Play Misty for Me

Everyone experiences situational depression. Conflict. Unresolved resentments. Sometimes it really is just the humidity. Having a bad day. You either accept the situation or change it. Regardless, it always ends. It is not clinical. Professional help and medicine are seldom required. What you are experiencing is neither clinical nor situational. Sadness descends upon you like mist. By no means pleasant it isn’t debilitating either. You can see through it. You can operate heavy machinery. You probably won’t drink over it.

Many people insist on finding a culprit for their misery: someone or something to blame. The world is filled with people making this mistake. One feels like shit because of a spouse, a boss, a relative, a neighbor, the President of the United States. You know better than to assign blame for melancholy. Yes. You’d like to make the blues situational. Then you could rectify the situation or be its victim. For years, you were the blindfolded child swinging madly for a target. Creating situations to meet your depression was understandable… and also idiotic.

You now have healthy ways to mitigate woe. AA taught. Others you picked up all by yourself. Be of service. Go for a run. Pray. Basically, do anything but wallow in it. You cannot think your way out of depression. If anything, thinking caused it. In the wild, animals do not get depressed because they do not sit around thinking. Food and shelter is their constant priority, their only priority. Put a bear in a zoo and it becomes depressed, anxiously pacing back and forth, sullen and surly. Domesticated, it turns neurotic.

Your mother was (and maybe still) clinically depressed. She has spent her whole life (and so yours) dealing with this problem. You read somewhere that far more women are clinically depressed than men. Maybe that’s because historically women have been domesticated more than men, anxiously pacing back and forth in their kitchens, sullen and surly in equal measures.

To be Continued.

Mist

Everyone experiences situational depression. Conflict. Unresolved resentments. Sometimes it really is just the humidity. Having a bad day. You either accept the situation or change it. Regardless, it always ends. It is not clinical. Professional help and medicine are seldom required. What you are experiencing is neither clinical nor situational. Sadness descends upon you like mist. By no means pleasant it isn’t debilitating either. You can see through it. You can operate heavy machinery. You probably won’t drink over it.

Many people insist on finding a culprit for their misery: someone or something to blame. The world is filled with people making this mistake. One feels like shit because of a spouse, a boss, a relative, a neighbor, the President of the United States. You know better than to assign blame for melancholy. Yes. You’d like to make the blues situational. Then you could rectify the situation or be its victim. For years, you were the blindfolded child swinging madly for a target. Creating situations to meet your depression was understandable… and also idiotic.

You now have healthy ways to mitigate woe. AA taught. Others you picked up all by yourself. Be of service. Go for a run. Pray. Basically, do anything but wallow in it. You cannot think your way out of depression. If anything, thinking caused it. In the wild, animals do not get depressed because they do not sit around thinking. Food and shelter is their constant priority, their only priority. Put a bear in a zoo and it becomes depressed, anxiously pacing back and forth, sullen and surly. Domesticated, it turns neurotic.

Your mother was (and maybe still is) clinically depressed. She has spent her whole life (and so yours) dealing with this problem. You read somewhere that far more women are clinically depressed than men. Maybe that’s because historically women have been domesticated more than men, anxiously pacing back and forth in their kitchens, sullen and surly in equal measures.

This too shall pass your mother liked to say, even if she didn’t believe it. But she was right. Mist or fog, it evaporates. At times you embrace sadness, its depth and gravitas. But like an old friend he can overstay his welcome. Then you have to wait him out. Drag him along on your errands. Enduring his sourpuss and cynicism. Sometimes, you might ditch him on a hike. He couldn’t keep up in the gym either. If those things failed, you brought him to a meeting, tossing him center circle with everyone else’s shit.

Relief comes. And when it does you embrace it. Sing its song for as long as you can, feel your body electrified by it. Such joy is a blessing. And fleeting. A feminine spirit, she does as she pleases. An ephemeral pink cloud, you keep the window open for her.

You do miss the excitability of grandiosity. But ridding this was a fair price to pay for the leveling of valleys. Roller coasters are thrilling but no way to live. Soberly, you tread flat terrain.

But still…

There is the matter of your lesser addictions. Gluttony. Lust. It’s paradoxical, leaning in to them while turning away. You cannot resist the siren’s song.

(Author’s note: This is a small section from an autobiographical novel I have been writing for some time. Would you like to read more? Or maybe there is something I can help you write?)

Reflecting on the death of BMW’s Chief Marketing Officer, Jack Pitney.

The Chief Marketing Officer of BMW, Jack Pitney was killed the other day trying to remove a stump from his property. Something terrible happened and he died, crushed by his tractor. Jack was 47 years old. He leaves behind a wife and five children. If there is a more sorrowful story in today’s news I don’t want to hear it. (The story in AdAge)

Jack Pitney was also behind BMW’s newest advertising campaign called “Joy.” Apparently “the ultimate driving machine” yearned to put some humanity in their brand. Instead of just being a precision instrument, the agency, GSDM and the venerable German car company wanted to lighten things up. Recent communications likened driving these marvelous cars as an ode to joy.

From their anthem (posted above) the announcer states:

We realized a long time ago that what you make people feel is just as important as what you make. And at BMW, we don’t just make cars we make Joy.

Supers read: “Joy is youth,” “Joy is defiant,” “Joy was here.”

And now the architect for this campaign is dead. Presumably he died doing something he loved, both at home (working on his farm) and at the office, helping create work for one of the most famous automobiles on earth.

It’s unlikely the eulogy at his funeral will be about advertising. Nor should it be. He was a family man cut down in his prime. Grieving loved ones will want to know why this man is gone and some semblance of where he is going. They will seek comfort that advertising cannot provide. His goodness as a father, husband and man is what the priest (or whomever) will talk about.

Yet, I cannot help but reflect on the work. Because it was an ode to joy and joy is penultimate. Watch the commercial. Look at the older gentleman driving his convertible. He is happy, joyous and free. The car has given him this great gift and we are told it can give it to us too!

Did BMW make Jack Pitney happy, joyous and free? I didn’t know the man but I’m guessing that yes maybe it did. Look at the above commercial. It’s uplifting. It’s beautiful. Whether you agree with the strategy or not, does it not look like a film made by happy people?

Maybe they should play it at his funeral. The man died doing something he loved. And here is proof. “Joy was here.”