Depression Just Isn't Very Entertaining
The problem with blogs is that try as you may to lie to yourself about how this is your journal for you and you alone, you inevitably end up playing to your audience. The fact is that a journal is a private place for you to go to in your nakedest messiest self; you can't really maintain that in a blog, especially once you've sent the link to your so-called "anonymous" blog to all your silently lurking (that means non-commenting) friends who you forget even read it, but they're there creeping around the edges of your non-anonymous life. The term "online journal", therefore, is quite the oxymoron when you think about it.
Take, oh lets say depression, for example. Depression is probably something you should work through in a journal- something you should write about, especially in those moments where everything seems to sit so heavily on your shoulders and you find yourself searching for something, anything to grasp onto in your dizziness as the world spins by you like you're trapped on a freaky nightmare carousel. The problem is that depression just frankly is not very entertaining or funny. Think about it. How often do you say to yourself "hmmm, I'd like to hang out with so-and-so tonight...they're depressed! Yes! I can't wait!" You don't, because depression is really freaking boring! All depressed people can talk about is how depressed they are, and nobody really wants to hear it. They may feel sympathy, obligation, or guilt, but this does not change the fact that they don't want to hear it; it is not an activity they would intentionally seek out when bored on a Thursday night. Depressed people bore themselves so much with their depression that they get even more depressed - they don't want to hear it either. There's just no way to make "I feel empty" or "I feel lost" or "Today I cried on my computer and pretended I was laughing except I got snot all over my keyboard" something someone wants to read about, no matter how you spin it.
Laughter through tears is interesting; tears alone are narcisistic.
Unfortunately that's a whole lotta what I got these days, and that's the not-so-entertaining but messy naked raw truth of the matter.
Take, oh lets say depression, for example. Depression is probably something you should work through in a journal- something you should write about, especially in those moments where everything seems to sit so heavily on your shoulders and you find yourself searching for something, anything to grasp onto in your dizziness as the world spins by you like you're trapped on a freaky nightmare carousel. The problem is that depression just frankly is not very entertaining or funny. Think about it. How often do you say to yourself "hmmm, I'd like to hang out with so-and-so tonight...they're depressed! Yes! I can't wait!" You don't, because depression is really freaking boring! All depressed people can talk about is how depressed they are, and nobody really wants to hear it. They may feel sympathy, obligation, or guilt, but this does not change the fact that they don't want to hear it; it is not an activity they would intentionally seek out when bored on a Thursday night. Depressed people bore themselves so much with their depression that they get even more depressed - they don't want to hear it either. There's just no way to make "I feel empty" or "I feel lost" or "Today I cried on my computer and pretended I was laughing except I got snot all over my keyboard" something someone wants to read about, no matter how you spin it.
Laughter through tears is interesting; tears alone are narcisistic.
Unfortunately that's a whole lotta what I got these days, and that's the not-so-entertaining but messy naked raw truth of the matter.
posted by Le Synge Bleu at 8:13 PM
7 Comments:
I just stared at this blog entry for the past 15 minutes wondering what I could possibly say that wasn't weird, odd or even a tad bit creepy.
And I suppose it comes down to this: Thanks for being brave, talented and strong enough to share your truest thoughts with a strange and personally ironic at it's best kind of world that is the Internet.
You're a true inspiration.
Best wishes,
AEG
first, i must add to the chorus that you are SO not a fatty. to make it totally selfish, if you are fat, then i should join the circus, and i am right in the middle of being very happy about my body (for the first time in a long while) so therefore, you have every reason to be REALLY happy about yours. not fat. end of discussion. NYC is too thin as a rule. and actors have to worry about their bodies, that's part of the job, so therefore you are not a bad feminist, just a practical actor.
but on to the topic at hand.
i agree with kristoise; we must never forget the value of a handwritten journal. it helps me immensely to clear my head and write down all of the nasty stuff in a place where i can be as self indulgently sad and bad as i wanna be and know that no one will ever read it. it clears out the gunk in a way that something as self-concious as blogging can never do (unless you are as brave and relentlessly self-accepting as vixanne, and that is an advanced yoga move). you are an actor and therefore you naturally desire to please and entertain; you will probably get more release done in private where that pressure is off.
and as far as depressed people being boring, that is true, but kiddo (to quote the queen of psychics and soft rock) "in good times, in bad times, i'll be at your side forever more...that's what friends are for." if i had not been out last night celebrating a fake mexican holiday by drinking bad margaritas, i would have heard your call and listened to any boring depression stuff you wanted to throw at me. and in fact, i plan to call you tonight and offer to do just that. so there.
oh, but i must contradict kristoise on one thing. i think morrissey is too silly for depression. i prefer billie holiday or fiona apple.
I don't know. I was going to say that over 11,000 people read my first blog before I had to move it, and I was definitely depressing. So there must be something that people find fascinating about misery. Maybe it has to be lurid misery. I think depressing and bitchy is much more interesting than depressing and nice.
My feeling is kind of like...what's the point of writing something if no one is going to read it? I could just go stand in front of the bathroom mirror and talk to myself. (Something I do on a fairly frequent basis....)
Cool. I am brave and self-accepting. I just thought I was obsessive and narcissicistic.
Depression is no fun. How come everybody I know is depressed? Oh yeah...maybe cause everybody I know seems to have had something completely fucked up happen to them that has scarred them for life. Except you--Kristoise. I'm not sure how you have avoided this...be careful it's not catching.
And my vote is for Hedwig when depressed.
Syngie- Thanks for the heads up on the Continental flight to Cleveland; however, b/c my co-manager is getting married this weekend, I have to be around Mon. to open up/take care of crap. That's why I'd originally planned on flying out today and returning Sun. nite. But I really appreciate your help. :)
Synge-
Someone once sat with me while I was terribly depressed and drank wine and ate pate and cheese and laughed and reminisced and walked with me in the rain to the subway and made me forget for just a bit how sad I was and how much I had to be happy for not by what she said so much as by what she did. That meant the world to me. I would like to return the favor soon. When?
MAH
Actually, I disagree for a change! Depression sells...just ask that bimbo Elizabeth Wurtzel. Uh, hope she's not a friend of yours...
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