Being a glider

I was trying to think how to decribe sliding into depression, whether you are experiencing from some events, situations or circumstances in life or you're, like me, suffer from Dysthymia and fall into a moderate to deeper depression. It's hard to describe to people who haven't experienced it, and it is different between the two types, being predisposed to it or just experiencing it from something else.

And as usual, I still have 4 am conversations with myself, sitting on the deck watching the night slowly slip into the daylight. Feeling the silence - actually all the noises from nature to the trains in the distance, of the hours after people are home and before people leave for work. There with my coffee and the darkness.

It usually makes for a good environment to let the imagination soar and be set free to explore wherever it goes. And to imagine conversations with oneself. We all do this, it's often some of the most productive time people have, somewhere between sleep with dreams and being alive and active doing what you love. Some people prefer real conversations over imaginary ones. And I like both, nothing better than one with friends at a tavern discussing the universe and everything in it.

And so, today I imagined being a glider, or sailplane as some call them. Once you're released by the tow plane, you soar on thermals and follow the wind. You're so high you never felt better or more alive. And you know one thing, you can't fall. You see, unlike conventional aircraft, a glider literally can not fall, it has to glide down in a spiral in a fight between its maximum descent rate and the air.

The key is that once you begin a descent because you've lost the thermal keeping you up, there isn't much you can do, except glide down in a spiral, looking for a thermal to level out or even ascend again, or find a place to land the glider on the ground, preferably safe, like an airport, but sometimes a field, a road or some place worse. The odds usually aren't in your favor until you can find a place to land and try as you might with the plane to get there.

And that's what it's like, a slow downward spiral in mental space. You can't stop falling, the best you can is find a mental thermal to stop descending. And if not, keep going until you land somewhere, somewhere you can sit in your darkness wondering where the warmth and light went. But you do know you've stopped falling. That's what's important. And you can begin to find some peace where you are and some way to think through what to do.

There are other ways of falling into depression, mostly it's a sudden freefall, like stepping over the edge of a cliff into an abyss so dark you can't see the bottom, and you fall into the darkness, surrounding by the silence of it until you stop. Either way, falling or gliding, you're there, at the bottom with no sign of light and no sense of up down or sideways, not unlike a diver so deep in the ocean your only guide are your own air bubbles.

All of my periods of depression have been gliding. I've found myself on the edge of my own grand canyon and stepped off to glide into the abyss, and then to find bottom in the warmth of the darkness and quiet. It is its own world and you are in your own world. Reality and the rest of the world is imaginary. This is your reality.

And the way out, back to normal sanity? The same way you fell, slowly gliding. You need to find and nuture a mental thermal, and ride it until it ends, level and find a new thermal. There's not easy or quick solution or exit back, and, in my opinion, drugs aren't the answer except in extreme cases. Nor is therapy to some extent. The answers are always there. Just there in front of you.

But in the darkness they're hard to see, let alone grasp. Once you do, though, it's still a fight to keep from falling back or down again. It's both a conscious and subconscious fight, or more a dialog with yourself. You have to believe in yourself, sometimes blindly and sometimes without a thought if it's right or wrong, just believe. Some don't and often don't survive in this world.

The darkness is pervasive when you're at the bottom, and sometmes, when it begins to feel warm and comfortable, you think you have an answer. It is one answer, the one many don't like, and often criticize. That's not fair or right, but having never been there, they don't know any better. It's their own ignornace and naivety, and their own arrogance for criticizing.

And before you argue I'm not accepting the professionals and their solutions, namely either drugs or therapy, I'm not. There are times and there are people best served by either or both. But, in my view and experience, they're often just short term answers to longterm issues individuals have with themselves. If professionals can help that, great, but it's not a given or the only answer.

And so, that's my thoughts from a 4 am conversation this morning. And the morning comes through the fog in the lowland and the clouds above. I'm still aloft and haven't crashed in some time, although I've lost my thermals at times. Nothing new, and I know what to do.

