DEPRESSION
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu,
“peacemaking” at pepinsky.blogspot.com
October 30, 2013
A friend of mine in prison has
recently apologized for a recurring episode of depression. This story is for you, dear friend.
It was a warm, sunny day in late
summer 1995. I was sitting on a rock
looking across the fjord toward Oslo.
Jill, Katy and I were returning for a stay with Birgit Brock-Utne and
Gunnar Garbo. As I sat I thought of a
story I had read in an East Asian literature class, where a sage told a prince
that the prince was like any one of the colony of ants marching before
them. I felt so insignificant. I felt so guilty for claiming the salary and
benefits that my birth in white male privilege had given me. I could neither claim credit for any of my
supposed accomplishments, nor do anything of significance to the well-being of
humanity in my lifetime.
At the time, I was singing in
nursing homes, where I met great grandmothers who seemed largely abandoned, as
though Mable’s time singing with me singing with them was the single light of
their days. It came to me that the most
precious commodity to a sense of social security is to feel honestly valued by
so much as another soul (human or superhuman) for what one truly believes and
feels. In day-to-day terms, that means
knowing one has made a significant difference for the better in at least one
other being’s life.
As I write today, thanks to
loving relations like yours and mine, and to the miracle of coming home, my
soul is full with reassurances. I have
reached a state of relaxation and appreciation of living and learning I had
thought unimaginable.
Here’s the thing: The world hasn’t
changed. As I got to telling my
students, I believe that would-be peacemakers like me know violence to be far
wider and deeper than those who practice punishment allow themselves to
imagine, let alone hear.
Bottom line: My friend, you keep
enriching my life, and that’s as good as it gets. Love you, hal
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