[MD] Pirsiq and Depression

Mon Oct 2 13:04:15 PDT 2006

Hi Gav, etc

"> 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."
...Funny that you bring up "catcher;" I related far too well to that book when I was 15 or so (as a "grownup" I wrote a song about it, "Straight With You," 1999 - lyrics below- Mp3 available at humboldtmusic.com/mc sorry for that blatant plug, but I'm a musician and I therefore have very little control over my self-promotional instincts). I like your take on what 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"

...I feel like it's much bigger and more dangerous than "stuckness" though, and my impression was that Pirsig endorses giving depression room to run it's course, but adressing "stuckness" more directly. Again, only a first read-through notion...

The "They" I'm referring to is, the books themselves. Bad wielding of the pronoun there, sorry... come to think of it, a poorly expressed idea; just trying to overcategorize Pirsig's books, I suppose.  

Thanks!

Mike Craghead
humboldtmusic.com
humboldtmusic.com/mc
humboldtmusic.com/sarimike

Straight With You
Mike Craghead c 1999

And once again you found yourself 
surrounded by another batch 
of people talking all the time 
with nothing much to say 
so you turned around your hunting hat 
and you rode the train and got a room 
and headed for the city lights 
where you can fade away 
but just the way it’s always been 
the places and the people brought you down

(Chorus:) 
and it seems like almost all the time 
you find you feel this way 
it’s hard for you to care about 
tommorrow or today 
and it would be so much easier 
if they were only straight with you 

and morning didn’t bring you much 
but just the same you called her up 
to ask if she could come on down 
and maybe catch a show 
and she never really understood you 
but a one-way conversation 
is so much better than nothing 
when you’re feeling so low 
and you fell in and out of love with her 
right up until her taxi drove away 

(Chorus) 

And evening fell so hard on you
you watched another show alone
you drank too much and dialed her up
and she wondered why you called
and the music didn't sound too good
so you stumbled to the telephone 
and you found a friend and he told you
you were headed for a fall
and you thought that you might run away
but something made you turn and go back home

(Chorus) 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Story Behind the Song:"
This is a song about Holden Caufield, from J.D.Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye." I read the book (again) and wrote the song right along with the story; each verse is a specific event in the book.  

-----Original message-----
From: gav gav_gc at yahoo.com.au
Date: Mon,  2 Oct 2006 16:09:20 -0700
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Pirsiq and Depression

> hey mike,
> 
> --- Mike Craghead  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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