There is a moment

... in a life. Well, we all know our life is made up of many moments, and some moments define our life, but in the end there is really only one moment. The moment we realize our life is done, and our next breath is our last. And we return, if we're lucky, to becoming what we are made of, the proverbial stardust (thanks Carl Sagan).

Ok, slightly melodramatic? Yes, in the face of reality, and no, in the reality of our being. We all die, so we all experience the one moment just before we don't. And why am I seemingly occasionally intrigued by the idea of this one moment?

I've written at some length about my Dysthymia. Mine is likely - since it can't be absolutely determined by any real test, only a psychiatric evaluation - genetic, meaning it runs in the family and likely expressed by other members of the family. And it has.

On August 21, 1991, my older brother Greg went to work as normal. He was the stereotypical type A personality, but he also had a dark side he rarely spoke of but had all the signs of an angry self-destructive life. When he was 43 he had an angioplasty, at 45 had his lungs pumped, and at 47 was informed he would need a heart-lung replacement before he was 50, or face the reality.

During lunch that day, he went home. His kids where home on summer vacation and his wife busy with life. He kissed her and said he loved his kids, and then sat down on the couch to smoke a cigarette. He only got halfway through before suffering a heart attack and die, and sadly, in front of his kids. But in fairness to him, he knew he was dying and didn't want to die at work, but at home.

When the medical examiner conducted the autopsy he discovered that his lungs were about two-thirds full of fluids. Time wasn't on his side and he knew it. Our Dad was devasted, his only - in his eyes since he kicked me out - son was gone. He didn't speak to me for months and did little else in his life after that. He had his goals in life, and later we discovered, which was simply to survive for awhile longer.

My Dad passed away November 11, 1994. he had three goals after Greg's death, to pay off the 30-year mortage to the only home he's bought, to celebrate the 50th anniversary with Mom, and celebrate his 75th birthday. The next day after his birthday he didn't get out of bed and shortly later didn't recognize anyone. He passed away in his sleep two days later. He simply gave up.

The family rarely talks about the deaths of Greg and Dad, especially with me because I call them mental suicides. They foresaw the moment and made a decision about their moment to die. Years later my nephew Spencer committed suicide at home. I disagree with the explanation on the Web page about him after talking with my sister. All the signs were there, including having therapy, but they felt he was getting better.

And that's what they didn't catch, the disguise of the signs, is relatively easy if someone wants to do so to hide their true feelings. I know this because I've lived on the edge all my life and have walked to the the very edge to see and maybe do. I didn't for reasons I don't know or can explain except I chose life at the last moment. But as I get older, as many people, I see the reality of the moment in my life.

While almost all people simply push it into the back of their mind and don't think about it or care to see it unless something happens to bring it into the forefront of their mind, some find it's always there, hiding in the subconscious to become real at the slightest trigger. The triggers are unique to the individual and often not known until they suddenly feel it. It can happen listening to the radio, reading the newspaper, seeing something or someone, or some small thing in the flow of their life.

The reality is that we all die from our own hand, the question is if we do it knowingly and intentionally, namely did we do it knowing we would die. But what's knowing? Is it a matter of degree? Is it a choice? Or do we simply decide it's not really suicide but living to the edge, except when the edge moves and we fall over into the abyss. We're not Wile E. Coyote and survive the fall, we die. Short and sweet, we have our moment.

As so some day the person behind the camera won't be there or here typing my essay. I can only go forward and live the life I know and want to do and be. That's all I can do, and someday my moment will arrive. But it won't be from suicide. That is something I know for sure. While I may not like the day ahead of me, I like the sunrise too much.

Death is

We all know the saying about death and taxes, and we all expect that death is the worst thing that could happen to us. Well, sort of on the last. I won't get into suicide and all its manifestations and perspectives except to say it's relative to one's life and view of life. I just wanted to say death is. Just that simple, it is, and nothing more. We can wrap all the heroics and faith around it we want about being noble and good or being in the name of some God.

