I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until I get up about noon. Then it's time for my nap. It's 3pm now and I'm wide awake. I just returned from a visit to the dermatologist. Every time I go there, he zaps me with a spray of I believe...dry ice...or something similar. Then he injects my arm in a couple of places with a numbing solution and proceeds to follow that with an instrument on my arm that produces the smell of smoke...and then I actually see the smoke. Then he sends me the bill. I think when I grow up I would like to be a dermatologist. But rather than the dermatologist, Rhoda thinks I need to see a shrink because she believes I'm depressed.
Well, I told her, I don't think I am depressed. Just because I sleep late, wear the same clothes, rarely smile (what's funny?), have no appetite, can't walk or play golf, ran out of goals, have PTSD, and etc. Does that mean I'm depressed? Hardly. I actually feel blessed. I've had a very active and fulfilling life...with more to come; I have a wonderful wife (for the second time)...and 25 years with each; I have four great children and they have four great children; I have a few bucks in the bank; I have a computer and we have bonded (like with a pet); I have a car which has served to carry me wherever I want to go for the past eight years; a condo all paid for; two published books; and I have come to grips with my religion--I am Jewish; but like Baruch Spinoza, I could 
be "excommunicated" for my beliefs which fall outside the teachings of the Bible, of the Talmud, of the New Testament and of orthodox Judaism. I am not an atheist nor an agnostic. Is God a person? Not in any "human" sense of the word; not of the male or female gender; not an entity that sees, hears, observes, wills, etc. Like Spinoza, I am of the "pantheistic" persuasion. I believe in a God that exists in all of nature, in all of the laws and causes of the Universe and in all mind and matter of all who exist in time and space. This is the deity I worship. Everything that happens in this world is pre-determined. We have no say. We have no "free will" and there is no such thing as "good" and "bad" but thinking makes it so. The moving finger writes, and "...having writ, moves on." This is basically a part of the philosophy of Thoreau, of George Eliot, of Wordsworth, and of Spinoza; and I guess another part is to save his shekels by not getting a haircut. Well, I will be going to the VA next week and I'll ask Dr. Sayas if she thinks I'm depressed. What about you?
be "excommunicated" for my beliefs which fall outside the teachings of the Bible, of the Talmud, of the New Testament and of orthodox Judaism. I am not an atheist nor an agnostic. Is God a person? Not in any "human" sense of the word; not of the male or female gender; not an entity that sees, hears, observes, wills, etc. Like Spinoza, I am of the "pantheistic" persuasion. I believe in a God that exists in all of nature, in all of the laws and causes of the Universe and in all mind and matter of all who exist in time and space. This is the deity I worship. Everything that happens in this world is pre-determined. We have no say. We have no "free will" and there is no such thing as "good" and "bad" but thinking makes it so. The moving finger writes, and "...having writ, moves on." This is basically a part of the philosophy of Thoreau, of George Eliot, of Wordsworth, and of Spinoza; and I guess another part is to save his shekels by not getting a haircut. Well, I will be going to the VA next week and I'll ask Dr. Sayas if she thinks I'm depressed. What about you?
1 comment:
Just because a person is clinically depressed doesn't necessarily mean there is no reason for that person to be depressed.
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