Copyright ©1995 by FISHHOOK and Dennis M.
Hammes, all rights reserved. The publication of
this pamphlet by any other agency without express
permission is gauche, and will be sniggered at.
Published in the United States of America by
Scrawlmark Publishing
1016 South Third Street
Moorhead, MN 56560-3355
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Depression.
This year, in the United States alone, episodes of
major depression will kill over 38,000 people. The cause of
death will not be listed as "depression." It will be listed
as "suicide." In every case, it will go unexplained. The
majority of another 380,000 attempted suicides will even go
unreported. (I am not speaking of those who commit suicide
regularly, for the sole purpose of reporting it.) 3.8
million people will not make the attempt, but will think
seriously about it at least once this year. The cause of
all this thanatopsis is one kind or another of depression.
Depression is the most common mental disorder of this
century. Whether it is because times are getting tougher
than we are (which seems not the case), because we are
getting so decadent we cannot live up to the times (which
may seem the case but isn't), or merely because cases that
always existed but suffered in silence and without help, are
finally being reported for treatment (aha), depression
appears to afflict almost an order of magnitude more people
now than formerly. Fortunately, we have, since the late
1950's, the first effective treatments for depression that
we have ever had.
Until early in this century, the depressed patient was
not distinguished from the schizophrenic (both were
afflicted with "dementia praecox"), or from the patient in
the final throes of syphilis. This was more than often
unfortunate, for at that time the treatment for severe
schizophrenia was frontal lobotomy or prefrontal leucotomy,
treatments utterly useless against depression. Some
cultures drilled holes in the skull to let out the demons,
and most people so treated actually survived -- still sick.
That at least some depression might have a clinical
foundation was first indicated by side effects of other
medications given in the treatment of utterly nonmental
disorders. Thus reserpine, used in the treatment of high
blood pressure, was observed to cause severe clinical
depression as well, while ipronazid, once given in the
treatment of tuberculosis, caused severe clinical mania.
The only difference between these side effects and the
clinical disorder is that the side effects were acute, and
disappeared upon withdrawal of the drug. Depression, on the
other hand, is chronic, and returns upon the withdrawal of
specific treatment.
Depression Defined.
During depressive periods there is depressed mood or
loss of interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, usual
activities or pastimes. There will be also three or more of
the following symptoms:
1. insomnia or hypersomnia;
2. low energy or chronic fatigue, but clinical
reasons for this must be eliminated;
3. feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness, self-
reproach, or excessive or inappropriate guilt; in this,
there may be a marked tendency to accept criticism and even
punishment as if deserved, even when in fact they are not.
A potentially-lethal side-effect of low self-esteem is the
chronic belief that one's work is not worth his pay, causing
the sufferer to work for little or nothing, or to quit his
job for that he is unworthy of it, and to take on menial or
no labor, whose wages are insufficient to his needs;
4. decreased effectiveness or productivity at
school, work, or home;
5. decreased attention, concentration, or
ability to think clearly;
6. social withdrawal;
7. loss of interest in or enjoyment of sex;
8. restriction of involvement in pleasurable
activities; guilt over past pleasures;
9. feeling slowed down;
10. less talkative than usual;
11. pessimistic attitude toward the future, or
brooding about past events;
12. tearfulness or crying;
13. poor appetite or significant weight loss when
not dieting, or increased appetite or significant weight
gain;
14. psychomotor agitation or retardation;
15. complaints or evidence of diminished ability to
think or concentrate, such as slowed thinking, or
indecisiveness;
16. recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal ideation,
wishes to be dead, or suicide attempt.
There is a definitive absence of psychotic features
such as delusions, hallucinations, incoherence, or loosening
of associations.
There is a lack of even momentary reaction to usually-
pleasurable circumstances or events. When accompanied by
significant weight loss or anorexia, this stage of
depression used to be called melancholy, and people
occasionally died of it.
Chronic depression often causes feelings of being
abused. These may be a direct result of the depression.
But because depression (of either type) will do almost
anything for a kind word, and because there are many people
who are willing to abuse that willingness to their own ends,
real abuse is also likely.
The feeling of worthlessness associated with chronic
depression is quite satisfied with not being paid for its
work. The feeling of being good enough to help out, that
cannot be had any other way, is payment enough for the
chronically depressed, being one of their few proofs of
self-esteem. This relationship is also subject to severe
use and abuse by certain kinds of people.
