Posted for Erik - Blog 6

It seems to be depressing to have depression so closely associated to the creative mind and process. We know very little of how the brain works. We know very little about how the brain works when in a depressive state and we know very little about why some people become depressed and not others. Is depression an altered state all on its own that sends and already heightened mind into overdrive? Maybe depression is a mechanism that allows the mind to tap all of those regions of the brain scientists say we don’t use. Why don’t we use all of our brains anyway? There are very few, if any, instances in nature that present a useless portion of evolution. Our tail bones for instance baffle scientists, but are explained away as the shriveled section of what was once a tail. Useless to us now, as far as we know, but once served what I’m sure was a valuable purpose at some point. So what about our brain? Why is it that they say we don’t use three quarters of it - someone wake up Darwin! I know this isn’t exactly on the topic of the chapter, but depression and, “diseases of the mind” as they put it, have interested me for a long time. Our brains are the most complex “things” we humans know of and it is anyone’s guess as to how certain things affect our brains including the environment we are in, the foods we eat, our genes, or the way we are formed in the womb.

Maybe depression is too broad of a term, one that is just thrown around too easily these days. I read an article recently that said depression in young children is higher now than ever before. Well, that could be true, but when we are talking about altered states and how childhood is basically one long altered state that fizzles out by the onset of puberty, then perhaps these kids are being unfairly slotted into the depression bucket. Although, as the mind experiences more of the world and is exposed to a wider range of emotions, perhaps the thin line that separates or defines the altered state from the reality, becomes more ambiguous or even begins to overlap one another to the point in which a mind can operate in both worlds at the same time or switch back and forth in an instant. Maybe depression is just a label we attached to describe one facet of how the mind appears to go into deep thought, introspection and heightened awareness. Everyone is different and maybe some people just handle their ability to slip in and out of the altered state more efficiently and or less self destructively than others. Something has to explain why we have creative genius without suicidal madness. Acid corrodes the vessel in which it is kept. So maybe the altered state acts as an acid that corrodes the mind that tries to keep it. Maybe we d not use three quarters of our brain for a reason. Maybe nature turned us “off” as a way to protect the human race from itself? Maybe somehow our brains evolved faster than our minds could handle and we are turned off to a great many things? Maybe depression is just what happens when we push deeper into ourselves and deeper into a primeval part of our psyche?