Have you ever thought about it? I have certainly gone through my fair share of depression when I was younger, and the thought even occassionally crossed my mind, but I never truly seriously considered it. My hunger for life is too avaricious, always has been. Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way. A friend of mine committed suicide this year. After the shock wore off, I began to feel disappointment, not at my friend but at myself. We were not super close, but still this is someone whom I shared good times with, had spent a weekend with earlier in the year after not seeing him for a long stretch of time ... and I had no idea he was so depressed, that the idea of taking his life was even a possibility. Rationally, I know, as peripheral as our relationship had become over the years, I could not reasonably have foreseen something like this, yet I still have shimmers of guilt. How could my friend not know that people cared for him, loved him and even at his lowest, when perhaps he felt no love at all, how could he not know that with every sunrise new possibilities emerge? That a new love and a new life can begin?
I suppose I've been fortunate in that at those lowest points in my life, when I've felt ashamed and doomed to be lonely and different and unconnected, I had music. I would write and write and write voraciously until the creation of something I deemed beautiful and worthy had brought me out of the doldrums of despair, if only temporarily. Hell, the song "The Virgin Poet" from my first album even talks about taking my own life in the absence of love and connection... that seed of sorrow had always been there with me ... but not lately. My life over the last few years has been so wonderful, so full of joy, so much more marvelous than I could have ever imagined. And it pains me to know that even though such a wonderul change can happen at any time for anyone, that my friend will never know it. That so many others who went that same path will never know it. How can I, one person, influence someone to always alway ALWAYS choose life and all the possibilities that come with it? Well, hopefully through the same vessel that got me through a lot of shit ... music.
Last week I shot a video for the song "Don't Come In". Not a lot of planning went into this video, not a lot of production values went into this video, but I wanted to show the face of depression and what it could mean to choose life. You never know how art will be received or interpreted, but even if I reach one person with this message, then some good has come of it. Even if I reach no one with the message in this video, it will always stand as a testament to my beautiful friend, a lasting wish that he would have only chosen life.
I suppose I've been fortunate in that at those lowest points in my life, when I've felt ashamed and doomed to be lonely and different and unconnected, I had music. I would write and write and write voraciously until the creation of something I deemed beautiful and worthy had brought me out of the doldrums of despair, if only temporarily. Hell, the song "The Virgin Poet" from my first album even talks about taking my own life in the absence of love and connection... that seed of sorrow had always been there with me ... but not lately. My life over the last few years has been so wonderful, so full of joy, so much more marvelous than I could have ever imagined. And it pains me to know that even though such a wonderul change can happen at any time for anyone, that my friend will never know it. That so many others who went that same path will never know it. How can I, one person, influence someone to always alway ALWAYS choose life and all the possibilities that come with it? Well, hopefully through the same vessel that got me through a lot of shit ... music.
Last week I shot a video for the song "Don't Come In". Not a lot of planning went into this video, not a lot of production values went into this video, but I wanted to show the face of depression and what it could mean to choose life. You never know how art will be received or interpreted, but even if I reach one person with this message, then some good has come of it. Even if I reach no one with the message in this video, it will always stand as a testament to my beautiful friend, a lasting wish that he would have only chosen life.