Depression Has Its Positives Too

I find it rather disturbing that we are beginning to treat every aspect of human personality, and even life, as a potential disorder or disease (“New Signs of Hope for the Chronically Depressed,” Dec. 28).

If Hemingway had had Prozac, would he have written his masterpieces? Would we have a Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony if Beethoven had been treated for “chronic depression”? Will it one day be considered an illness to look on the dark side of life, to wish to look under the rug at the mold and mildew that may be growing there?

To digress: I find what triggers the “down” episodes more than anything else is the simple lack of time to enjoy anything.

Society wonders why so many people today are depressed. The answer is simple: Life is an unceasing rush. We rush to get up, rush to get to work, hurry through an ever-lengthening workday, rush to get home, to eat, to get to bed. We even hurry through our sleep. When we set aside an hour or two for leisure activity such as a movie, a pleasant dinner out, a chapter or two in a novel, we look at our watches and say, “Come on. Hurry up. I need to . . .”

My parents’ lives were not like this. I must say emphatically that this way of life is wrong, but like everyone else, I can’t think of an alternative, because I can’t spare the moment to think.

DEBRA L. WILEY

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