September 27-28: Bored and Depressed, Lulu and Marvin, Love

Marvin, the depressed robot, reappears . . .

Ford could sense it and found it most mysterious--a ship and two policemen seemed to have gone spontaneously dead.  In his experience the Universe simply didn't work like that.

The other three could sense it too, but they could sense the bitter cold even more and hurried back into the Heart of Gold suffering from an acute attack of no curiosity.

Ford stayed, and went to examine the Blagulon ship.  As he walked, he nearly tripped over an inert steel figure lying face down in the cold dust.

"Marvin!" he exclaimed.  "What are you doing?"

"Don't feel you have to take any notice of me, please," came a muffled drone.

"But how are you, metalman?" said Ford.

"Very depressed."

"What's up?"

"I don't know," said Marvin, "I've never been there."

"Why," said Ford, squatting down beside him and shivering, "are you lying face down in the dust?"

"It's a very effective way of being wretched," said Marvin.  "Don't pretend you want to talk to me.  I know you hate me."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do, everybody does.  It's part of the shape of the Universe.  I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me.  Even robots hate me.  If you just ignore me I expect I shall probably go away."

He jacked himself up to his feet and stood resolutely facing the opposite direction.

"That ship hated me," he said dejectedly, indicating the policecraft.

"That ship?" said Ford in sudden excitement.  "What happened to it?  Do you know?"

"It hated me because I talked to it."

"You talked to it?" exclaimed Ford.  "What do you mean you talked to it?"

"Simple.  I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed.  I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it," said Marvin.

"And, what happened?" pressed Ford.

"It committed suicide," said Marvin, and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.

It's pretty difficult dealing with chronic depression.  Yes, even a robot with chronic depression is difficult, even though you can simply deactivate or reprogram it.  It takes a lot of energy to combat the constant barrage of darkness.  Having dealt with my wife's depressive episodes, and dealt with my own depression, I understand both sides of this equation.

At the moment, someone I care about very deeply is dealing with someone who seems to be dealing with depression/anger issues.  (Yes, this is going to be one of those posts where I write in veiled terms and changed names, like a psychiatrist writing a case study for the American Psychiatric Association.  It's not my place to reveal this person, or her personal business, to the virtual world.)  Let's call my person "Lulu," just because I like typing that name.

Now, Lulu has a significant other who is much like Marvin the robot at the moment.  His view of the universe pretty much mirrors Marvin's view.  People (and robots) who are depressed can't help it.  It's all about brain chemistry.  Speaking as a person who has suffered from episodes of depression, I understand where Lulu's significant other is.  Nothing seems bright.  There are brief vacations from the darkness, times with family or friends that make you laugh and forget for a little while.  But, when you return to your normal day, your normal routine, the darkness is always  there waiting for you.

Sometimes, when you're depressed or unhappy, those emotions can mask themselves as dissatisfaction with your significant other.  Because you are feeling inadequate, you find inadequacies with your significant other.  You question their loyalty or love.  Trust becomes difficult.  Remember, all of this exists only in the mind of the depressed person.  Love and loyalty and trust have nothing to do with it.

Lulu has done nothing wrong.  She loves her Marvin very much.  Yet, Lulu is struggling to remain happy and positive around Marvin's constant negativity and self doubt.  These are two really good people who have been committed to each other for several years.  I can't do anything for Lulu but offer love and a open ear, if she wants to talk or vent or complain.  The same goes for Marvin, but he is less likely to open up to me about what he's going through.  Emotionally, he's a little closed off.

So, I offer you my case study:  Lulu and Marvin.  Two people who love each other but are being wedged apart by depression.  More than likely, they will be okay.  Marvin will come out of his depression, as he's done before, and realize all of his perceived trust issues are simply that.  Perceived.  Not real.  The product of his current state of mind.

I'm sending some positive energy out into the universe for them both.  For some sunlight and happiness.  As I've been saying quite a bit over the last few months in this blog, I firmly believe that love always wins.  In the face of depression.  Addiction.  Adult financial or work problems. Teenage hormone problems.  If love guides your actions, it will always win.

But don't take Saint Marty's word for it.  Try it yourself.  Send some love out into the world.  See what happens.

August 15: Rather Be Happy Than Right, Eating Pancakes, Meaningless Relationships

Arthur is having a conversation with Slartibartfast about worry and distress and paranoia . . .

"Maybe.  Who cares?" said Slartibartfast before Arthur got too excited.  "Perhaps I'm old and tired," he continued, "but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.  Look at me:  I design coastlines.  I got an award for Norway."