Kinds of Depression.
Depression exists in two forms, Clinical Depression,
caused by a chemical imbalance in the body and brain, and
Analytical Depression, caused by information mismanagement.
While Clinical Depression often has a strong residuum of
Analytical Depression, Analytical Depression may be found by
itself. However, they are outwardly indistinguishable, and
may be indistinguishable to the patient. Thus, the first
avenue of treatment for depression is necessarily clinical.
If you believe you have depression, it will be necessary to
see a psychiatrist. If antidepressant drugs appear to do no
good, or not enough good, the residual indication is
Analytical Depression -- and you are going to have to go to
work on yourself, with a little solid help.
Depression is particularly corrosive to self-esteem,
but that corrosion has causes that may be addressed by one,
the other, or both, of drugs and information therapy.
Before 1960, the only treatment available was information
therapy, that of course could have no effect on an imbalance
in brain chemistry. The remarkable thing was not how well
analysis succeeded in these cases, but that it succeeded at
all, and, indeed, even Clinical Depression may be fought to
a draw, and advanced against, by competent information
therapy.
Clinical Depression.
Clinical depression is characterised by depressed
levels of norepinephrine and serotonin in the brain
chemistry. It is a form of information mismanagement in
which potentially good information is distorted toward a
negative result by the machinery of the brain. Conversely,
mania is characterised by elevated levels of norepinephrine
and serotonin. In the bipolar, these levels alternate.
Because serotonin is critical to the mechanism of sleep,
depression is usually accompanied by chronic, severe sleep
disturbance.
In diagnosing clinical depression, Bipolar Disorder
must be eliminated, for the medications effective against
clinical depression are useless in the treatment of the
depression associated with 60% of bipolars, i.e., the two
types have a different metabolism. In addition, treatment
for depression alone may drive a bipolar into mania.
In all its forms, Clinical Depression is charac-
terised by the fact that it responds only to drug therapy.
It is further distinguished into two types, the 75% of cases
that respond to tricyclic antidepressants, and the 25% of
cases that do not. All cases of depression associated with
bipolarity are of the second kind. This usually responds to
monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors.
Analytical Depression.
Analytical depression is that which results from
information mismanagement in which the information itself is
at fault. It is always self-inflicted. The only question
is whether that infliction is accidental or deliberate. It
almost always follows from allowing falsehoods (face it,
lies) into your predication language. Your "predication
language" is the one you use to plan things and carry them
out. It includes perceptions, natural mathematics, and the
process of thinking, but especially memories. Naturally, if
one or more, sometimes even all, of the steps of a plan
are false, the plan won't work. You expected it to announce
to the world (and to yourself) what a great person you are,
and it turns around and calls you a bozo. This failure of
one's own plans is particularly abrasive to self-esteem,
especially if success at the plan is necessary to the self-
image, so that you must keep trying it -- and keep failing.
The consequenses of these failures are enormous.
Because you do not, at first, dare to blame yourself, you
blame the world -- which because of your blame becomes not
worth learning, not worth getting, not worth having, not
worth keeping. Rather than being worth learning, it becomes
only worth belittling: by putting the world lower than
yourself, you are better than something -- and this is the
only way you can achieve the relationship. You do the same
thing to people. But, eventually, you see that other people
are not having these problems, that they and the world are
doing quite well despite your opinions of them, so you blame
yourself all in a lump. At that point, nothing, not just
The Plan, is worth doing or even attempting, because, in
your opinion, you'll only screw it up.
At this point, the only obvious choices are
depression and fantasy.
One of the most appalling fantasies available to any
mind, but particularly enjoyable to the victim of
depression, is devaluation. Most people call this the
put-down. Because the depressed person cannot elevate
himself, whether through the misfortune of Clinical
Depression or the incompe-tence of Analytical Depression, he
seeks to make things "even" by dragging down whatever he
sees as greater or better-off than himself. He has no real
effect on his target, but the damage he does to himself is
immeasurable: it is precisely by learning whatever is
greater than himself that he could fight depression --
successfully. Chronic devaluation is the most common and
severe form of a condition known as Latched Depression.
Latched Depression.
