Depression and Depression

Bill Moyer's had Parker Palmer on his Journal this evening. Palmer is a brilliant spiritual leader who has written many times of the varied forms and ways of spirituality. It was a rich and challenging half hour with Palmer's usual depth and insight.

One part that struck me was when he reflected from his own experience of depression and the current economic situation. I was struck, believe it or not for the first time, by the connection of the two words- the economic and the "clinical/medical."

Here is Palmer's insight:

I don't think it's an accident that we talk about the Great Depression and maybe the impending depression that we're going into economically and about clinical depression.

There's a lot of darkness out there. And there's a lot of lossness. And there's a lot of people feeling that their lives are over. We need to learn to be present to one another in listening ways, in compassionate ways. Do we need to be doing outside work that has to do with repairing a broken economic system and a political system that's in disrepair? Absolutely we do.

But we need to be drawing for that on an inner wisdom that isn't there when it's only fake science that's driving our reconstruction efforts, when it's only an illusion of rationality or an illusion of affluence. We need to penetrate those illusion bubbles. Thoreau said reality is fabulous. And I agree with him. It's a lot more fabulous than illusion because it won't let you down. Reality won't let you down. It is what it is. And we have to learn to deal with it. Because when you're standing on the ground of your own reality, your society's reality, you can fall down, as we do and we will continue to do, and simply get up and dust yourself off. You aren't falling from 100 feet in the air where you're likely to kill yourself.
(Transcript)

I don't believe he meant that a "stimulus package" is necessarily a bad idea. He said we need to repair the system. But in fact, what he was talking about was the whole issue that underlies the problem and that neither Democrats nor Republicans are addressing- the foundational idea of an illusion of reality based on non-stop progress and affluence. Penetrating the bubbles of illusion mean offering a vision of reality that makes sense in these darkening times. The darkness is a spiritual one as much or even more than it is an economic one.

Earlier in the conversation, Palmer had talked about depression and what is needed at those times. He said:

BILL MOYERS: What do you do when you hit bottom?

PARKER PALMER: Well, nothing for quite a while. And people sometimes say depression is like being lost in the dark. My experience is it's more like becoming the dark. You don't have a sense of self any longer with which you can stand back and say, "Oh, I have this disease and it, too, will pass."

The voice of depression takes over. And all you can hear is the darkness which is you. And I think what you learn at that point is a couple things. One is there's huge virtue in simply getting out of bed in the morning, by which I mean learning to value the fact that you can take one step at a time.

The second thing you learn is that you need other people. You don't need their advice. You don't need their fixes and saves. But you need their presence. I sometimes liken standing by someone who is in depression as being like the experience of sitting at the bedside of a dying person because depression is a kind of death, as is addiction and other serious forms of mental illness.

That is part of the thought behind the stimulus package from either side. Democrats see it one way, Republicans another. In the end the spiritual side of all of this is what will be the most successful at keeping us moving. One is the "value of simply getting out of bed" and keeping moving. But doing that alone is not enough. We need each other. We need to be there for those most impacted by the depression. Walking with them in their pain and sharing in whatever ways we can.

It is not an easy plan. Nothing is that really works. Quick fixes and a desire for instant gratification achieves little of value. I fear that by not challenging the illusions of economic dreams of wealth where the rich continue to get richer and poor might as well accept their poverty, we will not discover our depth and hope as people in community with each other.