River: Things Fall Apart

[mdlbear]

I had a lot of trouble getting out of bed this morning. I finally managed it, after well over an hour of drifting. Admittedly most of that time was spent with a cat in my lap, but since I'd already dislodged Desti to take a bio-break and then gone back to bed, it makes a rather poor excuse. It's been happening more and more often lately -- I'd debated titling this post "Sleepless in Seattle", but that was before running into an article about The Apocalyptic Appeal of WB Yeats's the "Second Coming". It also refers to Fintan O’Toole's “Yeats Test” -- “The more quotable Yeats seems to commentators and politicians, the worse things are.”

Inability to get out of bed is a symptom of depression that I haven't had until quite recently. (As opposed to being unable to get to sleep, or get back to sleep, which has been a problem for decades.) Bad news has been difficult to avoid or to ignore, lately. I suppose it counts as situational depression if the country you live in is being taken over by Nazis. Or should I be calling it chronic stress?

I was going to provide links (under a cut tag), but I think I can put those into another post, or let them wait until Sunday's done since post. It's not as if the situation will go away between now and then.

So meanwhile, have a poem:

The Second Coming: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? -- William Butler Yeats, 1919

And a song: Richard & Mimi Fariña : Children Of Darkness -- I think I'll leave the lyrics for Saturday, though you'll find them at the link as well.

I wish that poem and that song were not as relevant now as they were when they were written. Sorry.

Comments

[eldriwolf]

"the bold marauder/white destroyer"
Is another Richard and Mimi song for depression

And most of Leonard Cohen, too

[mdlbear]

I never considered that one a depression song, but it does fit what's going on politically. (I'm pretty sure it's about the KKK, in case that wasn't obvious.) I think my favorite of theirs is "The Falcon", but that's an anti-war protest song that doesn't really apply right now. YMMV.

For that matter, both "The Second Coming" and "Children of Darkness" are more about fury and fear than about depression. That's okay, because on Monday my mood was more like incandescent rage. It took me Monday evening and all of Tuesday to come down from that.

Never got into Cohen much.

My go-to depression song is Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row".

[eldriwolf]

Well, yes, it Is an Angry kind of song.
I tend to listen to it when I am depressed.
Children of Darkness(which was an anthem for me, as a teen) can make me cry.

[ellenmillion]

*hugs*

[mdlbear]

hugs Thanks!

[redsixwing]

*supports*

That article about Yeats has some interesting insights. I had not considered how much refinement must go into making such a monument to fear and fury.

[acelightning73]

We mostly fixed what was wrong in their time, just by singing loud enough. Today we're not singing loud enough. Remember when we *ENDED A WAR*, and forced a sitting president to resign, with songs like "Masters of War", "Give Peace A Chance", - Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds are gone, and what's Bob Dylan been up to lately?

[thnidu]

Thank you for posting this. Many years ago I was a fan of the Fariñas, though I don't think I ever had more than the one LP of their music.

[mdlbear]

There's a "Best Of" CD that I think has everything, or perhaps almost everything, from their two LPs.