But in the end it just is. The absence of our existence. The absence of our bodies on this earth, the last time we'll be around to experience life. And it's about the mess we leave behind, our belongings and estate where the survivors and the courts have to wrangle with the leftovers of our life. We've departed the scene and whatever is there when it happens is there, and all our planning and hoping won't change the reality of it.

Ok, you're wondering, or not, why this topic. And why right now. Like you're expecting some great revelation or something? No one has one because no one comes back to tell us the news of what happens. Near death experiences don't count because it's the body's way of preparing to die, it just didn't happen that time, and we awake with a sense of having seen the open door and our departure from life. But it didn't happen.

Personally I think evolution has given us a way to die. I can't see that death, a normal phenomena in nature - and we're a part of it like all the rest of life - hasn't been programmed into our innate brain structure. It's seems reasonable and logical we are programmed to accept death when our brain senses it immenient. And how you ask?

I think there are three steps in death. First, there is a trigger. Something has to happen where all the sensory inputs into the mind meets a threshold and triggers the death sequence stored as part of our innate sense of being - those things evolution has given every animal. This doesn't mean it's a reality and will actually happen, but simply the threshold is met. And the threshold triggers the mind into the next sequence about pain.

Second, the mind determines that it can't accept all the pain associated with the sensory inputs from the body from dying. No one thinks death is painful, or maybe at least the last few moments. Evolution, in my view, wouldn't be so cruel to make it painful, and as near as I can tell from those I've known who have died, pain wasn't at the top of their list when they died. And it does this in two ways.

First it floods the immediate consciousness with white noise, the "white" that near death experiences produce. This isn't a sign or anything beyond the brain automatically covering all the sensory inputs about pain. In short, the consciousness becomes full so pain isn't recognized let alone acknowledged. We feel no pain but the perceived pleasure of white and our life.

Second it floods the short term memory with one's past, that seeing your life flash before your eyes experience, except it's reminding you of the life you had with experiences and loved ones. It reminds you why you were alive, to be and to have, and to have been born, lived and now dying. Both the white noise and your life completely occupys the consciousness and memory of your mind so nothing else exists.

Third, the mind has to determine it's time to simply stop, to tell the heart to cease and tell the body the mind isn't open for business anymore. This signals the rest of the body to go on autopilot and let whatever is natural happen. You're no longer alive and conscious, so the other side of nature takes over.

That's my take on it. Why today? I don't know except it sneaks into my consciousness now and then in my dreams and I wake up with the notion it's another day. Nothing more except death didn't happen overnight. For you see you don't know. People die in their sleep routinely, and not just the elderly. We can die anytime, and life is the luck of the draw every morning.

And sometimes I wake up with the last dream about death. Not necessarily mine but the idea of death. I'm one of those folks who dreams in ideas. I don't put much stock in dreams - they're the brain's way of reprocessing experiences, storing memories and recharging the active parts for the next day - and so they're only interesting if I wake up with a memory of one, such as my 50th birthday.

So that's the thought here. Nothing more than death is and a matter of course. We don't have to worry about it, it will find us sometime in our future. We won't know exactly when, but we will know the moment, or rather have a new experience where there is not return.

It's just a life

It's just a life, one in 6-plus billion with thousands coming and going every day. I don't know what else anyone has the right to say. While each of us can claim some right or power over other people, it's still the same, we're one in the many, much like any grain of sand on a beach. Just one. But it's our one, and that's the question and answer. Or is it really?

We're given life with a set of innate characteristics, much of which we can't change, or at least not without a lot of money and/or help, but likely not, and we are somewhat limited in what we think we can accomplish and really can accomplish. We can use our talent to achieve, go through life with it, or simply forget about it's existence. It's not fixed how and how much we use our talent, but it's our choice within the framework we're given from life.

And that's the second part. While we have all this talent, we can only do what life provides in terms of opportunity. You can argue all you want about chances and opportunity, it really boils down to the old adage with everything, timing and location. We have to be at the right place at the right time for many opportunites whether we believe we created them or not. A small change in the world and life, and it's all for naught.

