Depression, Optimism, and Possibility

I met my supervisor about two weeks ago and her first question was, how are you doing.  I responded, “Tired.”  She laughed and said, “Nothing is new here.”  And she proceed to tell me about how she was doing, that she was thankful for her life, her friends, her fellowship, and her ability to sustain herself even in this hard time with the current economic situation.  For a brief moment it dawn on me that my view on life in general was just pessimistic. Nothing is new here actually when consider my struggle with depression but at the very same there there is just that awareness that even in my depression there is that possibility of optimism if one could be intentional. I felt hopeful. Yet since then it was hard…that possibility did not feel as if it was in my reach. I remember Chuang Tzu and the bird name P’eng. P’eng could rise (be optimistic)  because P’eng traveled to the very darkest dept that few had the courage to go through. I can’t help but wonder if the possibility of optimism remains in the courage to stay in dark places, not stay so that something good can come out of it. But just stay.

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Spirituality and Finiteness

During the past couple of quarters I have been asking students what evokes a sense of spirituality.  Of course the answers are numerous.  However one very consistent theme that has been repeating is a sense of finiteness.  This reminds me of how often my awareness of my finiteness actually generates a sense of peace and calmness.  One of the things that I love to do is to look out into the open sky at night and wait for a sense of awe and wonder at the universality of space, the vastness of time, and the inexpressible greatness of the sky.  Recently it occurs to me that whenever we imagine how finite, how small we are in the sea of the universal vastness, we realize that what we face is  nothing in comparison to that which exists in the universe.  That my problems are small in comparison to so many others existing in the world.  That God permeates all and somewhere deep in our unconscious self is the voice telling us that perhaps we can trust Divinity and we can surrender ourselves to its flow.

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