“Hey, Doctor! Are you there?”
“Yes, Franz. What’s up? Pretty late for you to text. Is everything fine?”
“Yes. I wanted to ask something. Do you have those moments when you don’t really have anything on your mind, yet you want to express something or you want to write something? I am having that moment right now. So I picked up my phone to write something to keep my mind satisfied. I am not even sure what I want to talk about and honestly, I didn’t know if I would send the message. But I did. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Oh, I am too fordone or maybe betwattled with all these questions. Yet my fingers are just scribbling over the keyboard to keep my mind occupied.”
“I understand, Franz. Absolutely do. What you are feeling is perfectly normal! And to answer your question I have those moments, too. Quite often than you might imagine. I am not a good writer as I am a good listener. So I speak out and listen to myself. I will be happy to listen to you, too.”
“Thank you, Doctor. I have started getting those moments quite often recently, and I often live in a state of quandary. Maybe, because a lot of things from my past are revisiting my mind. There are regrets, states of melancholy, and even hidden happiness. I have this constant feeling of discontent, dissatisfaction, dismay, and disappointment. It keeps me awake at night, gives me hallucinations.”
“And what exactly from your past is troubling you?”
“The present from my past is troubling me. It is different from the present I imagined in my past. Maybe because I had a lot of expectations from myself some 12–15 years ago, and I have been unable to achieve anything. I am in a job that I don’t like, surrounded by people who I don’t trust, and living in a country that is full of hate. This is not how I planned my future, sitting in a dark room and writing all of this. Something somewhere did not work out and I am not even sure what! Maybe my predilection towards a perfect and just world was exaggerated. I am afraid of facing an 18-year-old me who had big dreams just before setting out in the real world, who thought that the world is kind and people have compassion with their moral compass in the right direction. But I was wrong.”
“Expectations sometimes can be overrated, Franz. They might not always end up being true and when they don’t, we feel broken. But there is hope for a better world. There is a light at the end of every tunnel. Sometimes that tunnel is long and the wait can be excruciating but we need to hold on.”
“I have been holding on for quite some time, Doc. But the past has started haunting me, not because it was indigent but because it had hope. Today, compared to yesterday, is just worse. Talking about hope, I always hated it. You hope that things will improve, things will get better, you hope that there is a good world out there but when you don’t witness any of that, you become like me, carrying on a nonsensical conversation to keep the mind busy. It made sense why so many philosophers despised the concept of hope. Hope is temporary, hope is evil.”
“I am a propagator of Hope. It can be a very difficult thing to hold on to but there are millions of people who survive on hope. We should converge our energy on things that bring in some positivity to life. For me, watching a thing as simple as a bird spreading its wings to fly high in the sky gives me happiness and hope. You should try, too. Forget your past, it’s over. Focus on what’s ahead.”
“When I try to forget my past and concentrate on my present, I see an evil world burgeoning around me. People are being killed, right-wing terrorism is on the rise, democracies are being compromised, and world hunger is at an all-time high. All these things affect me deeply. I am not sure if this is what depression feels like, but whatever this is, it is tortuous and unendurable. It gives me sleepless nights, even if I do sleep, I would wake like 10 times during the night. I have started hating the company of people and I absolutely hate socializing. Where do I find positivity when I cannot enjoy the company of people and when I cannot admire the beauty of the world? Talking to myself makes me feel content instead of talking to someone else. Somehow I want this to end, there is only a limit a man can take and I fear I am reaching that limit soon.”
“I understand, Franz. The world has always been like this. It has always been this ruthless, people have been killed throughout history, yet the world didn’t stop rotating, we have witnessed scientific developments, technological advancements, and sociological growth which have made our lives a little easier. And all that was possible because some people hoped for a better world and they set out to achieve it. We shouldn’t make ourselves depressed for things we cannot control.”
“I understand your point, Doc. But it is not easy for me to ignore the lives lost to cherish the lives improved. People have been killed throughout history because we have always considered the life of a King more important than the life of a pawn. But I cannot have the same line of thinking for the sake of my conscience. And I am not even sure, Doc, if this is really depression. Even if this is depression, I am afraid I have started getting indifferent to it. If someone hits you at the same spot, every hour of every day, you become inert and you stop feeling anything, maybe that’s what I am going through. An indifferent reaction to depression. But you know what’s worse than your depression? It’s your indifference to it. It kills you every moment, your remorse escalates your depression, and happiness eludes you. But you become so habitual that you become indifferent to it. Once you become indifferent you are incapable of taking any action or decision. You become a coward, a powerless and helpless human. That brings me to an important question. Is life not for everyone?
I believe while I ponder over this question, I would like to keep my phone aside and try doing something else as I cannot write anything beyond this. Thank you, Doc for your time. I will speak to you soon. Good Night.”
“Good Night, Franz. See you soon. Please, take care.”
