sonnets and meds

Thanks for posting this. It's hard (at least for me) to write semi inspirational stuff like this without getting sappy, but I think Leonard Nathan does it very well. To tell the truth, I hadn't heard of him before, which probably says more about my ignorance than anything else. I immediately thought of the Shakespearean sonnet shown below, as I think I was meant to.

However, I have to say I'm hoping Nathan is being a little tongue in cheek here. I think a lot of extra people are miserable because they believe, as they've been told, in pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. It's fine if one is equipped with bootstraps, but many of us don't have them, or have very slippery, short ones. Perhaps the poem was written when Valium was among the best options for boostrap substitutes (I'm not sure this is the right function for bensodiazepines anyway), but things have changed. I don't think sadness is just some kind of spiritual experience that garners us good karma and wisdom, at least not if it's a constant condition that prevents us from fully exercising our talents or experiencing life fully. In fact, rather than granting wisdom, it may turn one into an isolated fount of dyspepsia*. This new ability to sometimes lighten our burden in a relatively easy and quick way certainly brings some difficulties with it, though. What are we to think of disposition, moral strength, character and so on when we can no longer easily separate them from biology? However, if this problem is the shadow cast by the new ability, I don't think the answer is to blow out the lamp!


*Was just reading things I wrote in the house book when I was going to college 25 years ago. I think all of us in the house would have voted for dosing me with Prozac at the time, had it been available and had we known its capabilities. It's remarkable that I was not defenestrated. Not a wise risk to run in a house with 5 stories. And not for nothing was I known as N.O.T. (nasty old troll).

len
someone should tap me for maple sap, if their kitchen doesn't have wallpaper on the ceiling

Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

Shakespeare

xxxxx wrote:

Poem: "Ragged Sonnet: When in a Deep Depression" by Leonard Nathan. Used with permission of the poet.

Ragged Sonnet: When in a Deep Depression

When in a deep depression of the self,
I see on every side, on every hill,
like the lit mansions of the rich, success
of others, hear the echoes loudly praise
my rivals, feel my plodding soles sink deeper
in the cold ashes of hope, and feel
the tepid drizzle of self-pity stain
my cheeks, I think of you, dear friend, who scorned
the Valium prescribed because you thought
sadness was our wise companion, shadow
of later years and not good to deny;
and then, my heart, all but reconciled
to gravity, like a wing evolved for such
short flights, beats up again. But not too high.