"I would continue to survive".

[...]

Anyway, I say, this morning on the radio, I hear that laziness is our genetic and evolutionary condition. That our bodies gravitate towards this, though social conditioning makes us feel that we need to be accomplished, to constantly be accomplishing. I hear that many animals, if you watch them long enough, spend their days wandering around in circles, digesting their food, and sitting still. That ants and bees are like batteries: they are born with a certain amount of energy and if they use it all up early, they die. That many animals, for this reason, rest in order to survive, to ensure longevity.

I have long thought, I tell the counsellor, that if I stood still long enough, I would continue to survive. Not only would I be safe in my own home, I would be conserving my resources. I would be stopping time, slowing down its process, removing my association with it, putting things on hold until I'm ready to deal with them.

"Meanwhile, life happens," says the counsellor.

"Not to me," I say.

"Well then you're making a choice," she says.

Anyway, I say, I've always assumed this of my mother as well. I see her moving in circles, moving the fruit from bowl to bowl, shuffling the same piles of paper around, napping each day to restore energy, for what? To move more piles?

I heard on another radio show, I tell the counsellor, that this is the nature of depression: that unfocussed wandering, that need to sleep, that disinterest in life's business, a feeling of being overwhelmed by life's maintenance, subsumed by sloth.

So now I wonder if depression is not actually the absolutely correct biological response to living in America. If, in our society, the best answer is to nap, to move in circles around one's territory and digest slowly. I mean, there's just so much coming in, so much noise, so much junk mail, I tell the counsellor. I mean, look at Flo, wandering around the house sipping Diet-Rite raspberry soda ever since I introduced her to it, and me, padding around the apartment, while Michael works, feeling dismay at the piles of paperwork on my desk, feeling a strong urge to climb up on my desk and lie down in those piles and nap.

I mean, why are so many people taking Prozac, me and Flo included, if not to counteract some instinctive drive, a drive that is not moving us toward death and inactivity, but, in fact, is moving us toward life--a life of inactivity. Maybe Prozac is a bad idea, I say, maybe it will just wear out my batteries. I think, perhaps, I tell the counsellor, that by napping, my mother is preserving herself, trying to stay alive until the storm passes. I always thought that depression meant giving up, surrendering, but maybe it's a kind of vigil, a keeping of the faith.

"But see, that's the kind of circular thinking that is a symptom of depression," says the counsellor.

"Well, it makes sense to me," I say.

"It's a way to work around the shame you feel at your own inactivity. To give it credence, when really, what you need to do is just get up each morning and begin to move with the world."

I explain to her that the radio show talked about this, too. That the world moves at a pace that has been established by a few--and that those people are feeling particularly guilty about something or they wouldn't be moving so fast. That if you are playing music in a room, and you ask someone to cross that room, she will do so at the pace that has been established by the music. That we move in rhythm with our surroundings. Society moves at the established pace and then tailors all its expectations to it. Perhaps my mother, I suggest, is a renegade in her napping; she's composing a symphony of slumber.

I go on to explain the other things I've learned from the radio show; that many of society's dysfunctions come from our busyness, our frentic movement. That we need to operate in the moment, to wash the dishes when we are washing the dishes. To be with the dishes. "My mother is like that," I tell the counsellor. "She has always been with the dishes."

"Of course she's always been with the dishes," says the counsellor. "Only men who've quit high-paying jobs find dishwashing to be interesting."

"It's true," I say. "These Zen-dishwashing people are always men."

"Sure," says the counsellor. "They have the economic power to make it a lifestyle instead of a chore. How many milligrams do we have you on now?"

[...]

Olson, Shannon. Welcome to My Planet.Viking: Great Britain, 2000. P139-141.

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