Latched Depression is a severe form of Analytical
Depression. But where ordinary Analytical Depression only
stays with you as long as you hold to information that is
both crucial and false, Latched Depression has taken hold of
your tools against depression to such an extent that it
creates false information which excuses your condition and
denies that you can ever break out of it, "so why bother
to try." In this form of the disorder, you have decided to
take a shortcut, and evaluate information for its worth,
using a degraded self-esteem, before you actually know
what it is. It makes no difference if you reject or alter
the information through resignation, because you believe
yourself to be unworth the effort to learn it, or through
petulance, because you believe the world is not worth
learning. Thus, where Clinical and Analytical Depression
attack past and present worth, Latched Depression attacks
future worth, so that things of value are usually not even
attempted. There being no value, no accomplishment, coming
into the life, depression rules. It is at this point that
Analytical Depression, reinforcing itself into permanence,
mimics Clinical Depression. The difference is that Latched
Analytical Depression does not respond to drug therapy.
Further, its onset is very gradual, such that you don't know
quite when it happened: it seems always to have been around
in one manner or other. The usual result of this
observation is the belief that you are just "built that
way," and "therefore" can't do anything about your
depression. Unfortunately, the popular recognition of
depression still supports this utterly false view.
Clinical, Analytical, and Latched Depression can be fully
treated.
Make a Contract.
The first thing you must do to succeed at fighting
depression is to make a contract with yourself. In it,
you agree that, no matter how bad things get, the fight is
worth it because the world is worth it and your happiness
is worth it. It is worth noting that, to the severely
depressed, these concepts appear to be somewhere between the
unattainable and the ludicrous. You must also agree, not on
faith but as part of the bargain, that your happiness is
possible. Only then can you make a treatment contract with
a physician or analyst.
Treatment is only possible under the roof of these
contracts. No psychiatrist can help you if the first thing
you do when you get out of the office is to break your
contract with him by agreeing with yourself that you and the
world are still lousy. Only your contract with yourself,
rigorously enforced (take yourself by the scruff, if you
have to), can protect your contract with him.
This is not to ask you to believe that your
happiness is possible. That way lies failure: if you are
depressed, you already believe your happiness is
impossible, and nothing exists thus far to shake that
belief, let alone obliterate it. The contract is not to
believe, but to remember, to behave, and to do -- which
are far more powerful.
Above all, contract with yourself to know, and not
to rely on somebody else's opinion of what you know and
who you are. It is extremely depressing for an adult to
be such a dependent. And you always know it.
Do What You Know How to Do.
This simple formula is not so obvious as it sounds
once it has been said. Millions attempt things every day,
that they do not know how to do, usually on the strength
of a belief in heard information. This is the worst source.
The best source is the things you have done, whether they
worked or not.
If you continue trying what you do not know, but only
believe, you will continue to get worse in your attempts.
But if you continue to do what you know, you will get better
-- inevitably -- until what you know tells you something
new.
When you are faced with a problem, do the parts of it
that you know how to do, and the rest will suggest their own
solutions as you work on the first parts. There was little
that made you feel better than being able to say, "Mom, I
did it myself." It's still true.
When you have done something well, do it again, if for
no other reason than that it feels good to do it. Eating
is the exception to this rule, dammit. If you have made
something, make another. The second -- and the tenth -- are
easier than the first, will be better than the first, and
can usually be sold in any of several ways. Nothing makes
you feel better than a little income on the side, because it
is people's way of agreeing with you, where it counts, that
you did it well.
Refuse to Do a Thing Poorly.
If you do a thing poorly, you know it, even if someone
else says otherwise. This knowledge is always depressing.
In many cases, the refusal to do a thing poorly is the
refusal to do it at all, until you have the elbow room to do
it right. Be aware that this is not always possible; some
things must be kludged through out of necessity.
But you can always improve on a kludge: at least you
know enough to be able to do it at all, and the mechanics of
Doing What You Know How To Do will improve your performance.
Keep Raising the Bar.
Do not try to be satisfied with the same level of
doing the same thing every week. You will only bore
yourself to death. This feels a lot like depression, but it
isn't.
If you make things, try to add something that belongs
to it, to the next one. If you are doing something, try to
do it a little better or a little faster each time. When
you reach your limit, con-sider trying something different.
Above all, do not rely on the praise of others, to
tell you that you are doing well, and especially do not
rely on that praise to become greater. Praise wears out,
both on the one getting it and in the one giving it, so that
what was once a glad recognition of achievement has slowly
become the stale recognition of having gone stale.