I don't really have a point to this post except thinking out loud, as I do sometimes, and now in retirement on a new career, I wonder the typical philosophical stuff about what I'm doing. After 28 years working for an agency, and the normal bosses, most too stupid to be good but a few really great, and working for the public, where I really believed in the work I was doing, the proverbial "for the greater good." And being in my mid-to-late 50's it's the time you begin to face the reality of your own body, what's left that it can do without breaking.

Two years ago I had a complete physical with several heart tests, including a sonogram which is really cool to see your heart working, and the normal test they give to those over 50, meaning a colonoscopy, complete with DVD too. I now know the limitations of my aging body. I can't do what it did when I was 50, let alone before that. It's the reality of my being. And I have to learn to find ways to keep it working near its best, or best I can do.

And I've had to accept what I can learn. The mind is interesting as it ages. Our minds are still as sharp, and maybe a little slower, and hopefully smarter and wiser. Studies have shown that many endeavors requires the youthful mind where they professionally peak in their 20's, and while they can still do more and new work, their best is usually history past 30. But many endeavors are doable until one's death. One of those is photography. Age only slows you down but never impedes the creative mind.

Well, except for one thing, happenstance. We never know when something will happen to leave you less than whole, and we have to learn again who we are. We can hope for a life without such events but life is a random chance. We can simply go about what we're doing and let the rest of it take care of itself. It's about life as we know and can.


In the pile of leaves, we just another one that existed for the season in the many piles in the corners of the world. And life goes on.

Respites

This almost sounds a contradictory idea, a respite from life with Dysthymia. Dysthymia is often the struggle to cope with life and all the things you deal with just getting through life. People take respites from life, work, careers, jobs, family, friendships, relationships, love, war, and many other things, but from Dysthymia? Don't you take respites from everything else but Dysthymia, or is a respite from Dysthymia happiness in and about life?

Well, yes and no. I wrote a brief description about Dysthymia, or at least my view of it. Mine is more the mild to moderate version where I can function in life without too many people seeing, let alone knowing, I suffer from it. It's easy to put on a face on those days I don't feel like it. And many times, simple informal, casual interactions with people help. And sometimes it creates so much anguish it's hard just to stand there.

So, sometimes I have to take a respite from it. And how can someone do that? First, it's hard since it a part of your psyche, part of your feeling and thinking, and part of the fiber of your being and doing. It's always there and never really goes away, so the best I can do is find ways to push it into the background where it's lost in the noise of life and the world. That's the hard part because my body is what drives my thinking and feeling.

Huh? We're conscious human being, and according to many, if not most, people, our mind is in control of our bodies, instinctively, innately, subconsciously and consciously. But, I would argue, for many people it's the reverse, our body drives our mental balance and state of being. It's what keeps us alive and controls our mind. And I know some will find this difficult, as it's common for those who can't see something or some idea to see something different, and then understand and accept it as equal to their view of things.

If you don't see this view, then how do you explain addiction? How do you explain depression? How do you explain when you're doing something physical and in the flow of the moment, not thinking but simply being whole with your body. It's the body controlling the mind. Not hard to accept. In people with Dysthymia, it's similar, instead of an addiction or something else, the physical being of Dysthymia in our mind and body is controlling the circumstances.

And there comes times it's simply becomes tiring to continue without a respite. This takes conscious effort to recognize it and to think to take a respite. For me, at times, that respite is photography, simply taking my camera some place(s) and taking photos. It's a slow change to thinking as a photographer, all the artistic, tecnicial and mechnical issues of photography, but for the periods it consumes my mind and body, and the Dysthymia fades into the recesses of my mind.

Other respites are with running, walking, hiking, reading, and many of the little things in life, the "sweeping the floor" as the Buddhist adage goes, like working with my many plants, cleaning the home, washing the van, or whatever. Anything to engage the body and mind. Away from Dysthymia, a respite from it's continually existence.