He rummaged around in a pile of debris and pulled out a large Plexiglas block with his name on it and a model of Norway molded into it.

"Where's the sense in that?" he said.  "None that I've been able to make out.  I've been doing fjords all my life.  For a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award."

He turned it over in his hands with a shrug and tossed it aside carelessly, but not so carelessly that it didn't land on something soft.

"In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent.  And they tell me it's not equatorial enough.  Equatorial!"  He gave a hollow laugh.  "What does it matter?  Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day."

"And are you?"

"No.  That's where it all falls down, of course."

"Pity," said Arthur with sympathy.  "It sounded like quite a good life-style otherwise."

Somewhere on the wall a small white light flashed.

"Come," said Slartibartfast, "you are to meet the mice.  Your arrival on the planet has caused considerable excitement.  It has already been hailed, so I gather, as the third most improbable event in the history of the Universe."

"What were the first two?"

"Oh, probably just coincidences," said Slartibartfast carelessly.  He opened the door and stood waiting for Arthur to follow.

Arthur glanced around him once more, and then down at himself, at the sweaty disheveled clothes he had been lying in the mud in on Thursday morning.

"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style," he muttered to himself.

"I beg your pardon?" asked the old man mildly.

"Oh, nothing," said Arthur, "only joking."

There is one statement in the above passage that strikes me the most, that I've been thinking about for close to five days now.  I've been struggling with it, actually.  It is when Startibartfast states:  " . . . I'd far rather be happy than right any day."  It's a really difficult conundrum.  Happiness over truth.  Happiness over self-respect.  Happiness over morality.  All of these things are rolled into Slartibartfast's tiny proclamation.

Of course, Slartibartfast is neither happy nor right, so he's not really a great gauge.  But the quest for happiness is eternal.  I don't think there's a person reading this post who would choose to be unhappy.  That's a no-brainer.  However, it's the idea of compromising yourself for that happiness that has kept me from finishing this post since Sunday.

Yes, I started writing this little reflection about five days ago, and then I stopped because I didn't really know how to answer the question of happiness versus rightness or uprightness.  I still don't.  I honestly contemplated deleting all of what I've written here and starting over.  I'm tired and alone in a hotel room in Calumet at the moment.  Not really the best time or place to think about a battle between being happy or being right.

It is Thursday morning now.  I fell asleep last night with this post glowing on my laptop screen, still unfinished.  I am no closer to an answer.  I guess I'm wondering if happiness and rightness are mutually exclusive things.  If I do what is right, shouldn't that make me happy?  If I'm happy, doesn't that mean that I'm doing what is right?  Sure there are activities that I could engage in that would give me pleasure but that would be really bad for me and/or the people I love--taking drugs, for example.  Quitting my medical office job.  Eating pancakes for every meal.  But pleasure doesn't always mean that I'm doing the right thing.  Taken to the extreme, pleasure can lead to addiction.

I guess that's the answer that I've been circling for days.  If I'm having fun but hurting myself or people I love, then that's not really happiness.  It's selfishness.  It's putting myself before everything and everyone else.  Sometimes, that's necessary for your health and sanity.  However, a life that is simply a series of selfish acts is pretty meaningless.  It won't lead to fulfillment.  It will lead to loneliness and isolation.  Meaningless relationships.

I know this is pretty deep for eight o'clock in the morning.  But I think I finally got it.  The moments that give me the most happiness are the moments when I do things for other people.  My kids.  My wife.  My friends.  By lifting others up, I lift myself up, as well.  That is true happiness.  That is true rightness.  They don't exist on separate planets.  Yes, there's tough love, where you have to do or say something that, on the surface, appears to be hard, even unfeeling.  That's the tough part.  In the end, though, it's all about trying to help someone you love.  That's the easy part.

I can't choose between happiness and rightness.  I can't separate them.  They are both necessary.  Both important.  In the end, for me, it's all about love.  Sometimes, love is going for a walk at sunset with someone, holding hands and listening to waves on a beach.  Easy.  Other times, love is holding up a mirror and letting a person see their mistakes.  Difficult.

Saint Marty believes, however, that, in the end, love always wins.

July 15: Deep Thought, Bigger and Better, Constancy

More on the stupendous super computer built by the race of hyperintelligent pandimensional beings . . .

