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Minus Its Charms

2023-11-21 · letter vlog · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health (also: Personal life, Philosophy & meaning) · mode: Personal essay · tags: heavy topic, fundraising ask, timely hook

John describes a two-month bout of depression, OCD and anxiety that began amid the TB-test win, cites Susan Sontag's 'melancholy minus its charms', and rejects despair as the whole story: the debt jubilee in memory of Casey McIntyre shows people can help each other and be kind.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John's rough months of OCD, anxiety and depression, begun amid the Danaher TB-test win; treatment, slow improvement and a rainy dawn check

  • ★★★ John says he has had a rough couple of months: his OCD and anxiety have been very high and he has had a lengthy bout of depression. — 00:00:05 · mental disorder
  • ★★ John says the community helped encourage Danaher to lower the price of its tuberculosis tests, which will let 5 million more people be tested for TB every year. — 00:00:16 · Nerdfighteria, tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says the depression started about nine weeks ago amid that good news, yet when it came he felt nothing but dread, a terrible indescribable fear. — 00:00:28
  • ★★ John says the indescribability of the dread is part of the problem, making it hard to share or feel unalone in; he can only approach it by metaphor, like a descending blanket of dread. — 00:00:34
  • ★★ John says in his 20s a naive part of him thought reaching middle age would put all this behind him, and that has not turned out to be the case. — 00:00:57 · mental disorder
  • ★★★ John says that even when he cannot feel it, he understands intellectually that this is temporary and does not tell the full story of being a person in the world. — 00:01:05
  • ★★ John says he knows that if he keeps pursuing treatment, working with his doctor, taking his medicine and moving his body, he will eventually feel different. — 00:01:18 · mental disorder
  • ★★ John thinks he may be starting to get better: the last week has been a little better, which is why he can make a video at all, though there have been many false dawns. (hedged) — 00:01:27
  • ★ Checking on the dawn, John finds it too gray and rainy for a visible dawn, which as a metaphor is a little on the nose. (playful) — 00:01:35

00:01:47 — Sontag's 'melancholy minus its charms': melancholy versus depression, and rejecting despair as the whole story

  • ★★★ John cites Susan Sontag's description of depression as melancholy minus its charms, which he likes because it acknowledges that melancholy has charms. — 00:01:47

    “Susan Sontag described depression as melancholy minus its charms”

  • ★★ John says melancholy, like driving alone at night, is sad but also beautiful, rich and productive; depression steals everything except the sadness and the weight on his chest. — 00:01:55

  • ★ John worries the video will be bad because its subject is, like an off-key piano playing one note of despair over and over. — 00:02:15
  • ★★★ John says he has to reject the idea that despair tells the whole story, because it does not. — 00:02:27

00:02:33 — Casey McIntyre's death and the $50 million medical-debt jubilee in her memory; US health care bankrupts the sick

  • ★★★ John says Casey McIntyre, a young woman he knew a little, has just died of cancer; she was married to his friend Andrew Rose Gregory and worked for years at John's publishing house. — 00:02:33 · cancer
  • ★★ John says that instead of flowers at a memorial, Casey wanted to erase people's medical debts in a debt jubilee. — 00:02:46
  • ★★ John calls it one of the many insanities of the US health care system that so many people are bankrupted just for being sick. — 00:02:53
  • ★★ John says people have raised enough money over the last few days to cancel $50 million of medical debt in Casey's memory. — 00:03:05
  • ★★ John links the debt jubilee in Casey McIntyre's honor for viewers who want to join in donating, calling it a lovely way to remember someone and care for each other. — 00:03:14 · doobly-doo

00:03:21 — The complex story of being a person: we cannot make life fair, but we can help each other and be kind

  • ★★ John admits that sometimes he just hates the world and the hopelessness feels complete. — 00:03:21
  • ★★★ John says people coming together to cancel $50 million of medical debt in memory of a lovely person is, to him, the complex story of being a person. — 00:03:27
  • ★★★ John says we cannot save those we love from suffering or make life fair or just, but we can reach out to and help each other and cancel each other's debts. — 00:03:38
  • ★★ John closes with Philip Larkin: we can be careful of each other and kind while there is still time. — 00:03:49

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Casey McIntyre · depression · medical debt · mental disorder

Also: People: Andrew Gregory · Philip Larkin · Susan Sontag

Organizations: Danaher Corporation

Groups: The Gregory Brothers

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: anxiety disorder · cancer · health care prices in the United States · kindness · melancholia · Middle age · obsessive-compulsive disorder · tuberculosis

Also centred on depression: Perspective · The Sycamore Tree: The Anthropocene Reviewed · taking a break · What Helped Through Depression

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