4.18.2008

It's Friday. There. I've said it.

How many of you will stop reading once I write these words: I have nothing to say?

I suppose what I should write is: I have nothing to say about books, which I am reading or otherwise.

I just haven't been able to focus on reading as of late, particularly fiction. I want a book to grab me by the throat and haul me in, and then I think, no, what I REALLY want is to WRITE a book that grabs others by the throats and hauls them in. And by extension I want to READ such a book so I can get INSPIRED to WRITE such a book.

Circular logic. It's a bitch.

Oh, and this from Litlove. Another take on the Big D.

The depressed, it seems, dream a great deal more than the contented, with the result that they wake in the morning feeling exhausted and so perpetuate a cycle of depression. The situation arises when something happens that impacts on a person’s ability to get their basic needs met. Those who have a pessimistic or introspective disposition then tend to worry about their difficulties, ‘misusing their imagination’ as the authors put it (and the imagination is understood as a powerful tool that can do a great deal of harm when put to the wrong use) and allowing emotionally arousing thoughts to go round and round their heads. The result is ‘catastrophic thinking’, the ability to see the situation only as black or white, which in turn triggers the fight or flight responses, releasing adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream that simply make the situation much worse. At night, the mind attempts to deal with this influx of bad feeling by dreaming, distorting the amount of REM sleep (dream sleep) that the individual has. Too much REM sleep means not enough stage 4 sleep, the point where we heal our bodies and enjoy full, blissful rest. The poor individual wakes feeling exhausted and without motivation, and then, convinced it is not normal to feel this way, start to believe they are flawed and freakish. And so it goes on. Isn’t that interesting? I found that most credible and sensible. The problem, then, can be traced back to the (non) fulfillment of those basic needs that sets the worry off in the first place. The authors suggest that the route back to health is to figure out which need is not being met and to do something about it, as far as is possible. Here, for your information, is a very neat list of the basic needs:

Physical needs include a wholesome diet, exercise, good air to breathe and clean water to drink. Emotional needs include the need for security, to feel one has some control over events, to give and receive attention, to be emotionally connected to others, to have intimate closeness to at least one other person, to have status within one’s family and peer groups, to feel autonomous and competent, and to be ‘stretched’ in what we do (because being physically and/or mentally stretched is what gives meaning and purpose to our lives – a healthy brain is a busy problem-solving brain).


I like the neat list of basic needs. Just another thing to shoot for.

And, tomorrow: I'm going to tackle My Writing Schedule. Enough is enough. Wish me luck.

10 comments:

Andi said...

Writing . . . love . . . we want what we don't have, and then when we do have it, we still want what we can't have - can you tell I'm into Jane Austen lately?

Thanks for the post on depression. I'm about to sleep - and probably dream myself to frustration as I have the past few nights - so at least I have that list that you like so much to guide me past this tomorrow.

Do all writers suffer these things?

Anonymous said...

I love it when you use coarse language. It's such a turn-on. Yeah, baby, yeah!

Rebecca H. said...

I want a book to grab me by the throat too, and I'm just not finding it. It's a stage, I suppose, and we'll both find the right book once again (or write it!).

Pat said...

My image: a sink clogged with guck and it’s filling up, but nothing much going out. When in your state, I have to wait until the sickness passes. I’ve been grabbed by Too Loud A Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal and to inspire my writing Amy Hempel's The Collected Stories. It's my dream to write what I can't find.

Pat http://couragetowrite.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Yay for a writing schedule. I try so hard to stick to one but it seems something always interrupts it - but i do think just generally having goals encourages one to write around the edges of an already busy life.

litlove said...

Believe you me, I understand how that feels. The quest for the right book to accompany writing is a killer. Good luck with it and with your schedule. Just putting the schedule together, with lots of fidget room for the general demands of life, will make you feel better.

LK said...

Andi, LOL!!!! I love what you said about Austen, that cracked me up. Thank you!

Brandon, ooh, baby, you'd be sweating bullets if you'd heard me when my computer crashed this week.

Dorothy, let's make a pact and write about our books when we find them. And we WILL find them! (I might try the new Pulitzer Prize winner...I ran across this college kid who was just cracking up over it...)

Pat, what an image! I can tell you're in the writing mode. I will look up that book. I haven't read Hempel in a loooong time. I didn't even know she had a collection out!

Courtney, girl, we've got to work on this together. It's really difficult, but what else is there, really?

Litlove, thank you! You are an inspiration!

Charlotte said...

I just know you're going to write the book that grabs you by the throat, and when you do, I'm going to read it. Good luck!

margosita said...

How did the writing schedule turn out? It can be such a slippery fish to nail down.

margosita said...
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