Aeron, one of the subjects of the study. He is a middle aged guy (quite handsome, judging from his pic!) who lost his business, his income and his home not too long ago. This is what he said:

"I'm generally a happy person. Everybody has stressful moments but there would be something wrong with you if you were happy all the time. But I haven't ever had an episode of depression.

In my childhood, when I first realised I was gay, I didn't come out to my parents or friends, not until I was much older. I think, perhaps, it resulted in me building up a strong defence mechanism and helped me deal with situations better later on in life.

I think that if there's a problem there's always a remedy. It's not that I don't think about stressful issues in my life, but I always think you can find a solution."

And there, RESONANCE! I can totally get what Aeron means.

In these last 20 years or so, i have always felt i have this kind of impenetrable shield with me, this sense that since i was able to overcome all the angst of growing up gay in a homophobic environment and with a homophobic education, there is now no situation that could ever make me loose the will to live.

It's not a sense of invincibility, or of self-confidence, even. Guh knows how insecure i can still feel, and i am also quite aware of all the uncertainties and downright hideousnesses that surround us. It's just that i already met the blackest thoughts, at a very young age. We lived together for a few years, but then we divorced. Not amicably. So we won't be seeing each other again.

Perhaps that is one way of resilience, then, for later life: to have suffered young, and to have survived.

On the other hand, i do worry sometimes. Resilience may have many flavors. One might be strength, but another might be callousness. One might be perseverance, but others might be pessimism, fear, closedness, emotional detachment. An unwillingness to take risks.

I am very unwilling to take risks at the romantic level. I don't want to get hurt. I am comfortable.

Picho

Picho tiene algo más de 16 años. Lo encontré en noviembre de 1993 en un montón de escombros, con una pata quebrada. Lo enyesó una veterinaria coja y quince días después, cuando recién le habían quitado el yeso, se enfermó de parvo virus. Casi se desangra, pero sobrevivió.

Le encantaba que lo lleváramos al parque. Una vez atrapó un pájaro al vuelo. Le gritamos "Picho!", abrió la boca, y el pájaro salió, volando aún. Otra vez, de vuelta de Luján, nos detuvimos en la ruta a tomar mates a la sombra de un algarrobo, y Picho desapareció. Oímos ladridos y balidos desesperados, y lo encontramos con el cuello de una cabra en la boca. Otra vez: "Picho!", y allí salió la cabra, despavorida pero ilesa.

Una vez estuvo en una pelea con otro perro, y volvió a casa chorreando sangre...

Cuando íbamos a nadar al dique, bastaba chapotear un poco en el agua y pretender que uno se hundía, para que él se lanzara y tratara de rescatarnos... Entonces había que cuidarse de sus bien intencionados tarascones.

El amor de Picho es mi madre. Hoy está sordo y casi totalmente ciego. Ha perdido el olfato, le cuesta ponerse de pie, y a veces es incontinente. Sin embargo aún come y bebe, y cuando puede sigue a mi madre a todos lados dentro de la casa.

Consuelo

Aún faltan poco más de cuatro meses para su nacimiento, pero mi sobrina ya tiene el nombre casi totalmente asentado en la mente de sus padres y de todos nosotros, que también la amaremos: se llamará Consuelo.

La vigésima segunda edición del diccionario de la Real Academia Española registra tres significados para la palabra consuelo:

1) Descanso y alivio de la pena, molestia o fatiga que aflige y oprime el ánimo.

2) Gozo, alegría.

3) Misericordia.

La verdad es que al principio el nombre no me gustaba mucho: me había atascado en el primer significado y lo interpretaba, además, de forma demasiado estrecha. ¿Dónde estaba el sufrimiento del que vendría a aliviarnos esta niña? Me parecía que el nombre implicaba una cierta visión fatalista de la vida, como si ésta fuera un valle de lágrimas que ella tuviera que ayudarnos a soportar, cuando lo que yo sueño es que disfrute y aprecie la delicia de existir y ser consciente, que se maraville ante la concatenación de circunstancias que nos han permitido existir, que sea el universo viéndose a sí mismo.