Just as it is easier to switch crafts than to keep
getting better at a small craft that does not involve an
expression of art, it is easier to change jobs than to be
promoted in a small organisation, or any organisation run by
politics. The depressed cannot politick, because politics
is the art of selling oneself, and the depressed believe
they have nothing to sell. Yes, changing jobs is scary: it
can make you one of the unemployed -- and then you'll take
anything, and be worse off than you started. But if you
find your new job before you say a single thing at the old
one...
Check Your Premises.
Be right, or be sick. If you are not right, you
cannot do; if you cannot do, you have no self-esteem; if you
have no self-esteem, you are depressed, and nothing is
"worth it" because you aren't. So goes the logic, and the
logic is right. And this logic will drive you into the
ground and keep you there. But this logic is not all
there is to the world. It will never let you go by itself,
but the rest of world can make it let you go. But the
world needs your help -- or, rather, needs that you do not
interfere with its help. Is that "necessary" and so-dear
belief about yourself, somebody else, or the world, on which
you rely for an excuse, really true? Or did you swallow
it because somebody, even a lot of people, said it was
marvellous? Or, worse, because you want it that way? Or,
worst, did you swallow it because it was so instantly tasty
the first time you had it? You can waste your whole life
living under the onus of a false belief -- and you will
spend that life hating the world and blaming yourself that
it does not come true.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to be right.
Welcome the World.
Learning is your investment in being. What you do not
learn, you cannot do. What you do not do, you cannot add to
yourself. Everything you leave out of your life diminishes
you -- and a sufficient diminution is depression. Hell, a
"sufficient diminution" is death -- and it often happens to
the depressed. It happened to Ernest Hemingway. It
happened to Sylvia Plath. It happened to Anne Sexton. It
happened to John Berryman. It happened to Kurt Cobain.
There's a whole world out there, and there is no
reason to be wrong about any of it: unlike people, every
part of the world will tell you exactly what it is, with no
fooling. All you need to do is shut up and let it speak its
piece.
Face it, if you insist on fantasies, the world will
insist on slapping them down -- and you along with them.
But if you want what you can have, you will never be
disappointed provided only that you put a little or a lot of
effort into what you want. And, face it, this rational
effort is the only way any of us stay happy.
The world loves those who stroke it, and always gets
even with those who try to kick it (it has a way of not
being actually kicked, anyway). Your condition is yours,
not the world's, and is not the world's fault, either --
even in the case of clinical depression.
Any falsehoods you choose to live with are your own
fault. Not your mother's, not your teachers', not your
church's, not the government's. Because if anybody tells
you a lie, you can figure it out even without knowing the
truth. And you already know this. And you already know
how. All you need is to dare to do it. The only price is a
crippling fantasy. And all that is at stake is your life.
Dare to Dream.
What two things did Gustav Mahler, Abraham Lincoln,
Ludwig van Beethoven, Winston Churchill, Johannes Brahms,
T.S. Eliot, Henry James, and Errol Flynn have in common?
All suffered from clinical depression before there was any
treatment for it -- and all disciplined themselves to
greatness one step at a time despite it.
But in order to become great, you must think great.
As Oscar Hammerstein II wrote, "If you don't have a dream,
how you gonna have a dream come true?" And let the world
help you dream, or it will surely hinder you.
This means that you must start your dreams from the
right end! You must start with what you're given to dream
with, not with what you imagine you'd like. This turns
out to be no restriction at all: world is not only stranger
and more wonderful than we imagine, it is stranger than we
can imagine.
Have a Purpose!
Antonin Artaud writes, "Very little is needed to
destroy a man. He needs only the conviction that his work
is useless." Ayn Rand writes, "There is nothing so
worthless as a human being without purpose." If you have a
purpose and work toward it, then, no matter how small that
purpose, your effort will always have value -- to you,
perchance to others. If you wish to feel a greater value,
and you will, strike a greater purpose. You may even strike
a purpose that will take your entire lifetime, or even
generations.
Purposes may be had anywhere, and with anything.
Cause something to grow. Help something to grow. Build
something up. Cut something down to make way for a greater.
Take something apart to make something better out of it.
Turn junk to magnificence. Make a silk purse out of a sow's
ear -- or whatever you are given to do it with.
But do it.
Develop Spannungsbogen.
The mind can imagine a fantasy in a tenth of a second,
and develop it to its conclusion in ten. But the
nonfulfillment of these ideas will grind you down unless
you develop spannungsbogen, which is the self-imposed
wait between seeing a thing and grabbing for it. Cats have
spannungsbogen; it is what makes them such good hunters.
