Infinte Jest, or not, depression is dumb.
David Foster Wallace hung himself at home this past weekend, and left his dangling body for his wife to find when she got home. What a sweetie.
I was shocked because he was one of my favorite contemporary writers. He was successful and had a good job as a writing professor. I have read almost everything he has written. I always get weirded out when really successful people succumb to their own dumb depressions. Not that these people owe the public all of their potential art before they die deaths that can only be by natural causes. But because it sort of reminds me that major depression most of all is a complete loss of perspective, and is basically complete self-absorption to the point of just throwing it all away. Depression is dumb, and I am guilty of being dumb when I am depressed.
But I would never ever kill myself. Because whatever your personal circumstance is, there will always be people that will notice and care and be sad about you dying, and end up remembering you not as an awesome writer, or even as an awesome person, but just as a complete jerk overwhelmed by selfishness.
JERK.
I was shocked because he was one of my favorite contemporary writers. He was successful and had a good job as a writing professor. I have read almost everything he has written. I always get weirded out when really successful people succumb to their own dumb depressions. Not that these people owe the public all of their potential art before they die deaths that can only be by natural causes. But because it sort of reminds me that major depression most of all is a complete loss of perspective, and is basically complete self-absorption to the point of just throwing it all away. Depression is dumb, and I am guilty of being dumb when I am depressed.
But I would never ever kill myself. Because whatever your personal circumstance is, there will always be people that will notice and care and be sad about you dying, and end up remembering you not as an awesome writer, or even as an awesome person, but just as a complete jerk overwhelmed by selfishness.
JERK.