Christmas Blues
In a somewhat unfamiliar turn of events for the past few months, I am feeling sad today, and I do not know why. I don't feel incredibly sad (despairing) or sad and angry (upset). If I had to diagnose it, I'd say it is some mix of sad and bored. The french might call it ennui. Sad.
In one of my favourite books, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, Olga Tokarczuk writes (through Janina: narrator and eccentric protaginist): "I have a theory. It’s that an awful thing has happened—our cerebellum has not been correctly connected to our brain". The result of this is that we cannot understand our own bodies. We feel pain in a vague, only slightly localised sense, and often don't what has caused it. We feel sick and can't tell if it was because we ate something unhealthy, or toxic, or are a victim of a microscopic invador attacking our insides. Later, Olga/Janina continues: "The angels, if they really do exist, must be splitting their sides laughing at us. Fancy being given a body and not knowing anything about it. There’s no instruction manual."
The above sentiment has always struck me as profound. I think about it frequently. Almost every time I feel a mysterious pains around my ribcage that one supposes are just part of the human condition, or when I suddenly feel dizzy out of the blue, or my head is suddenly lashed and bound by headache, I reach for the instruction manual, and I realise it is not there. I curse the angels, or whoever designed our machines, for not giving it to us. I think that knowing why I feel ill, all the time, would be really wonderful. I am lucky to pilot a reasonably healthy body. I would imagine that for many people (the chronically ill, professional athletes, hypochondriacs) the desire for the manual is even greater.
Interestingly, at least to me, Janina fails to expand her theory to encompass the brain's inability to recognise its own pains. When I am sad, as I am right now, I sometimes do not know why. I do not right now.
Sometimes I do know: I was sad when my Grandfather John passed away, and I am made sad by the countless people I see walking and sitting and sleeping around New York, without homes; I was sad watching Hamnet, a new film about Grief.
This is analagous to the Janina's feelings about the body. Often one does know why they are in pain, or are having some sensation. When I stub my toe it may be (literally) bleedingly obvious why my toe hurts. The other night I was offered a shot of whisky with my beer at a bar. Suddenly nausea bubbled through me, I knew where the sensation came from. But there are obviously many cases where the body and its sensations are not so opaque, and this is Janina's problem.
Similarly, often when I feel sad I don't know why. It is like some small clot in the brain has taken root and has decided that it will have its way with me for just a short while, and until it moves on, everything will feel a little heavier. A great mass beneath my personal section of the earth has increased gravity to 1.1x. The machine inside my head is running slower than usual, and, unfortunately, I cannot seem to find the manual to do some troubleshooting.
I agree with Janina, a terrible thing has happened, it has happened to our minds, as well as our bodies. I think that one of the hardest parts of being a person, at least one who is fortunate enough to not have more tangible problems of existence to fight every day, is to try and stop this terrible thing from ruining your life.
When I was younger, I think I might have struggled with depression. I never saw a doctor, so am wary to diagnose myself with anything, but I did see a psychoanalyst. I shared a conversation with my friend Fergus who knows much about analysis. He opined that pyschoanalysis is, at its heart, a way to open ones mind up to the forces and patterns that may affect it, though the forces and patterns may not be opaque to the mind. Fergus explained how the analysist, by retaining a neutral and non-judgemental character, allows the subject to explore the unclear assumptions and desires which are affecting the brain.
In this way pyschoanalysis is a sort of writing of the instruction manual. While the story behind our emotions might be opaque to you, pyschoanalysis could help you begin to understand why they are feeling sad, or at least see the patterns that sometimes underpin their sadness. In theory, a course of pyschoanalysis might help us understand our mind and its mysterious cogs that much better.
It didn't for me. At the time I found pyschoanalysis frustrating. My teenage mind thought that it knew itself perfectly well, and I was confident that I was simply sad because I had something wrong with me, and the something could not be fixed just by talking.
I maintain that my analyst was barking up the wrong tree when she insisted that my lethargy had something to do with my mother's sickness. I don't think that this meant that the analysis was a failure, or a waste. It took me a long time to realise this, but in refuting what my analyst claimed, I was having to look deeper into the mind, and I sort of accidently figured out what was wrong with it. She insisted there was a broken cog in the machine, I insisted there wasn't, or at least it wasn't where she was looking. This forced me to look for the broken cog myself. I stopped doing my course of analysis, and began to excercise more and wake up earlier. I began to feel better. Looking back, I am not sure that these events were unrelated. I am a lot more open than I used to be that things affect my mind which are invisible to me. I am not sure who to thank, but I think my analyst is part of the chorus who lifted me up.
Unfortunately I still feel a bit sad - no doubt the weather (highs of -10℃ in the coming weeks) and homesickness are playing their part. I am going to the opera tonight, so I have to iron my suit and pick a tie. Maybe not wearing the right tie is the cause of my sadness. Who knows. I seem to have misplaced the manual to my machine.
