Inertia of Thought

Depression can muddy up the brain. Make it seem kind of foggy. You know that you have a clear coherent thought within this fog. That it will lift and you can feel motivated and confident in your brain. That you could follow one thought to the next and string many thoughts along until a pictures comes to your brain that will bring an understanding that is both objective and subjective. But while in this foggy state, it seems far off from the clear mind you desire.

My father would often take me along on errands on Saturdays when I was a kid.  He’d come back from golf, or what he had done in the morning, and open all the windows in the house. The beach breeze would come in the windows, somewhat cool, but the sun was bright. The beach breeze would make me feel fresh and new. How bright and warm it was, but never too hot. We’d drive and he’d listen to the easy listening of the 80′s, which played music like Dione Warwick, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan. We’d stop at the car wash and he’d give me quarters to play Ms. Pac-Man. We’d get my haircut at the barbershop, and I’d ask them to “fade” the sides of my flat top like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (Will Smith)–even though I was white and couldn’t have a “fade” or a “tight” flat top like a black dude. After this we may shoot some golf balls at the driving range, or go to the 3-par course at the beginning of Palos Verdes. We’d go for a hike, or whale watching–all near the border of Torrance and the green, no sidewalk town of Palos Verdes. “The hill,” as my mom called Palos Verdes, was always there, looming south, and we often shopped near the bottom of it.

While we were driving away from getting my haircut, South High and a Taco Bell on the right, my father told me something very special, though it seemed almost like a side thought. He said, “Sometimes I think about how I came to a certain thought. I’ll think of what I thought before that and before that, and go back as far as I can, to see what brought me to think of that.”

We were going up hill, towards Redondo Beach. It was sunny and warm with a nice beach breeze. I remember thinking deeply about this and not saying much. It seemed fascinating, what thought led to what thought, and it seemed you could find meaning and understanding of what you thought. That you could say I thought this because I thought this. He introduced me to the idea of the inertia of thought. Seems this has affected my life greatly.

The thing with depression is that once you lift from this, it all seems rather clear you were depressed. That the reason you were at work obsessively thinking dark, angry and torturing thoughts was because you were in a mood. But while in this “hell,” the pain prolongs time. Seconds tic. A feeling of not being able to take anymore will come over the person. Possibly a “flight” response to run away from work, or curl up in a corner somewhere and cry. But you are an adult and have to work 40-hrs. No one cares about your mood swings, and if your moody–you will have mood swings, so you just have to deal with them. Eventually the dark thoughts leave, a hopefulness appears in your life and you can concentrate on something good. Lose yourself in these thoughts and actions and be happy. While depressed, sometimes, you can objectively say to yourself that this is depression, it won’t last, and everything will be fine. But subjectively you can’t feel that. But once that lifts, you can feel it. The dark depression seems almost like another mind, another person even. You think yourself a fool for thinking such dark thoughts, and even objectively can say that life is pretty fucked. We age, get sick, loss everything we love, but you accept this as something we all must suffer from and transcend this.

….

Before I began typing this I was shredding documents. One paper box equals about 4 “lawn” trash bags. Earlier, I had scanned a couple transcripts and did some mail routes, looked at the internet. It’s fair to say I’m not mentally challenged at work. Tearing apart stapled documents into shreddable sizes, I searched my mind for a memory. I could picture the moment in my head. I tried to think of what came before and after the moment. The words said. The surrealness of it. Other than that image and emotion, I couldn’t dig much deeper. I knew I could “dig” deeper if only I had a clear mind.

It seems like I have been trying to get a clear mind for a few months without much success. One day, alone on a weekend, I tried to “journal” out my feelings. Create a manifesto for the immediate time, to get my priorities together. All I made was a list of things I wanted to write, and two non-writing things; continue working-out and continue regular flossing. The flossing has fallen off some, but the working-out hasn’t. I can’t drink coffee, so without some cardio or weights–my body can feel dead. 

While working out the other day on my lunch break, I was watching the Country Music network while on the arc-trainer. I’m not a huge Country music fan, but I do enjoy it. Country music is essentially the same music as Rock music with its 1,4,5 chord combos, blue notes, rising melody, and so forth. But Country really embraces the everyman. Where Rock flaunts nonconforming and an alternative-not-giving-in-to-the-man, Country says yeah, I work 40 hrs, struggle with money, sometimes drink too much, have troubles and triumphs in love. And it made me think how, maybe, you need to work 40-hrs a week to like Country music. And I’ll admit some of the music is hokey, especially the “I’m Country”-country song. Just like the “I’m hip hop”-hip hop song. All genres have their divisive songs, but all come down to the human heart. Ray Charles made a country album. Indy rock is borrowing the country twang and heartache.

See shits muddy waters for me. Writing this I used the first and second-person. What was even the point of this. Maybe just what my dad said. My dad is really cool. He was a surfer. And my sister remembers him doing 360′s on a skateboard in the driveway when she was little.

Thanks for reading this randomness.