on depression.

i have studiously tried to avoid ever using the word madness to describe my condition. now and again, the word slips out, but i hate it. madness is too glamorous a term to conver what happens to most who are losing their minds. that word is too exciting, too literary, too interesting in its connotations, to convey the boredom, the slowness, the dreariness, the dampness of depression. madness is delightful to the beholder, scary in its way, but still fun to watch, a sport for spectators and rubberneckers who can't avert their eyes from the awfulness that they know they shouldn't be seeing.

but depression is pure dullness, tedium straight up. depression is, especially these days, an overused term to be sure but never one associated with anything wild, anything about dancing all night with a lampshade on your head and then going hope and killing yourself.