“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” 
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

The books don’t mean much to me, but you find gems everywhere. This turned up on the first page of a Google search on “depression quotes.” The books rang a bell from some distant lifetime but the quote seems brand new to me. It’s possible it comes from a later section focused on Merlin but who knows, really. It’s good. It doesn’t really speak to real depression but it’s close enough. There is a key there. Focus outside yourself. “Learn why the world wags and what wags it.” When you’re able to see what wags the world you will see what wags you. You can’t understand yourself independently of everything else. You are the same. Not the same as you, but the same as them. See them and see yourself. Okay?

Tangentially, I was watching a video of crocodiles hatching from their eggs. They don’t ease out so much as burst forth. It’s an act of violence. It speaks to their species and their nature in the animal world. We mammals are somewhat different. Our birth is no less violent but unlike the crocodile the violence is inflicted on us as we’re forced through a space that doesn’t exactly seem made for creatures so otherwise helpless. It seems a wonder to me that any of us survive, but then again, some don’t. There is a percentage that die or are irrevocably damaged. All of us are in a way victimized by the biology of birth though. It is, if we’re lucky, the last violence we’ll ever experience, but that’s not likely. We’re mammals. Pain is what we do. It’s how we roll.

That’s pretty bleak though, isn’t it? I’m not saying it’s the sum total of what we do, but merely that it’s part of our regular repertoire as a species. Even the vegans who will swear by all they hold holy that life is sacred can find some justification somewhere for inflicting some punitive asswhipping on somebody. Most of them aren’t losing a shit ton of sleep over everyone else’s stuff either.

In any event, coming out of depression can be as cataclysmic process as birth itself. It’s rarely a slow, peaceful progression from dark to light or from chaos to peace. I’ve often found that it takes some novelty or event to break through the wall or membrane. It becomes some kind of a survival issue, and lo and behold, there I am in the daylight and things are okay. Or they’re just downright good. Just when I’d resigned myself to the torpor and darkness, the very darkness itself ruptures and shatters and is layed about my feet. It feels like being brand fucking new. I can’t count the times anymore that I’ve been reborn and step out into the day with my head still misshapen from the passage.

Newborn.

This may sound silly to say but it almost makes the hard parts worth it. It feels so light. They are days of weightlessness, not so good that you ever want to go back (odds are you will) but effortless and free.

Reborn.

Resurrected?