Its main console was installed in a specially designed executive office, mounted on an enormous executive desk of finest ultramahogany topped with rich ultrared leather.  The dark carpeting was discretely sumptuous, exotic pot plants and tastefully engraved prints of the principal computer programmers and their families were deployed liberally about the room, and stately windows looked out upon a tree-lined public square.

On the day of the Great On-Turning two soberly dressed programmers with briefcases arrived and were show discretely into the office.  They were aware that this day they would represent their entire race in its greatest moment, but they conducted themselves calmly and quietly as they seated themselves deferentially before the desk, opened their briefcases and took out their leather-bound notebooks.

Their names were Lunkwill and Fook.

For a few moments they sat in respectful silence, then after exchanging a quiet glance with Fook, Lunkwill leaned forward and touched a small black panel.

The subtlest of hums indicated that the massive computer was now in total active mode.  After a pause it spoke to them in a voice rich, resonant and deep.

It said:  "What is this great task for which I, Deep Thought, the second greatest computer in the Universe of Time and Space, have been called into existence?"

Lunkwill and Fook glanced at each other in surprise.

"Your task, O computer . . ." began Fook.

"No, wait a minute, this isn't right," said Lunkwill, worried.  "We distinctly designed this computer to be the greatest one ever and we're not making do with second best.  Deep Thought," he addressed the computer, "are you not as we designed you to be, the greatest, most powerful computer in all time?"

"I described myself as the second greatest," intoned Deep Thought, "and I am."

Another worried look passed between the two programmers.  Lunkwill cleared his throat.

"There must be some mistake," he said, "are you not a greater computer than the Milliard Gargantubrain at Maximegalon which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond?"

"The Milliard Gargantubrain?" said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt.  "A mere abacus--mention it not."

"And are you not," said Fook, leaning anxiously forward, "a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?"

"A five-week sand blizzard?" said Deep Thought haughtily.  "You ask this of me who have contemplated the very vectors of the atoms in the Big Bang itself?  Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."

The two programmers said in uncomfortable silence for a moment.  Then Lunkwill leaned forward again.

"But are you not," he said, "a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve, the Magic and Indefatigable?"

"The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler," said Deep Thought, thoroughly rolling the r's, "could talk off all four legs of an Arcturan Mega-Donkey--but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterward."

"Then what," asked Fook, "is the problem?"

"There is no problem," said Deep Thought with magnificent ringing tones.  "I am simply the second greatest computer in the Universe of Space and Time."

"But the second?" insisted Lunkwill.  "Why do you keep saying the second?  You're surely not thinking of the Multicorticoid Perspicutron Titan Muller, are you?  Or the Pondermatic?  Or the . . ."

Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer's console.

"I spare not a single unit of thought on these cybernetic simpletons!" he boomed.  "I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me."

You can't really argue with Deep Thought's logic here.  If Deep Thought was designed to be the greatest computer in the universe of time and space, eventually Deep Thought will be used to build a better computer.  That's just the way the universe works.  Einstein was the smartest man to ever live.  Then along came Stephen Hawking.  It only makes sense that a smarter someone will come along to displace Stephen Hawking.

Of course, we live in a world of bigger and better.  I remember when the first iPad came out.  Everybody had to have one.  I wanted one.  But they were expensive, and only the really cool people got that first iteration.  Then the iPad 2 came along, knocking the iPad off its pedestal.  Eventually, it was the iPhone, and, every year, there's a newer (not necessarily better) one on the market.  Bigger (or smaller) and better.

That sort of reflects how disposable our society is.  People are never satisfied with what they have.  They're constantly on the lookout for the newest iterations.  Boyfriend 4.0.  Obama 2.0.  The next Harry Potter.  (For the record, Harry Potter will never be displaced.)  Wife 3.0  Stranger Things 3.  The original of anything is never good enough nowadays.  The thinking goes something like this:  if Girlfriend 1.0 is this great, Girlfriend 2.0 is going to be (to use the teenage vernacular of today) fucking awesome.

Of course, that is not the case.  The newest model isn't always the best.  There's something to be said for "classics."  On Saturday, I saw a teenage girl walking down the street.  She was wearing an outfit and hairstyle that was completely out of the '80s, including the teased-out-to-infinity bangs and Flashdance off-the-shoulder sweatshirt.  Take away about three decades, and I could have graduated with her.  Classics are sometimes best.

I'm not saying that all change is bad.  For example, I can't wait for a change in the Presidency of the United States right now.  However, change for the sake of change isn't good.  If you're looking for happiness by buying a new cell phone or trading-in your wife for a younger model, you're going to find yourself completely miserable tomorrow, just like you were completely miserable today and yesterday. 

