Forked Path

Several consecutive posts now have charted a steady return to good health. But what does good health actually feel like? I’m wondering if what we imagine as good health, and the reality, actually marry up. I’ve talked before about how we human beings are hard wired for discontentment, how we are striving creatures designed for a harsher world than the one we have created. So as my mood improves and my daily list of engagements starts to look like a fairly regular day, what am I expecting to feel like before I throw off the hospital gown and jump up from my bed shouting “I’m cured!”?

Where does depression end and the human condition begin?

Ups and downs are part of life. I’m not comparing the depths of depression to this ebbing and flowing of mood, but there does come a time when I need to distinguish between the two for myself and say “this is just normal”. Being human isn’t easy, that much is clear. I’ve read and talked about the difficulties that arise from have a ‘new’ brain and ‘old’ brain working alongside each other, how this predicament is fairly unique to humans, and how the old brain instincts and drives find their way into the construction of our societies.

The more I learn about the human brain, its evolution and design, the possibilities it creates and the difficulties it throws up, the more I want to understand. The more I am able to contextualise and understand my behaviours, feelings, drives, the more I am able to choose to go with them, or reject them. This is, I guess, in the absence of scientific knowledge, what our existentialist forefathers were trying to understand. Philosophy, it would appear, is the forerunner for science and it is the destiny of philosophy to be usurped by science. ‘Science’ is a word that generates a reaction in others… as it does in me. I certainly used to think of it as separate to spirituality. I thought science is how we make sense of the ‘hard’ stuff and spirituality is our way of making sense of all the ‘squishy’ stuff that is left over. But the books of science are far from complete, and maybe it is the fault of our education that we see science now as static. Maybe this is why people feel the need to choose between science and spirituality. ‘Knowledge’ is a very concrete word isn’t it, and people feel a bit silly challenging that, or thinking that it might be incomplete. But it is, and that is a good thing.

So, either I am better, or none of us are well. Whichever it is, the world as I see it now presents me with two options. Well, these are the only two options that are visible right now. Maybe you can see others. I can quieten my ‘new’ brain thinking by getting my head down and living a simple life driven by ‘old’ brain animal thinking. Such a life would be close to nature, involve the satisfaction that comes from simpler pleasures, such as surviving, mealtimes and sex to name a few. Such a life would arguably be easier to lead in another country, a less modern country, where living in this way would be in the flow of things. Here, to live like this, would be to swim against the tide. It is easy to understand why some communities feel the need to isolate themselves from the modern world in order to protect their values.

Alternatively, I can accept the tensions that exist, continue to understand them better and use my understanding to steer a path in this life, knowing that I will meet resistance and distraction along the way. Such a life will have me making decisions and life choices that others don’t understand and might even frown upon. It would take integrity and strength to follow such a path, and is made easier when travelled with others.

An option that isn’t open to me is to rejoin the so called ‘rat race’. It is a path that I have tried for a long time and my own personal flaws lead me to self destruct when I travel that way. I’m also not prepared to be a member of the medicated masses, tranquilised into getting by – that is no way to live. So I think I am standing at fork in the road, an interesting place to be, and looking down each path wondering about which one to take…