And just how long are the blues supposed to last? A few days, weeks, months...or years on end?
I learned about the blues before I even knew what to call them...from musicians and their music, which I found comforting because I didn't feel so alone.
Then I found out that prolonged blues are called "chronic depression" and that there are magic pills one can take for that particular condition. But is that cheating oneself of an exquisite, if excruciating, life experience or saving oneself the agony of too many blue periods far too many times?
People are quick to give advice about those long stretches of blue periods. "Don't let them get you down" or "This too shall pass" or "It's just part of the human condition, get used to it" etc. etc. etc. And, in some cases, they're correct.
But do they know, deep down inside, the horrific suffering the blues can cause a person's soul...? Do they know that there are days when you'd rather be stone dead than feel that abyss of not knowing when, if ever, they will end? If they did, I don't think they'd be so cavalier about dismissing them.
And then I learned that there is also an explanation for chronic sadness: Dysthymia.
From the NY Times: "For more than 7 million Americans, life is no bowl of cherries, the glass is nearly always half empty, the clouds have no silver lining. They have a little-known and often medically ignored yet treatable emotional disorder called dysthemia.
Dysthymia (pronounced dis-THIGH-mee-a) is a mild but chronic depression that can spread a veil of sadness over people's lives for years, even decades, seemingly from the cradle to the grave."
From the cradle to the grave ~ I'll say!
So what if those magic pills stop working? What if that "treatable emotional disorder" is, in the final analysis, not treatable at all? What then? Do we just curl up into a ball and hope to die, or keep trying to find yet another magic potion that will cure this monstrous 'disorder'?
I don't have the answer to any of the above questions...just more questions. When-where-how-why?
I'm pretty sure I know the answer to when, where and how. But I'll be damned if I know how to answer why...
"But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you..." ~ Don McLean, Starry Starry Night.
