November 11
On Novemberr 4th I picked up my old friend Vivian in Little Rock. We cruised into Nashville for Vanderbilt’s Homecoming Weekend and to see my father’s trial against DiamlerChrysler. Both were good. It was wonderful to see the old college crowd again, and we got rowdy just like we used to. Beer, bars, cops and pepper spray. We had fun. Dad was ripping DiamlerChrysler’s yankee lawyer to shreds. The yankee was hemorrhaging dignity as DiamlerChrysler will soon hemorrhage cash. I had fun on both counts. But during the latter part of my stay the fun came from external events. It was not the innate joy that wells up from a psyche in harmony. I left Nashville this morning.
A sequestered mind turns on itself. This is especially true of mine, but traditionally I have had no difficulty being alone. Today was an exception. As I drove east out of Nashville I found myself grim, mulling over things gone wrong and the missteps of mine that I associated with them. In truth many problems are inevitable, but a gloomy man faults himself. Then you have an autocatalytic cycle. A mind weighted with guilt cannot make reliable moral decisions and, even when it can, the psyche, lethargic with depression, cannot execute them. The body then commits crimes it would have avoided in a sounder state, the mind blames itself and the cycle begins anew.
I have long been prone to these melancholy periods. They usually come in winter. I didn’t get one last year so I thought I had grown out of them. Guess not. I call these periods Sad Spells. I understand the stages well enough to diagnose them, so I can avoid extended and deep Sad Spells, but I can’t dodge them altogether. I suspect no one can. I’ve got a couple remedies to try, so hopefully I’ll be back above the clouds soon. I just feel bad for Chap. For reasons neither of us can explain his traveling buddy self-destructed all of a sudden. But I am not Humpty Dumpty, and soon I’ll be back together again.
A sequestered mind turns on itself. This is especially true of mine, but traditionally I have had no difficulty being alone. Today was an exception. As I drove east out of Nashville I found myself grim, mulling over things gone wrong and the missteps of mine that I associated with them. In truth many problems are inevitable, but a gloomy man faults himself. Then you have an autocatalytic cycle. A mind weighted with guilt cannot make reliable moral decisions and, even when it can, the psyche, lethargic with depression, cannot execute them. The body then commits crimes it would have avoided in a sounder state, the mind blames itself and the cycle begins anew.
I have long been prone to these melancholy periods. They usually come in winter. I didn’t get one last year so I thought I had grown out of them. Guess not. I call these periods Sad Spells. I understand the stages well enough to diagnose them, so I can avoid extended and deep Sad Spells, but I can’t dodge them altogether. I suspect no one can. I’ve got a couple remedies to try, so hopefully I’ll be back above the clouds soon. I just feel bad for Chap. For reasons neither of us can explain his traveling buddy self-destructed all of a sudden. But I am not Humpty Dumpty, and soon I’ll be back together again.
posted by Jeb Butler at 9:43 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home