person a
very depressed, almost dangerously so, but not quite. fighting very hard, as far as possible, to keep it that way. brain tries to tell p.a. that there is no God, the world makes no sense, give up trying to find Him, etc.. a lot of time spent trying to shut off said brain, or fighting it. the energy to fight very effectivly may not be there, but the desire to and the effort is there.
a quote from The First Man, by Albert Camus
'All that was left was this anguished heart, eager to live, rebelling against the deadly order of the world that had been with him for forty years, and still struggling agaist the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyong, and to discover, discover before dying, discoverat last in order to be, just once to be, for a single second, but forever.'
this is a fairly good (if somewhat dramatized) description of p.a.'s condition, just lacking to energy to strive as fully as wanted and needed. also, p.a. cares. very much so.
what is person a to do? take meds so he/she can become like
person b,
who is not nearly so depressed. more energy, mental capacities better, in many ways. more content with life, more relaxed. risk of suicide practically non-exsistant. many aspects of normal life returned. the problem - no fight. all depth and spiritual fight seems to have gone in p.b., the desire to make God listen. caring seems to have fled. not truly, but sort of. almost as though the superficial layer of life has grown and taken over all of the realness it can(not all of it. one hopes that will never completely be destroyed.) and has thus become reality, much of the time. the thing to do, obviously, is to enjoy and relax in the good things, and try to fight to get that infamous fight back. but -
my friends, which is better? which would you choose? it's not as though person b has turned God away - just forgets about Him through sheer spiritual spinelessness on a regular basis.
and i can't even really say this is me then and me now, as i seem to have taken that verse 'we see through a glass darkly' to a whole new level when it comes to figuring out my life. i dunno. not i dunno and i want to know, but whatthehellidunnoidon'tcare. see the problem? so the point of this paragraph is, don't think of it as me so much as a hypothetical situation that you may be in and what would you do?
i'm gonna go ride bikes with the kids. as in 'dang it gemma, you are only allowed to run into my vehicle, not the neighbours! stu! look where you're going! aren't you glad that car was looking?'