mudblossom's Journal

Existentialism.  As I studied french for eight years, I have read Camus and Sartre in their native tongues.  I can't really tell you much about the content of those great works, other than this grossly simplified summary:  existentialism means that there is really no meaning in this life, but it is not nihilism, because it encourages trying to make up some kind of meaning anyway. 

I'll quote from wikipedia:

"Existentialism is a philosophical movement that posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them... Existentialism generally postulates that the absence of a transcendent force (God) means that the individual is entirely free, and, therefore, ultimately responsible. It is up to humans to create an ethos of personal responsibility outside any branded belief system. In existentialist views, personal articulation of being is the only way to rise above humanity's absurd condition of much suffering and inevitable death."

While I hadn't remembered the atheist thread, and I am no longer an atheist, I do believe that meaning is created by choice.  While under the influence of depression, I can see my ability to make positive meaning is gravely impaired, but my motivation is not.  I still want to think positively, it's just harder.  The best I can do at the moment is to notice negative thoughts and try to soften them or balance them.  I guess that's better than nothing.

I remember times when I have had a much more uplifting philosophy.  I have a lot of things I believe in, or have believed in.  But they seem a distant memory, a faded echo of who I once was.  I feel like a shadow of myself, a two-dimensional person, something like a paper doll.  This is the theft of depression. 

I feel like a cymbalta commercial, but it's true "depression hurts."  BTW, so far no side effects to the slow titration back onto cymbalta.  And also no lab results yet.  Oh, and no money.