Magic Spot Flowing

One of the things that I was concerned about when I wrote my post about depression last September is that I was being too optimistic about the likely future course of my experiences, and I think that’s been borne out in some ways. Late fall and early winter were much more difficult for me than the sunny days of summer — not, I think, because of anything to do with the external weather (though it doesn’t help), but more because of my internal weather, which has turned out to be more like cloudbursts and thunderstorms interspersed with sunshine than the smooth sailing that I hoped it might be. My new focus this year on getting out and doing things, on restorative and positive accomplishments, has helped my perspective, but too much focus on it tends to push my mood around. I can oscillate rapidly between happy and sad, delighted and disappointed, calm and angry.

Recently I’ve realized that I’m pushing myself to be at least generally happy, and that if I don’t achieve that, then I feel that I haven’t achieved my goal. But the opposite of depression isn’t happiness. Happiness is a mood, like sadness: it’s transient, sometimes extremely so. The opposite of depression, for me, is something more like peace: finding a center that can’t be buffeted around, that is constant. Somehow, through internal experience during the last few weeks, I seem to have found that center, a quiet bit of me that’s always accessible. It’s easiest to access when I’m at home, lying quietly in bed, but it’s always there — walking to work, riding my bike, even at work, I can find the warm, open center of my existence. To some extent it feels like another presence, but it’s not distinct from myself. From readings on Buddhism and meditation, I tend to conceptualize it as the part of myself that isn’t my ego, that isn’t involved in thinking and worrying and conceptualizing, that just is, and is wise and loving and open.

I’m surprised that I found it at all, since I’ve never developed a habit of meditating for longer than about five minutes at a time. But like my music teachers used to say, you ought to practice every day, even if it’s only for five minutes. Maybe five minutes, multiplied many times, can be enough.