Tagged: depression
Coming To Amazon This Week – The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor, by Pete Deakon
Simon Pastor believed he had never been hurt before. By the time he found himself in an uncontrolled cycle of hurting his wife, he realized that was not true. He felt his wife had hurt him. Then he hurt her. And hurt her. And hurt her. Finally, he divorced her. But that didn’t stop the hurt.
The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor is an explicit look at innocence and hurt. It is not about innocence lost, but about innocence never had. It is about the most destructive kind of hurt. A shameful tale of his descent into madness, The Divorce and Doom of Simon Pastor offers an unencumbered look into one man’s failed marriage and failed divorce.
I Heard That His Face Was Blue
“I heard that his face was blue.”
“I heard that he still had a faint pulse, so they tried CPR on him for a long time. It’s all about oxygen in the brain. Doesn’t matter if there’s a pulse if the brain’s been deprived of it for that long.”
Any teacher looking toward the boys during the passing period could tell by their enhanced self-awareness that none of them possessed tools capable of handling the news. As if bound by tacit consent, each of them did their part to keep the silence–the sadness–at bay.
“His parents were the first to see him in the tree early this morning. Can you imagine it?” the boy asked, almost forgetting to avoid silence. “Knowing that,” the boy stumbled to resume, “knowing that while you were sleeping in your bed, right outside your window your child was…” the boy couldn’t say it.
“I’ll tell you something. His brother, Josh, is probably the reason I began lifting weights,” another interrupted in an attempt to lighten the mood. Attentive and curious eyes rewarded his move. “Seriously. I remember in gym, in 7th or 8th grade, that a girl was in awe upon, at her request, seeing his flexed bicep. She had such a big smile.”
Their acceptance of a prolonged silence told him they were happy to hear more of this odd revelation.
“Yep. I remember going home and flexing. I was so ashamed. He wasn’t much stronger than me, but compared to the sphere sitting between his elbow and shoulder, mine was like a straw. In that moment, I knew what I had to do if I wanted a girl’s attention.”
They shook their heads in disbelief at his confession, so he continued.
“Of course, if we were to replay the situation today, he’d look puny. On that day the big difference between he and I was that he was flexing incorrectly, his arm bent all the way, while I was already using a more proper pose, arm bent at ninety degrees,” he modeled to an approving audience. Dropping his arm, he concluded, “But she didn’t know any of that. And without her, without that smile, I can’t say for sure that I would’ve ever picked up a weight.”
“Great story man,” one of them voiced, lighting laughter’s fuse.
“Give me a break! It’s just a memory I had,” he answered, smiling as they shuffled off to their classes.
Older Metallica Fans Depressed By Recent Findings
Rock Gods Metallica just became the first band to perform live on all seven continents last week. Adding icing to the cake, they accomplished this enormous feat within the last calendar year. However, the news isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. Without stating its intentions, a private polling organization released survey results which strain credulity, and frankly, are depressing.
736 randomly selected participants, ages 13-25, were given the following information and question: “Metallica just performed on on Antarctica. This means they have performed on all seven continents in 2013. What is a continent?”
- 13% answered “I don’t know”
- 36% answered “Something in space; like an asteroid, I think. Metallica sure is crazy”
- 19% answered “It’s another word for country”
- 32% answered “One of the main landmasses on the globe, usually reckoned as seven in number (Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, North America, Australia and Antarctica).
More surprising than the fact that more participants thought a continent was an off-earth body is that these young people never learned that the longest answer is usually the right one.
Nevertheless, “you can’t keep a good dog down” as they say, and the older Metallica fans are lifting themselves out of these findings’ mild depression by reminding themselves that over the last 22 years Metallica’s Black Album is the “highest-selling record in the U.S., period.”
Review of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s apathetic voice is Conrad’s gift to readers. Through this apathy readers have a defibrillator to use on their hearts, which have slowed to a stop after contemplating the full meaning of the tale. Without this literary device, countless souls would be unable to return to their pleasant state of existence.
Conrad introduces Marlow as the novella opens. Within two pages we discover Marlow has decided to tell an unrequested tale containing an uncommon bleakness that offers no immediate value to the audience. By the end, we are left feeling despondent, depressed, and largely in a state of wonder. We ask ourselves, “If this horror happened to a man such as Kurtz, it surely would happen to little ol’ me. And that being the case, what’s the point of even trying?”
Add to these feelings the fact that the story is only 70-pages, and we find ourselves returning to page one with a singular goal. We long to discover that we overlooked the hope. Returning to page one with this new sense of purpose, we begin to notice that Marlow’s story is preempted by the notion that “the bond of sea…had the effect of making us tolerant of each other’s yarns—and even convictions.” Likewise, Conrad demonstrates his value by creating this tolerance in those of us without this bond.
Marlow’s apathy is palpable throughout the tale—evidenced by his ability to remain a detached observer. During this re-read we notice that this apathy, then, is Conrad’s gift to us. This apathy lights the path which will lead us out of darkness. Conrad doesn’t intend for us to remain in darkness. He wants us to take Marlow’s journey; not believe that we’re Marlow. The key to coming out whole is to remember this–remember that, unlike Marlow, we still care.
****
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Dover, 1990. Print.
Captain’s Log 