Two years ago the school psychologist diagnosed me with clinical depression. I started crying one day at school and the teacher sent me to the psychologist, who gave me a simple multiple choice test. The questions very general: Do you cry a lot? Do you do things slowly? Does your future seem hopeless? Do you feel tired? Do you feel sad? Do you have difficulty making decisions? Do you feel lifeless? Have you lost weight? Are you fidgety? I answered yes to all these questions. With that, I acquired the label of “clinically depressed” person. I tried many things: talking to counselors, talking to my family, immersing myself in church activities, but regardless, I still cried every once in a while. No matter what I did, just felt blue sometimes. It was frustrating. I hated having that label. It grouped me with “those” people. Those “emo” people. You know the ones--the cutters, the druggies, the ones who dress in all black, and listen to bands like Evanescence.
The problem with American culture, is that we stigmatize negative emotions, and we want everyone to be happy. If you aren’t happy, then something is WRONG with you. It’s even in our Declaration of Independence. We changed the original phrase when listing the unalienable rights of man as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness instead of life liberty and property. I take issue with that attitude. If I’ve learned one thing from my struggle, it’s that it’s good to be melancholy. We owe much of human progress to melancholy people. Just think back to the stone age—while all the healthy men were out hunting, the melancholy man stayed home in his cave, lonely trying to figure out how to communicate with his fellow man. We need melancholy people in the world. In his book, Against Happiness, Eric Wilson writes that culture as we know it “ might have never arisen from simple killing and eating. “ In addition, “the scientifically proved relationship between genius and depression suggests that majority of our cultural innovators, have grounded their originality in the melancholy mood” (Wilson). When we have a nervous breakdown, or find ourselves simply bored with life’s routine, we have what Wilson calls a “melancholy fit”(Wilson), and we face a decision: escape the melancholy by filling our external lives with more work, hobbies, addictions, or antidepressants, OR embrace the melancholy head on as an opportunity to take a closer look at life. Our American culture tells us to escape, but when we embrace our melancholy, we see the world through searching eyes. We open our minds to new possibilities. We are summoned to be creative(Wilson). One well known example of a melancholic-creative is Lewis Black. For those of you who haven’t heard of him, he’s this bitter old geezer turned polemic standup comedic genius. His social commentary is biting, yet sincere and humorous. A dark character, most of his jokes are about what he hates about society, yet his criticism comes from a deep love for our country. His are jokes similar to the annoyingly critical nagging of a loving mother. The darker side of his personality fuels his creativity into a positive product.
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Although suffering people have certainly contributed much to the world, I would never tell a depressed person, "Oh well, we need depressed people in the world." No one should have to experience the sort of suffering a severely depressed person does. All those wonderful artists, writers, etc who suffered and created great things from that - think how much MORE they could've done if they hadn't been so depressed, if they had motivation, if they enjoyed their work, if they lived long, etc.