Dogs don't. Children don't. Adults must.
You must at all times keep pace with your pace,
pushing yourself only a little bit at each step or you will
overreach and fall on your face. You cannot want a thing to
happen faster than it happens, or you will live a life of
chronic disappointment. If you blame yourself for the
failure, the result is depression. If you blame the world
for the failure, the result is petulant ignorance, a chronic
inability to perform, the blaming yourself for the wrong
thing, and more depression.
Spannungsbogen lets the world make the rules, and
chooses only among what it offers for choice; it does not
choose what isn't offered. There is a special case,
however, in which something is not offered -- but you know
you can make it out of what is offered. This is called
"invention." It is in the pursuit of invention that
spannungsbogen is most needed, because a purpose, being
dearer than all other things, most chides you for its not
being fulfilled. You must establish a schedule toward your
purpose, stick to that schedule, and measure your fulfilment
by it.
To reach is to be off balance. You have to know how
to reach, or you will fall down.
Keep Working.
Life is good -- if you make it good. Face it, you
grew up and your mommy won't do it any more. Neither will
anyone else.
Does your house depress you? Clean it up, shape it
up, fix it up, or get another house. Or learn to appreciate
it the way it is. I'll bet it keeps the rain off, the cold
and the neighbors out, and lets you think if you want to
(you should want to). And it's A Place For Your Stuff.
Does your job depress you? Clean it up, shape it up,
fix it up, or get another job. Or learn to appreciate it
the way it is. I was a gas jockey for four years -- while I
studied postdoc-toral psychology with no more responsibility
than to handle $31 million a year.
Does your life depress you? Clean it up, shape it up,
fix it up, or get another life. Or learn to appreciate it
the way it is. I switched from thirteen years of chemistry,
because it was dependent on too many other people, to 26
years of poetry, because it depended only on myself. I was
26, and thought it awfully late to start a new career from
scratch.
Whatever you decide about these things, and whatever
you decide to do about them, keep working. If you stop,
nothing happens because nobody's going to do a thing for
you. If you stop, you're stuck where you were -- and that's
always depressing.
But if you work at it, then, no matter how it comes
out, you can say, "Well, dammit, I tried." And if you
don't you can't.
Weed Your Garden.
Weeds creep into the best of gardens in the best of
years, and starve the crops. Junk creeps into the best of
households with the most of space, and leaves you with the
least of living room. Dandruff creeps under the best of
hair. Mistakes creep into the best of dreams for the best
of reasons, to leave you with trash or poison.
As you do each thing in your life, think about it. Is
it necessary? Can it be done better? In less time? More
cheaply? How might it be improved? What might be added?
Removed? Will it get you what you want? How?
Weed Your Own Garden.
Confucius say, "The trouble with men is this, that
they neglect their own work to weed the gardens of others."
In a time of universal rice farming, this was serious. Each
time you do this, you think there are some most excellent
reasons to do it: your own work does not entertain you any
more, being more of the same, while your neighbor's work,
even if it is exactly the same, is "different"; your own
work does not thank you, but the neighbor thanks you
profusely; you must do your own work alone, but you get to
do your neighbor's work in the company of your neighbor.
Work is not expected to entertain, it is expected to
be enjoyed. Learn to enjoy your own competence at each
stroke and particular. Learn to enjoy that point of things
falling into place and seeming to finish themselves: you
caused it. Learn to enjoy that each stage of completion is
a step toward your purpose, and see to it that it is.
Work does not thank you; it is the project and your
purpose that thank you by their completion. It is not work
that contributes to your self-esteem; it is completion that
does so. Learn to keep purpose in view while you work, and
you will continually feel the satisfaction of moving toward
that purpose with your work.
No one works alone: read Frost's "A Tuft of Flowers."
Your work puts you in the company, not only of all those who
are doing the same sort of work now, but of all those who
have done it in the history of man. All who have done that
work have done it just as you -- and have had every thought
and feeling about it, that you are having. Your work itself
is the company of all those people: talk to them. Learn
something from them.
If none of these things is possible from your work,
change your work. You are not tied to a rice paddy -- and
give thanks for the fact.
Rebuild Your Dreams.
