Living with depression

I’ve talked about my depression pretty in depth before, but I think the subject warrants an entire article. That’s because it’s now a part of me, like other facets of my being. So, what’s it like living with clinical depression? Well, let’s take a breath and dive in.

Depression is like someone’s sucking away at the very marrow of your soul. Imagine that for years on end, your joy in almost its entirety was snuffed out. It’s as if reality’s colors have dimmed. It’s like a song without sound. In short, it’s terrible. I’m not sure where it came from, but it’s here now. This biochemical tribulation has been like a cerberus hounding after me in some Lovecraftian hellscape.

Enough with the metaphors, eh? The bottom line is that sometimes I feel a hurting emptiness where my heart should be. I can’t enjoy the things I once loved. Worse than that, I want to die. Not every day, but close to it. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy… and yet it is mere ordinariness for me.

The worst part about the suicidal thoughts is that they come from nowhere. I can’t predict them and I can’t prepare for them. Each time it comes it’s like a black wave crashing over me. I try praying. I try reading my Bible. I even try watching anime. Nothing works in those moments. It’s then that hopelessness creeps in. I have idealized death in some form every week for the last seven years. It’s tiring.

Here are things you must know if you’re reading this and don’t understand depression. First of all, don’t blame the person who is suffering. Be understanding and use your words carefully, you don’t want to trigger a negative emotion. Secondly, be around for that person. Seriously, be around. If you’re going to make a commitment to be a shoulder to cry on, you need to stretch your availability. Finally, if someone you care about is talking about wanting to die, don’t take it as idle conversation… get professional help immediately. Also, as an aside to my fellow Christians: don’t tell someone they’re depressed because they didn’t pray hard enough. Say that to their face and you might be walking funny afterwards.

That’s as basic as I can give it to you, but maybe that’s enough. To finish, I’ll tell you what keeps me going: faith that there’s a purpose for my suffering. Basically, faith in God. If I didn’t believe that there was an objective reason for my existence, I would have already committed suicide. I mean that with every atom that I am. So don’t tell me that I can get by on my own strength, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Either I believe there’s life in Jesus, or I believe in the void of death. For today, I choose the former.

“Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”-Second Corinthians

The Thing versus The Thing

Ah, The Thing… and no, not your grandpa’s Thing from 1951. We’re talking about the good Thing, the John Carpenter Thing. I swear, the 80’s were just prime time for horror classics. They included famous frights like Aliens, Predator, Poltergeist, The Fly, Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, and finally, The Thing. The Thing didn’t perform as well as the other films listed above. Part of this was due to the fact that the title of “The Thing” is inherently nebulous. Either way, sales on VHS soon picked up, thus preserving The Thing’s cult legacy.

What makes The Thing so unique is the titular monster itself. It can be any organism, and mimic it perfectly. As Childs, one of the characters said, “If I was an imitation, a perfect imitation, how would you know if it was really me?” The Thing takes place at an arctic research station, which just enhances the sense of dread and desolation. Once the alien Thing is unwittingly brought to base, it soon takes on human form, and hides among the men there. No one is as they appear to be.

It’s a wonderfully horrific setup, and something that is quite unlike other conspicuous creatures of the 80’s. What I also love is the special effects. This is pure, unadulterated 80’s stop-motion magic. From the tentacles that burst out of the dog monster, to the two headed mutant that they first encounter, The Thing is just filled with macabre mystery and splendor. My favorite effect had to be when an apparent crew member’s head falls off, and it actually sprouts legs and an eye stalk! I sympathized with the guys onscreen, when one remarked, “You gotta be fucking kidding.”

As hinted above, the film has a slightly humorous tone, as though the characters simply can’t believe that this is happening to them. The lead protagonist, MacReady, even spits out some badass one liners, like when he sarcastically shouts “Yeah, fuck you too” as he throws a live grenade into a roaring Thing’s maw. Also, the end of the film is almost poetic, as Macready and Childs sit suspiciously watching each other as the last two survivors in the glow of burning wreckage.

So, the first Thing is awesome… but wouldn’t ya know it, Hollywood made a prequel. Seriously, does every popular film from the 80’s have to have a reboot? Well, apparently so. Anyway, this Thing was released just three years ago, and told the story of the Norwegian ice base right before the 1982 version.  It’s an intriguing concept, as the original really didn’t delve into HOW the Thing was unearthed.

