Like Harry Baker (start at 1:29), I like people.
This is easy to say in general, because there are some specific humans that I have little respect or appreciation for beyond the simple truth that we're all connected--the beautiful and the despicable. And considering the unflagging pessimism that louers over my heart and the tumultuous sea of depression that too often capsizes me in its troughs, this is no small thing. Indeed, it's the love of people--more than love of self--that keeps me around.
That isn't to say that I am in a perpetual state of desiring suicide--quite the opposite; I don't want this ride on Earth to end, and thinking of "the undiscovered country" propels me through more of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy than is probably healthy and a more-than-white-knuckle-grip on however many numbered breaths I will yet claim. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about leaving the world on my own terms.
I was probably eleven or twelve--possibly younger, I can't remember--when I first considered stepping into traffic, clutching a 101 Dalmatians stuffed animal when I let the cars of 400 East squish me. It was a passing thought, but not the only one.
About three years ago, I self-diagnosed myself with chronic depression, though the liminal symptoms of what mental health issues I suffer from aren't professionally prognosticated. In other, simpler words, I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure that I've got a brain problem, though no one has made it official.
As I've realized the truth about myself, I've become better at expressing that problem to others. Most of my coworkers know--almost all of my students do, too. In that sense, I'm in good company, as I can think of three other teachers at my school who struggle with this same mental monster--and that's the amount I'm aware of. There could be more who don't admit it, don't know it, or don't confess it.
I like them regardless.
In my ward, one of the members gave a fifth Sunday lesson* about her own struggles with depression and how she was in therapy and took medication. It was shockingly, refreshingly honest. Mormon congregations aren't well known for tackling big, thorny issues. Much more of a "focus on the positive and the Lord will sort it all out" kind of approach. So hearing that lesson was good for me to hear, in part because one particular talk from the then-recent October General Conference had left me feeling cold and isolated (which I'm confident was not President Nelson's intent). Any time that people in church talk about how happy they are by living the gospel--in whatever way they do it--I always find myself uncertain of how to understand the sentiment. I think back to some joyful moments in my life and I can comprehend a sense of, say, peace or fulfillment. Maybe satisfaction. But happy?
It can be frustrating to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gain greater insight into the feelings of one's soul through a web comic (complete with swears, depictions of diarrhea, and the word "testicle") than through a fifteen minute talk by a man who one sustains as a mouthpiece of God. Nathless, this is the position I find myself in.
And that's one of the things that I find strange: I'm not a misanthrope. I don't suffer from solipsism. In a less capitalistic way, I'm a philanthropist. It's one of the joys of teaching history for me, despite the darkness in the annals of humankind. Learning and teaching about the scope and breadth of what we as a species have done is uplifting and empowering, even when it is sad and hard.
Today, we were at the zoo. I ended up spending as much time watching the people around me as I did the animals in the cages, taking note of their fashion sense, their interactions with others, the loudness or softness of their voices. One woman had no arm--as in, not even her right shoulder was there. She was wearing a tank-top, and that allowed me to see part of her chest tattoo that I couldn't have seen otherwise.
I wondered about her life. I wondered about what she'd had to learn to do--or perhaps, relearn to do--when she lost that arm. I wondered if she lost it at all, and if she'd miss it. I wondered about her tattoos, and why she picked them. There was a woman at Zupas during lunch who, though fully limbed, was exceedingly decorated with tattoos and piercings and short hair and here she was, in the same restaurant with straight-laced me and my gorgeous wife and three nutty children, my quiet, reserved, don't-rock-the-boat mother-in-law, all of us and dozens of others in this narrow strip of a building, eating our chocolate covered strawberries and I wondered what choices had led to which illustration of her skin, confident that there was a story behind every tattoo and most of them were probably kind of stupid or else they were the same as a handful of other tattoo-stories, hardly unique, and I now am wondering if she wishes she had more canvas or if she's content.
Sometimes I try to make eye contact with people who are turning left in front of me while I wait at traffic lights. It's disconcerting when they do, in part because I don't want to cause an accident, but then I'm busy inventing questions and stories about who these people are. I judge them based upon their cars and what they're eating or what they're wearing--benign judgments, I feel (I hope), but, in the broken way of honesty, it should be said that they are judgments nevertheless. I try to match the face of the driver with the type of car they drive, and sometimes it's jarring to see a dude drive a red Geo Prism (which my then-girlfriend, now-wife drove when we were in high school, so the primary association I have with that vehicle is one of a feminine driver).
I look at people and wonder how God keeps us all straight, but then remember how I will sometimes sit and watch my seven-year-old as he innocently, unselfconsciously plays, eats, or thinks his to-him profound thoughts; then I feel closer to God, not because of fatherhood, but because of connection, because of humanity, because it's the gravity that binds my soul to this world, despite its horrors and disappointments.
I guess it's because I like people.
----
* Mormon Sundays are broken into three chunks: First hour is usually sacrament meeting; second hour, Sunday school; third hour, gender-training--Relief Society for the womenfolk and priesthood (broken into different quorums) for the adult males. Every few months there are five Sundays. During that fifth Sunday the adults all gather for a special lesson from the bishop of the ward. This is how my wards tend to work; some are run differently.