Pero bueno, para eso, he allí los significados 2) y 3): el gozo y la alegría de vivir, y la misericordia, que es la comprensión y el perdón de las debilidades de los demás y las propias. Sólo podemos perdonar si somos capaces de apreciar y amar nuestra falibilidad y la ajena, viendo en ellas una expresión de la belleza única que es cada uno.

Finalmente, incluso el significado 1) ha venido a abrírseme: este nombre puede ser un regalo para mi sobrina, el deseo expreso de que Consuelo sea siempre capaz de encontrar descanso y alivio de sus penas, porque seguramente las tendrá también. Las superará compartiéndolas y tomando parte de las de los demás, con fortitud, y su vida será llena. Así, sin esfuerzo, dando y recibiendo, se convertirá también en consuelo para la gente a su alrededor.

La verdad es que ahora no se me ocurre nombre más feliz.

Two Arrivals

I can't sleep tonight. I don't even want to. I probably will, a few hours, later, but now I'm fully awake, vibrating at life's richness and generosity. It is amazing and surprising how so much can happen.

Yesterday, January 20th at 22:05 p.m., I found out that, less than 6 months from now, I'll be the uncle of a little girl. I swear to do everything in my power to make her life as rich and interesting and fulfilling as possible. I would like her to find many questions to ask, to have no fear in pursuing the answers, to live with her face in the wind, loving and loved, in freedom, caring about others and understanding that their well-being and her own are connected.

And today, about 20 hours from now, I will be holding in my arms the man I love. I swear to do everything in my power to make his life as rich and interesting and fulfilling as possible. I would like him and me to find many questions to ask together and on our own, to have no fear in pursuing our answers and sharing them with each other, to live with our faces in the wind, loving and loved and in freedom, caring about the world that surrounds us and understanding that our well-being is connected to its health.

You Gotta Give Them Hope

We don't see ourselves

Irony of ironies.

The most resentful person I know includes, at the bottom of all his e-mails, the following caption:

"Break the rules, smile always, forgive quickly, kiss slowly and laugh without control."

This goes to prove that we don't indeed see ourselves clearly, much of the time. I wonder what my inconsistencies are. Perhaps the same as his? If I forgave quickly, this defect of his might not be so present in my mind.

To verdener

Tonight I watched a great movie: To verdener ("Worlds Apart", in English), a Danish production directed by Niels Arden Oplev. The movie is based on the true story of Sara, a 17 year old Jehova's Witness who is expelled from her community, because she begins a relationship with a non-believer. In fact, this means that her father and siblings decide not to talk to her any longer.

Sara's journey takes her, of course, to question and finally discard her faith in Jehova.

My favorite part of the movie is the final dialogue between Sara and her father. Some time after being cast out, she shows up to attend the funeral service of a friend, after which her father calls her selfish, for imposing her presence upon them all. Sara replies:

- Do you love me, dad?

- Of course! How can you even ask me that?

- But who do you love more, me or God?

- God.

- Why?

- Because he made me. Because he will grant me eternal life.

- Well, I think that is selfish, dad.

In essence, what this man says is that he loves god more because god has given and can give him all this stuff. He is thinking of his own self-interest and implying that the love you give is directly proportional to how much you get from someone.

I do not know how faithful a portrayal of Jehova's Witnesses this movie is, but it certainly made me think... the little amount I'm able to, lately.

Cats and the weather

A couple of years ago, when i moved into this house, i asked Victor to replace one of the window panes in my bathroom by a wooden plank on which he then proceeded to fit my cat's trapdoor.

Since then, Mooshee comes in and out of the house in all weathers. When it's raining a lot or she's wet from slithering around in the damp underbrush, she comes in soaking wet and then spends a long time licking the water off her fur... Which I suppose, in cat terms, is the equivalent of taking a shower, putting on deodorant and having a cup of herbal tea all in one go. I can particularly tell when she has spent some time in the foliage, because she smells sweet and fragrant in a way I associate with the countryside, here.

If I get too close she stops her licking and throws me a "oh, you really want to bother me now, do you?" kind of glance. She holds my eyes for a couple of seconds and then is again absorbed by the water in her coat.

Well, not quite literally. What a sight that would be.

