A view of depression

Depression is a way of shutting down feelings in the face of something we feel unable to cope with.

Or an upsurge of unfamiliar feelings or submerged experiences coming to the surface of our consciousness in a way that overwhelms or frightens us.

Mild depression also occurs when we are undergoing inner change. Maybe it's the body's way of slowing us down, taking our focus away from external affairs to aid the change process.

Just a thought.

What a storm!

Two muggy, sticky days. The kind when you step outside and the air comes down on you like a ton of lead. Even if you don't have air conditioning. Then last night all hell broke loose.

Not that I've never been in heavy storms before, but I've never seen anything like this one in this part of Spain. Mostly the wind. A struggle to get the windows shut. I don't know how long it lasted, maybe half an hour or so. About 2 a.m. I went up on the terrace, wrapped in a blanket, and enjoyed the peacefulness.

Last night was supposed to be the height of the annual Perseid meteor shower, but I wasn't into meteor hunting (in other years I've never seen many), and it was still pretty cloudy. So I just listened to the surf, watched airplane lights moving along and thought about all those meteors zipping across the atmosphere up there, oblivious of what's going on down here.

I wonder how many ETs were observing me.

The purpose of life

What is the purpose of life? One of modern man's favorite questions.

But why do we need a purpose in life? Maybe it's because we're incapable of living in the present, so we constantly look back to the past or ahead to the future. Regretting all the mistakes we made in the past or wishing we could be back there because things were so much better then. Hoping things will be better in the future or fearing what awaits us there.

Is this the best we can do with our fantastic brains?

At this point thoughts start coming out in a jumble. Can't write, type or even talk that fast. I feel as if great ideas are taking shape, but then all becomes confusion. Or is it just housecleaning in my mind? Or maybe some spirit, entity, ET, whatever, trying to get through. Channeling, they call it. Oh boy! I'm channeling some grand thoughts from out there somewhere. So isn't everybody doing that these days? It's become a fad.

Bookstores, the Internet, are full of channeled material, mostly from angels lately. (Angels are in at the moment. That should make the Vatican happy.) Or some other entity with a weird name, because there seems to be a compulsion to identify all these outrageous thoughts with somebody/something else. To proclaim our own innocence, maybe. I don't want to be crucified or burned at the stake for speaking truths that nobody wants to hear. That's not me! I'm not responsible for this stuff!

Well, maybe. Or maybe not. If we're all plugged in to some universal One, All That Is, God, or whatever you want to call it, it's all me anyway. There are no boundaries.

What? That makes me part of Saddam Hussein? Vladimir Putin? Muhammar Gaddafi? George W. Bush? No, thanks. But then it also makes me part of Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Marilyn Monroe, Bono, George Clooney, Rigoberta Menchu... Curiously, I seem to be getting more names on the positive side. That's encouraging.

And as I sink into an amorphous blob, having realized I have no identity of my own, I decide it's time to get back to work. Do something concrete. Or plop in front of the TV and watch some reality show to reassure myself that I'm not the only one living in a perpetual dilemma.

So, enough for now. Cut!