I prefer constancy.  My wife and I have been through a lot of difficult times, but we are still together because of stubbornness and devotion and love.  I have always believed that, in the end, love wins.  And, quite frankly, I've been in love with my wife since the day we met.  That has never changed, through mental illness, sexual addiction, financial strain, and two kids.  She is my heart, and I don't know if I tell her that enough.

So, tonight, I'm having a dinner date with my wife.  Nothing fancy.  Chicken strips at McDonald's.  It's not about the menu.

Saint Marty hopes everyone has strong, abiding love in their lives this evening.  If you do, count yourself blessed.

June 28: Unable to Speak, Love and Marriage, David Wagoner, "Thoreau and the Toads," New Cartoon

For a moment after this announcement, the Arables and the Zuckermans were unable to speak or move.  Then Avery picked up a handful of straw and threw it high in the air and gave a loud yell.  The straw fluttered down like confetti into Fern's hair.  Mr. Zuckerman hugged Mrs. Zuckerman.  Mr. Arable kissed Mrs. Arable.  Avery kissed Wilbur.  Lurvy shook hands with everybody.  Fern hugged her mother.  Avery hugged Fern.  Mrs. Arable hugged Mrs. Zuckerman.

There's a lot of love going 'round in that paragraph.  Some people may think Charlotte's Web is old-fashioned.  There are no broken families.  Mr. Zuckerman loves Mrs. Zuckerman.  Mr. Arable loves Mrs. Arable.  Avery loves his sister.  There isn't anything really dysfunctional in the story, unless you count Mr. Zuckerman wanting to carve up Wilbur like a, well, Christmas pig.  Aside from this small bump in the road, love wins.

I am going to write about love in this post.  For diabetic readers, you may want to dose yourself with some extra insulin.  You see, I'm a really lucky guy.  Despite all of my shortcomings, I have a woman who really loves me.  Yes, I am a poet.  Translate that statement into "I will never make a ton of money."  Yes, I'm moody at times.  I frequently feel like a failure.  I complain a lot.  Yet, my wife puts up with all of this.  Over and over and over.  She's a wonderful person, and I'm lucky to be able to call her my spouse.

Our marriage has had some rocky times, but we've endured.  In fact, I'd say our relationship is stronger now than the day we said "I do" to each other close to 20 years ago.  Not a lot of people can make that claim.  Love isn't always perfect.  I can vouch for that.  If love is true, however, it can bring light to the darkest times.

I have a poem tonight about love by David Wagoner.  It's about spring and love and mating amphibians.

Saint Marty thinks those things go together like a horse and carriage.

Thoreau and the Toads

by:  David Wagoner

After the spring thaw, their voices ringing
     At dusk would beckon him through the meadow
          to the edge of their pond where, barefoot,
He would wade slowly into the water
     And stand there in the last of light
          To see the mating toads--a hundred or more
In the shallows around him, ignoring him
     Or taking him for another, inflating
          The pale-green bubbles of their throats to call
For buffo terrestris, leaping half out of the pool
     And scrambling to find partners.  The atmosphere
          Would quiver with their harmonic over-
And undertones, with their loud, decent proposals
     Like the sounds of a church potluck, their invocations
          And offertories for disorderly conduct,
With the publishing of their indelicate banns
     And blessings to the needy in their distress
          And benedictions even beyond springtime
To all those of the faith.  And he would see
     Among this communal rapture, there underwater,
          The small gray males lying silent
On the backs of females, holding on
     To their counterparts with every slippery finger
          And toe, both motionless, both gazing
Inward at the Indivisible
     And rising from time to time together
          To the surface only an inch above them
To breathe, then settling again and staring
     With such a consciousness of being
          Common American toads, he would stand beside them,
As content as they were with their medium
     Of exchange, the soles of his feet trembling
          With a resonance he could feel deep in his spine,
Believing this mud could be his altar too,
     And his pulpit, where all of his intentions
          Would be as clear as theirs, as clear as the air
In the chill of the fading light.  He would lift
     His bare feet gently and silently, making scarcely
          A ripple, balancing
Himself onto the grass and, while his brethren
     Like a drunken choir went on
          And on without him, would sit down
Vibrant on the earth and once again struggle
     Into his stockings, into his waterproof boots,
          And straighten and square-not his rawhide laces.

Confessions of Saint Marty