Dreams have a way of being demolished by reality and
by people who don't keep their bargains. Don't ever let a
dream stay demolished. But don't try to rebuild it on the
same ground or out of the same materials. Either alter it
or replace it to account for the facts, or it will collapse
again, and the second time is worse than the first.
No matter what happens, do not make decisions out of
despair. You'll latch. Despair can only decide that the
world, and your dream for it and yourself, cannot be
attained. Once you decide that, all your actions from
then on must prove it. And they will. To you -- and nobody
else. Despair is the loneliest emotion. If you find
yourself having it, seek out a friend, even if that is a
professional "friend." It's one of the things they're for.
Whatever happens, pick up the pieces. If you built
them well, they'll still build something.
Don't Blame the World.
Blame yourself. Usually. You are somthing you can
do something about.
But blame yourself effectively. Don't blanket-blame
your whole self, your whole life, your whole competence.
Blame the one thing that made things go wrong, and fix
it.
If you blame the world, you throw away your toolbox to
happiness, leaving only your naked self and your bare hands.
While some men have started with less, this isn't their
world and you are not one of them, so hang onto the world:
it is your dearest friend.
No, if you are depressed, the world is your dearest
friend. Depressives simply do not feel good enough about
themselves to accept friendship without adding strings:
either they feel it is at least a little phony, or they
think it has ulterior motives. They may accept the
supposed falseness and the motives, but they are sure the
friendship has them. Actually, the falseness and the
motives are their own, and it is the friend who accepts
them. It is attribution that ascribes the depressive's
conditions to his friend.
Inventory!
Santayana remarked, "If a man grow, each day reasserts
the inadequacy of those gone before." Goethe wrote, "The
little vanishes lightly as a wink/ To whom looks on how much
is still left over." Left to itself, that sense of
inadequacy will add up to depression, such that your whole
life can seem inadequate. But the wise man looks at
everything he has, with which to do what he must and what he
wants. And he looks not only at the goal, but at his
progress toward it.
If you have any awards, rub them. But don't wear them
out.
Count and account the things at which you have
succeeded. But don't polish them.
Count and account the things you know how to do, even
if you don't happen to be doing them.
Count and account the things you have with which to do
what you want. They are your investment capital toward your
dream.
Count the obstructions, too; you have to deal with
them; you have to make the payments. This will give you
an accurate estimate of when you can achieve your dream.
But count the obstructions only to deal with them: do not
ever let them become excuses, for then you are only counting
failures, and that's the chief activity of depression. And
count the obstructions you have overcome as battles won.
Give yourself medals.
Count your sins only to get rid of them: no bragging
allowed. Do not wallow in your mistakes as though they
excused anything, because they don't. Mistakes are time
lost forever, and that's not an excuse. You have only so
much time, and you don't know how much that is, so it
behooves you to pause a little to be sure you're right
before you spend that time.
Count your tools, their quality, and their condition:
they are what you have to get the job done. Don't forget to
count yourself, and the fact that you know how to use them.
Count your experience, because it does add up.
Do not become a miser, that is, do not allow the
inventory to become the only reason for keeping it. The
subject of the inventory must have a purpose beyond itself.
Don't count your boobies before they are hatched.
Count your blessings, always. Think you haven't any?
Look, dammit. Under your nose.
Keep a Journal.
A journal is the most excellentest place to keep an
inventory of yourself and what you think and feel. This is
not to be confused with the gossip of a diary, but if you
must, you must. Just make sure you go beyond the day's
gossip each night when you write of yourself.
And write of yourself. You will be surprised (at
first) just how many virtues -- and faults, which are for
correcting -- you can find in yourself, when you can back
off and take a good look at the person who wrote that day's
entry, -- who is no longer yourself. And the more time
between the writing and the reading, the better the look.
Face it, you're the one who has to do the job. So
it behooves you to know what the job is. Your journal will
tell you exactly what it is, even if you don't want to
know. But the information is always there, unlike a
fleeting thought about yourself, in case you decide you do
want to get to work.
And if you have a fleeting thought about yourself,
grab your journal and write it down. That's the only
thing it's there for, and the only way it can do its job.
If you don't have a thought about yourself all day,
sit down with the journal at about the same time each day,
when the day is mostly done and what it brought is mostly
fresh, and write. What you write will take care of
itself.
Above all else, write. Give it a chance to become a
habit, for that's when it works.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
___________
Mr. Hammes is Chair of Psychology at
Fishhook Academy of Natural Philosophy.