A Study in Depression

This sickness has been an education in depression and hope and the weakness of cognition.

I got a cold. It was a few weeks ago. Colds in the Northwest last for, like, 18 weeks. They’re oily residues that stick to everything.

Whatevs, I got better. For three days I breathed free and easy. Then I got the flu.

It’s been a good few years since I had the flu. Fuck the flu. The flu are assholes. At least it’s only at its worst for a couple days. Then it does that residue thing too, sticking around for several days.

The asshole is still sticking around. I’m dealing with the rattly head thing and snot, lots of snot, too much snot, really.

Ok, let’s talk about what these assholes do to my brain thoughts. Want to know what I’m like? I’m like this dog:

I’m a golden retriever—I love you, I dance and lol and frolic. I enthuse and brighten and dream and think and lick, lots and lots of licking, too much licking, really.

My mind works quick and fun, that’s what I’m like. That quality defines a good deal of me to others and to myself as well.

But when I’m sick, the sick residue makes everything stick, makes me slow and lonely and empty in my brain. I don’t get thoughts. I don’t frolic. And I definitely don’t lick.

When I’m sick I get down, I start thinking shitty, sticky thoughts. Clearly nothing I’ve been planning will work out. Clearly that other guy is doing everything better than me and I should just quit now. Clearly there’s no point in following through on those decisions I made for my career recently, I’m no good at that stuff. Clearly I’ll have to settle the rest of my life on mediocrity and my son will look at me with pity and resentment when he grows.

Clearly.

That’s what it’s like. It’s all so clear when I’m sick. So clearly failing. So clearly pointless. So clearly without hope.

So, here’s me: this frolicking, excited, inspired young man. And then here’s me when I’m sick: this bleak, dense, frowning depressed guy.

I would like to have control over these thoughts but they come unbidden, in both camps—when I’m healthy and when I’m sick.

Here’s the rub: I’ve still got work to do, even when I’m sick. Even when my mind and mood are constantly shitting on whatever I’m working on I have to try to make some progress. And boy oh boy is that a lesson.

So I’ve made it a practice to remind myself that I’m just dealing with a little depression right now, my physiology is reinforcing it and acting like a shit head, so just do the best you can and stick it out. The project will look totally different in a few days when you’ve got healthy eyes again.

It all makes me feel like a crazy person. I had to put this piece of writing down a few times for this reason. I want to be a golden retriever again.

The Flu Are Assholes™

Annie Dillard on Spending it All

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all. Shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

Annie Dillard

Using Apple’s Keynote instead of PhotoShop design mock-ups

A list of reasons why the team at EdenSpiekermann use Keynote instead of PhotoShop for all the heavy lifting in their design process:

  1. Ease and spread of use
  2. Flexibility and non-destructive editing
  3. Clever grid lines
  4. Animations for prototyping
  5. Libraries/third party add-ons

This is interesting to me. I would never have guessed. I’ve used Keynote enough to be skeptical, though I’d like to give it a try.

If you think about it more as an intelligent wireframe it starts to make sense. Wireframes are so important and never all that helpful—when the client sees colors and pixels and images and layout that’s when they start to get interested/concerned. So keynote may be a good way to bridge the gap between grey boxes and final designs.

Designing in Keynote resources

Very cool list of resources, videos, etc, on designing with Keynote: Keynote Kung Fu.

Pixar screenwriter reveals building blocks of story

In this Ted talk Andrew Stanton, screenwriter at Pixar, gives us the building blocks of story. He doesn’t lay out these thoughts in a list, but it kind of makes sense to display these elements that way.

  • Story telling is joke telling. Knowing your punchline, your ending. Orchestrating everything from first to last towards a singular goal.
  • Make me care—emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically… whatever. I know what it means to not care. Make me care.
  • A well told promise is like a rock being pulled back in a sling shot, getting ready to propel you forward, through the story, to the end.
  • Don’t give the audience 4, give them 2 + 2. The audience actually wants to work for their meal, they just don’t want to know that they’re doing it. The elements you provide and where you place them are crucial. It’s the invisible force that holds our attention to a story.
  • All well drawn characters have a spine, an inner motor, a dominant unconscious goal they’re striving for, an itch that they can’t scratch. Michael Corleone wanted to impress his dad. Wall•e wanted to find the beauty.
  • Change is fundamental in story. If things go static stories die because life is never static. “Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” Have you created honest struggle/conflict between characters/themselves? Will Dory remember what Nemo’s dad told her? Will they ever actually find Nemo??
  • Storytelling has guidelines not hard and fast rules.
  • A story should have a theme. Laurence of Arabia’s is “who are you?” Everything he does is an attempt to figure that out.
  • The magic ingredient: can you invoke wonder. The best stories infuse wonder.
  • Use what you know, capture a truth from your experience, express values you feel deep down in your core.

Listen to the podcast, get the Matterful Monthly and enter to win free gear.