Ayi’s Reviews > Reasons to Stay Alive > Status Update

"Remember that the key thing about life on earth is change. Cars rust. Paper yellows. Technology dates. Caterpillars become butterflies. Nights morph into days. Depression lifts."

A key Buddhist symbol is that of the lotus flower. The lotus flower grows in mud at the bottom of a pool, but rises above the murky water and blooms in the clear air, pure and beautiful, before eventually dying. This metaphor for spiritual enlightenment also works as a metaphor for hope and change.

To panic without a reason, that’s madness. To panic with a reason, that’s sanity.

My favorite page

"I find that being grimly aware of mortality can make me steadfastly determined to enjoy life where life can be enjoyed."

Actually, depression can be exacerbated by things being all right externally, because the gulf between what you are feeling and what you are expected to feel becomes larger.

Sometimes this can be terrifying, but it can also be liberating. In a familiar place, your mind focuses solely on itself. There is nothing new it needs to notice about your bedroom. No potential external threats, just internal ones. By forcing yourself into a new physical space, preferably in a different country, you end up inevitably focusing a bit more on the world outside your head.

Had we been through some trauma we didn’t know about? Was the noise and speed of modern life the trauma for our caveman brains? Was I that soft? Or was life a kind of war most people didn’t see?

IT’S HARD TO explain depression to people who haven’t suffered from it.

It is like explaining life on Earth to an alien. The reference points just aren’t there. You have to resort to metaphors.

You are trapped in a tunnel.

You are at the bottom of the ocean.

You are on fire.

"Things aren’t going to get worse. You want to kill yourself. That is as low as it gets. There is only upwards from here."