Identical images, seen through the same eyes, evoke radically different emotional responses, depending on the viewer’s frame of mind. In once instance, inconsolable sadness emerges at the sight of a photo of Earth from the International Space Station. Another view of the same photo unleashes an overwhelming sense of appreciative awe. Despair versus hope. Anger versus peace. Dozens of other combinations of and contrasts between attitude command enormous degrees of control over what we think, what we feel—what we see.
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Gratitude at finding a shelter from cold, driving rain differs from gratitude for the protection of living in a modest, weather-resistant house. And gratitude for the luxuries of living in a mansion differs from both of them. Circumstances. Context. The spectrum of experience. Perceptions about our encounters with the world depend largely on how our actual situations compare to what could be—either better or worse. Expectations enter into the experience. If a person expects to go through the door into a luxurious mansion but, instead, walks into a one-room home, shattered expectations may color the extent to which gratitude and disappointment do battle in the mind.
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Sadness and depression are different beasts. Sadness is like a piece of fragile pottery that can be broken into smaller pieces that are relatively easy to discard. Depression, though, is more like a piece of solid granite, but one that grows with time. Depression does not readily respond to efforts to break it apart. It almost seems to feed on efforts to change it or destroy it. Sadness, usually, is temporary. Depression, often, is tenacious and relentless. It may begin as a fleeting grey shadow, but it becomes darker and more dense as time passes. And it establishes a nearly indestructible and impenetrable cocoon. Its eradication relies on killing its energy source without sacrificing its host. The same is true of cancer. Cancer is not the source of depression, though. It simply supplies sustenance. For perspective, consider this: to starve someone, you might kill the farmer who provides food. Depression is a complex, labyrinthine process that gnaws away at hope and self-confidence. Sadness is easier to see and to solve.
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It’s damn near 8 a.m. How could I have been sitting at my desk for well over two hours? Time flies when your mind is at the far edge of the universe, trying to return to a place you’ve never been.
