[MD] Pirsiq and Depression

[gav]

hey mike,

--- Mike Craghead <mike at humboldtmusic.com> wrote:

> Hi Folks!
> 
> Perhaps you can clear this up for me. Most of ZAMM
> and Lila rang true 
> for me, some was very practical, some just made
> general metaphysical 
> sense. But there was a sticking point for me that
> I'm having trouble 
> digesting: the allowance made for depression.
> [Please forgive my lack of specific references; I've
> lent my copy of 
> Lila to a friend (raise your hand if your copy is
> missing for the same 
> reason!). And I know next to nothing about
> "clinical" depression or any 
> other flavor thereof, beyond my own experience with
> "normal" teenage 
> angst and "normal" adult frustration.]
> 
> In Lila (If memory serves) Pirsig talks about
> letting a depressed state 
> run it's course, sort of "rolling" with it as part
> of the way things 
> are, and accepting it as part of a process. (Note:
> this wasn't the 
> "stuckness" problem for which Pirsig provides sound
> advice, but the 
> tolerance of a real state of depression). This
> didn't really jibe for 
> me; I found it a passive and counterproductive idea.
> I've always felt 
> like depression was a problem to correct, not a
> means to an end.

well that is also the view taken by the pharmaceutical
companies: 'unhappy? quick take this!'

look you can't be happy without being unhappy. ups and
downs. especially when living in a low quality
culture.

 i think  a lot of the problem (with young-uns on meds
that i know) is that they think that it is their own
fault, exclusively, for not getting on well in life;
when of course it is a lot more complex than that. 

with such a phony culture(hi jd!) alienation is
inevitable. alienation does not have to lead to
depression if people have the necessary intellectual
tools and social support to deal with it. read
'catcher in the rye' for starters.

i think depression is holding on to the downs: getting
tied up in self-indulgent static patterns so much that
you wear a mental and eventually physical 'groove'
that becomes more and more difficult to get out of. 

if you don't 'hold on' to the depression it will run
its course more swiftly and easily. non-attachment
man.

> 
> On a side note, this brings up another issue that
> kept popping up while 
> I read Pirsig's books: they are vehicles to explain
> a worldview, but are 
> they hoping we'll agree? 

who is 'they'?

cheers
gav




		
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