La gioia

Questi versi mi son piaciuti tantissimo, Andrea:

Abbiamo spinto la gioia così lontana
che non troverà mai più la strada di casa

Rococó cubed

Edgar suggested a novel to me. I ordered, received it and, while having lunch today, read its first page. And re-read it. And read it again. My guffaws made cheese fly up my nose:

In strewn banners that lay like streamers from a longago parade the sun's fading seraphim rays gleamed onto the hood of the old Ford and ribboned the steel with the meek orange of a June tomato straining at the vine. From the back seat, door open, her nimble fingers moved along the guitar like a weaver's on a loom. Stitching a song. The cloth she made was a cry of aching American chords, dreamlike warbles built to travel miles of lonesome road. They faded into the twilight, and Silas leaned back on the asphalt, as if to watch them drift into the Arkansas mist.
Away from them, across the field of low-cut durum wheat, they saw Evangeline's frame, outlined pale in shadow against the highway sky, as it trembled.
That's the way it is with song, isn't it? she said. The way it quivers in your heart. Quivers like the wing of a little bird.
In a story too. He spoke it softly in a voice that let her hear how close they were. That's the way it is with a story. Turns your heart into a bird.

Oh, I know I'm gonna love it!

Floating Gushing Fruit

This sculpture belongs to some anonymous art student at Macalester College. I did look for the name of the artist, but s/he must have been in the process of setting up the exhibition of which this piece was part. Thus, when i passed by, the customary little sign with all the customary info was missing, and i thought it awkward to go in and ask.

We see some kind of dessicated seed pod that has popped, releasing a thick and very orange goo that serves as the spindly stand on which this strange fruit rests. The splatter of goo on the floor is cartoonish and realistic at the same time.

I love the playfulness of this piece. It makes me think of all kind of reversions. We are used to fruits hanging from trees, but this might be a freeze-frame of an entirely different process: perhaps the pod was on the ground, it split, and it released the pressurized jet of juice that has launched it into the air.

Or perhaps what looks like juice is stalks, and the pod is the strange looking bud of an exotic plant.

It makes me want to lick it, to kneel down and stick my tongue in to taste it.

I have met someone. Someone that interests me.

Eight words. Seven, in reality, because someone is repeated. He's important, so it put him in twice, like this.

Then we have I and me, which embody an individualism of perspective made inescapable by language. Some say I is an evolutionary feature of our species, and others claim I can be transcended. I know pathological Is, heavy with overfeeding. Is that have to squint in order to be able to see themselves in the mirror. I am a bit afraid of my I, yet here it is, twice: the familiar I and then me, which is basically a regular I stranded in the predicate, and thus have to make a living in different surrounding. so we are down to six words, now.

Waves

The moon keeps my sleeplessness
company
but in everything else
they are unlikely friends.
The moon never dwells too long upon a well,
fleetingly crossing its mirrored surface
as if on skates.
But my sleeplessness falls down
sinks in with the rotund plunk of a stone
and makes waves.

Inconsistencies

I went for a walk in Valencia today, mind all tangled in this and that and in someone i've met... Or rather, am starting to meet. Then at El Corte Inglés i came accross this poster:



Of course, we're surrounded by publicity all the time, but there's something about famous faces that draws our eyes, right in. I suppose this is why actors and actresses are in such demand when it comes to selling stuff. In fact, before i got back home i came across these other two:





Now, i love Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law; great actors both of them, particularly Paltrow. George Clooney's less inspiring, but of course, he's got his charm, too.

Yet we all KNOW that Paltrow must put on make up and cosmetics that have nothing to do with Estée Lauder, and no matter what the add says, i'd still be willing to bet that Clooney drinks much else, and not only Nespresso, even where coffee is concerned. As for Law, even if he is the representative of Dunhill in the whole of Asia, i bet he is partial to other clothing, too.

So what is the mechanism behind this kind of publicity?

Yes, the known and pretty faces attract our attention. Then we notice the product being endorsed and tie the two together. What are the possible thoughts later, when faced with the product again?

"This is the coffee that Clooney drinks"
"Must be good if he drinks it"
"I'll be a little like him if i do, too"

I guess these thoughts, if we have them at all, go mostly unregistered by our conscious attention, like so much automatic crap we think throughout the day. Same goes for the analogous thoughts corresponding to Law's and Paltrow's products of choice.

Or maybe we don't even need these thoughts at all, maybe it's simply the association that does it.