This is easy to say in general, because there are some specific humans that I have little respect or appreciation for beyond the simple truth that we're all connected--the beautiful and the despicable. And considering the unflagging pessimism that louers over my heart and the tumultuous sea of depression that too often capsizes me in its troughs, this is no small thing. Indeed, it's the love of people--more than love of self--that keeps me around.
That isn't to say that I am in a perpetual state of desiring suicide--quite the opposite; I don't want this ride on Earth to end, and thinking of "the undiscovered country" propels me through more of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy than is probably healthy and a more-than-white-knuckle-grip on however many numbered breaths I will yet claim. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about leaving the world on my own terms.
I was probably eleven or twelve--possibly younger, I can't remember--when I first considered stepping into traffic, clutching a 101 Dalmatians stuffed animal when I let the cars of 400 East squish me. It was a passing thought, but not the only one.
About three years ago, I self-diagnosed myself with chronic depression, though the liminal symptoms of what mental health issues I suffer from aren't professionally prognosticated. In other, simpler words, I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure that I've got a brain problem, though no one has made it official.
As I've realized the truth about myself, I've become better at expressing that problem to others. Most of my coworkers know--almost all of my students do, too. In that sense, I'm in good company, as I can think of three other teachers at my school who struggle with this same mental monster--and that's the amount I'm aware of. There could be more who don't admit it, don't know it, or don't confess it.
I like them regardless.
In my ward, one of the members gave a fifth Sunday lesson* about her own struggles with depression and how she was in therapy and took medication. It was shockingly, refreshingly honest. Mormon congregations aren't well known for tackling big, thorny issues. Much more of a "focus on the positive and the Lord will sort it all out" kind of approach. So hearing that lesson was good for me to hear, in part because one particular talk from the then-recent October General Conference had left me feeling cold and isolated (which I'm confident was not President Nelson's intent). Any time that people in church talk about how happy they are by living the gospel--in whatever way they do it--I always find myself uncertain of how to understand the sentiment. I think back to some joyful moments in my life and I can comprehend a sense of, say, peace or fulfillment. Maybe satisfaction. But happy?
It can be frustrating to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gain greater insight into the feelings of one's soul through a web comic (complete with swears, depictions of diarrhea, and the word "testicle") than through a fifteen minute talk by a man who one sustains as a mouthpiece of God. Nathless, this is the position I find myself in.
And that's one of the things that I find strange: I'm not a misanthrope. I don't suffer from solipsism. In a less capitalistic way, I'm a philanthropist. It's one of the joys of teaching history for me, despite the darkness in the annals of humankind. Learning and teaching about the scope and breadth of what we as a species have done is uplifting and empowering, even when it is sad and hard.
Today, we were at the zoo. I ended up spending as much time watching the people around me as I did the animals in the cages, taking note of their fashion sense, their interactions with others, the loudness or softness of their voices. One woman had no arm--as in, not even her right shoulder was there. She was wearing a tank-top, and that allowed me to see part of her chest tattoo that I couldn't have seen otherwise.
I wondered about her life. I wondered about what she'd had to learn to do--or perhaps, relearn to do--when she lost that arm. I wondered if she lost it at all, and if she'd miss it. I wondered about her tattoos, and why she picked them. There was a woman at Zupas during lunch who, though fully limbed, was exceedingly decorated with tattoos and piercings and short hair and here she was, in the same restaurant with straight-laced me and my gorgeous wife and three nutty children, my quiet, reserved, don't-rock-the-boat mother-in-law, all of us and dozens of others in this narrow strip of a building, eating our chocolate covered strawberries and I wondered what choices had led to which illustration of her skin, confident that there was a story behind every tattoo and most of them were probably kind of stupid or else they were the same as a handful of other tattoo-stories, hardly unique, and I now am wondering if she wishes she had more canvas or if she's content.
Sometimes I try to make eye contact with people who are turning left in front of me while I wait at traffic lights. It's disconcerting when they do, in part because I don't want to cause an accident, but then I'm busy inventing questions and stories about who these people are. I judge them based upon their cars and what they're eating or what they're wearing--benign judgments, I feel (I hope), but, in the broken way of honesty, it should be said that they are judgments nevertheless. I try to match the face of the driver with the type of car they drive, and sometimes it's jarring to see a dude drive a red Geo Prism (which my then-girlfriend, now-wife drove when we were in high school, so the primary association I have with that vehicle is one of a feminine driver).
I look at people and wonder how God keeps us all straight, but then remember how I will sometimes sit and watch my seven-year-old as he innocently, unselfconsciously plays, eats, or thinks his to-him profound thoughts; then I feel closer to God, not because of fatherhood, but because of connection, because of humanity, because it's the gravity that binds my soul to this world, despite its horrors and disappointments.
I guess it's because I like people.
----
* Mormon Sundays are broken into three chunks: First hour is usually sacrament meeting; second hour, Sunday school; third hour, gender-training--Relief Society for the womenfolk and priesthood (broken into different quorums) for the adult males. Every few months there are five Sundays. During that fifth Sunday the adults all gather for a special lesson from the bishop of the ward. This is how my wards tend to work; some are run differently.