May 21st, 2018

Yeah, I know I just entered some writing for today, and I have a report to do, but I forgot to mention some things I found out last night.

I was looking up online the notion that some of our greatest leaders and scientists had equally great mental disorders and still carried on: Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Beethoven, Issac Newton. I usually spend time backtracking and confirming this information and it all seems legit. It made me feel better that, even at my small segment of space on this planet, greater men than I had issues under enormous pressure that should have crushed them. Who am I to be such a pussy?

A small list of names are here:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12500/11-historical-geniuses-and-their-possible-mental-disorders

Then, there is this poem about suicide that supposedly Lincoln wrote. Let me know if any of this sounds familiar:

Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.

No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.

Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!

Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never knew;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?

To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.

Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.

Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!

Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!

I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Suicide%27s_Soliloquy

“ To ease me of this power to think,” …. “Will help me to forget”

Depression and what the mind projects into our consciousness have been going on for a very, very VERY long time. Even if Lincoln didn’t write this, SOMEBODY did and we’re talking a couple hundred years back. So, the idea of depression is brought on by the foods we eat is not the issue. For god’s sake, it’s not like they had cola back then or lots of other sugary things.

But there is a consistency. A connecting thread.  Just not sure what it is yet. Or, the thoughts are part of our ‘strength’ as being human and we just don’t know how to control it. What would be the benefit of remembering painful things that torment a man to commit suicide? I have no idea.

I guess I’m saying, maybe … just maybe … we’re looking at how our brains think all wrong and due to the lack of control, we get depressed. A kitchen stove is great for cooking, but if you use it wrong or don’t know how to use it, you will always burn yourself. One thing you can guarantee about humans, we’re never really using our minds for what it was supposed to be used for. Killing others, ourselves and acting like assholes is NOT it.

Here’s to the power of writing: that poem gave us a frozen moment in time we would never have known about.

I hope the things I write here will help others too.