Words by Warren

Hello Outside World,

Our Internet went down here at work. And seeing as how we are a web site, this makes it kind of difficult for us to function. SOS. Smoke signals coming your way.

Is this what life was like before the Internet? I can’t remember.

Go iPhone.

There’s no way I’d let Salinger’s death go unnoticed in my life, so I’ve begun to read Franny and Zooey once again. Last time I read it I was but a naive college kid. Let’s see how I view it now. Not that I’m any less naive necessarily. In any case, I should read it again anyway seeing how I claim it’s my favorite book. You ever notice that though? Not in all cases but sometimes you’ll call something your favorite book or movie or song but you won’t revisit it at all. Maybe because you got sick of it.

Millions of people across the country will be parked in front of their TVs today. Will you be one of them?

And please don’t tell me your one of those people who isn’t into football. It’s football! Besides, it’s about social gathering and eating junk food. Consider it the extra holiday after the holidays. Enjoy it!

So I got a haircut yesterday. If you’ve seen me in the past two years, you’ll know that I’ve got this rooster frock, this big silly old overcompensating duncecap of a quaff. Well it had to retire. It was time for a change. And I’m glad.

I used to be really sensitive about my hair. Well who am I kidding? Still am. But not as much. It’s not just hair, like they say. But sometimes it is just hair. I guess it’s that leo side of me that overcares about my mane. That’s if you believe in astrology. I don’t. (astrologists slammed)

I’d post a before and after photo thing, but I was thinking, do I really want to be one of those people? You know, interactive and fun? That doesn’t sound like me.

Speaking of which, how much do you tip your stylists and shampooers? (haha pooers) I usually give four dollars shampoo and around six to stylist. I’ve read that 10% shampoo and 15% stylist is customary. (but how much can you trust those ehow sites?) just go with whatever you feel fit, I say.

Stylists are like the creative and shampooers the manual labor. But yes, stylists have to be artists. You think they have a list of styles they go through whenever people ask them to recommend a style. What if they already went through their list of cool styles that day and you end up getting the mohawk? Not that that’s exactly how it works, but it’d be funny. “sorry I know a style that’d be perfect for you, but I just gave it to someone else.”

A year and a half ago, I was a super emo kid.

Part of my dramatic misadventure through heartbreak included visiting perusing the relationships aisle at barnes and noble, forced encounters with strangers on the street, and even getting drunk at home off my brother’s trifecta of shots  (one of which was a very nasty-tasting ginseng liquor).

One event still sticks out in my mind. It came up in a conversation with an old friend yesterday about things we try to do to move on. You know, sometimes you do out-of-the-ordinary things, in an attempt to symbolize or mark a transitional point in your life. For me, one of these silly markers was the time my brother and I wrote messages in a bottle and through it out to sea, off the rocks at Fort Totten.

We used an old bottle of rum that my brother had downed years ago, saving only one shot. In his drunk and pained eloquence, he had said, “I won’t finish it off the way she finished me off.” So I did it.

In the bottle, we wrote little notes.

His was something like:

After a quarter century of living, I have come to one truth.
That is love.
Always love,
like you’ve never loved before.

Mine was something like:

There are some people you have to know, but don’t want to.
And there are some people you want to know, but don’t have to.
Then there are those select few that you want and have to know
even if they hurt  you and are bad for you.
These are the people who change your life.

And we chucked that bitch out.

So there was this article, “Secondhand Blues,” in the October issue of Psychology Today about how socially contagious depression is among friends, acquaintances and family. Of course, since it’s psychology, it’s your parents’ faults. It’s always your parents.

But seriously, it intrigued me enough to summarize and write about it. It spoke about how parents, depressed ones especially, embed these attitudes into their children. The example given was when children ask, “Why?” This seemingly insignificant question has such staying and shaping power when asked many times a day throughout years of childhood.

It’s more than just “Why?” It’s also “How should I feel about this?” and “How do I cope?” or “What should I expect and how should I react in the future?” With that in mind, if a child asks why his favorite uncle isn’t coming to his birthday party, the child is obviously upset and wants to know if the hurt feelings he has is justified. Moreover, this is the time when he learns how to get over being upset, and how to deal with future similar situations. Therefore, it is much, much better to say “Maybe an emergency came up,” rather than “Maybe he’s mad at us.”

Similarly, say a child gets a bad grade and his depressed parent tells him he probably isn’t smart enough. Without ever mentioning that he should try harder next time or work on it. Take that and multiply over five or seven years and you got yourself a kid who doesn’t believe in himself, or his ability to change outcomes! So yes, this bleek, helpless, low self-esteem worldview eventually kicks in.

Depressed folk have a hard time getting past problems. They tend to be more negative, overreact, reclusive and just downright irrational sometimes. And worse, it can be very contagious. Certainly doesn’t help that they get offended easily and take any form of criticism, good or bad, in a negative or personal way. Case in point, when a friend tries to help someone who is depressed by letting him know that the world isn’t so bad and that he should perhaps join the gym. That depressed person might take offense to this and think the friend is being judgmental.

He’ll then somehow manipulate that into a very gloomy picture of the world, about how people expect things, or how disappointing they can be, and how little they understand him, and finally conclude that there is no reason to try. Yes, it’s outlandish thought process, but that’s how it usually goes. And when these exchanges happen more and more, the not-so-depressed friend starts feeling a little down himself. He eventually stops trying to help his depressed friend because he just won’t budge.

This in turn leads the depressed friend to think he was right about the world and about people. Which in turn leads to more social isolation and more depression.

So what’s the remedy?

According to the article, more social contact. It’s always great to have a positive person(s) on your life. People who no matter how bad a situation gets, recognizes the severity  or triviality (or for me, the absurdity) of the problem, pick a healthy way to cope with it and moves on.

Personally, I’ll keep believing that trying something that ultimately fails is better than not trying at all because you were too afraid.

So my advice is if you have a depressed friend or family member, please stay positive. I know it can get frustrating, but it’s best not to fall into their holes. Keep reminding them that there are solutions to problems, and that they’re rarely ever going to be perfect.

But also, as the article smartly points out, mental health is something that everybody has to maintain, much like a checking account! You can’t simply make one deposit and be set for life. It’s an ongoing thing, staying mentally and emotionally stable. Things will get you down and things will cheer you up, but it’s your job to cope and sort it all out. Remember to talk to friends or family about it.

In any case, that’s my two cents about it.