So, it’s a moderately interesting perspective, but the film stumbles in a number of areas. For one, the special effects are garbage. The Carpenter Thing was replete with amazing models and makeup… not here. Everything onscreen has been typed away on a keyboard. Put simply, it’s pure CGI. Now, I’m not against all CGI, but it just looks unconvincing here. Also, the monster designs themselves are by the numbers and ho-hum. Basically, all the Things have big mouths in this edition… that’s about it.

There was one cool aspect of it, however: the UFO design. For years I had wondered what the interior of the alien craft looked like, and honestly, this film did a pretty great job at filling that gap. I really liked the weird little cube that the Thing was working with… it seemed believably futuristic.

All in all, the original 1982 Thing is a masterpiece of gooey delight… but the prequel is okay, too. Both sell for under ten dollars now, so there’s no excuse to not be scared shitless.

The future of gaming

So, when I say Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, what comes to mind? Rarely are they the same images. The Genesis had Sonic, Streets of Rage, Phantasy Star, and Shinobi. The Super Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Star Fox. All different genres, each with unique audiences in mind. Then, if you had a lot of money back in the early 90’s, you could buy a computer gaming rig. You had to buy special graphics cards and get the newest version of Soundblaster, but it was worth it for revolutionary games like Mechwarrior 2, Wing Commander 3, and Doom. No matter what you had back then, you had a completely different experience than the kid across the street.

Now fast forward to the early 2000’s. This was a time when graphics finally started to approach realism. Consoles were even starting to give computers a run for their money, and for the first time, many PC games made their exodus from the office to the living room.  Still, as in the early 90’s, each system had its own unique style. The PS2, which was first out the gate, was the big seller back then. It had a little bit of everything, but seemed to particularly thrive on Japanese heavy hitters like Capcom, Konami, and Square. The Gamecube, on the other hand, was devoted to more party games like Mario Kart and Smash Brothers Melee.

Finally, you had the Xbox. While I loved the Xbox (it was actually my favorite console that generation), I noticed something peculiar about it at the time. That is, it really didn’t have an identity. Rather, it was the first console to rely pretty heavily on already entrenched titles from the PC. Granted, there were huge exceptions to that like great original games like Halo, MechAssault, and Knights of the Old Republic. Yet even these games were touted for the wrong reason: it reminded people of what they played on the computer. Halo, as wonderfully creative as it is (the first two Halos are high up on my top 50 list), was developed originally to be a console gamer’s Half Life. By 2005, the Xbox even had two flat-out poor man ports of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2… where their mediocrity could only be enjoyed by those without a keyboard.

By 2013, consoles have finally hit the low watermark: redundancy. Simply put, why on God’s green earth would I pay half a thousand dollars to play an inferior console game that’s already available for only a marginally more expensive, and more versatile, laptop? Seriously, does anyone have a cogent answer to this? I would really like to hear it, and I’m not being sarcastic. The Xbox One is seriously trying to sell itself by ignorantly strutting around with a glorified webcam and offering the dumb opportunity to watch football… on my TV. Wow. Awesome. I guess there’s always Titanfall, right?

If anyone doesn’t think this market is on the verge of collapse as it’s currently defined, is living in Microsoft or Sony fanboy land. The future of hardcore gaming is already here: it’s called a computer. The future of casual gaming is also here: smartphones and microconsoles like the Ouya. This time last year, everyone thought the Ouya was a joke… most still do. It’s true that it was largely a flop, but it latched onto a profitable idea: most people don’t want exclusive gaming platforms anymore. They want games to go along with their Netflix, not the other way around.

While I have purchased an Ouya, and personally love it for its old school emulators, I realize that’s not gaming’s proverbial powder keg. You know what is? Well, as of last month, it’s Amazon’s Fire TV. Years of console gaming’s laziness has brought this on. Now, in addition to watching the newest episode of their favorite show, families can use Amazon’s own proprietary controller to play Angry Birds, Minecraft, and even Madden. It’s great for the average consumer… and the ultimate nightmare for Sony and Microsoft. Grab some popcorn, folks, console gaming’s going up in a ball of flames.

Compromise

Compromise is built into the heart of our American form of government. Going all the way back to the Declaration of Independence, we’ve had disagreements over what makes us a people. In fact, Thomas Jefferson originally castigated the king over the issue of the slave trade, but was forced to take out the language out of fear of the union dissolving. Yet despite such incidents of hard negotiating, America has emerged stronger.

The system of checks and balances necessitates a bargaining between the federal branches. Due to the partial independence of the legislative, executive, and judicial, it would be incredibly difficult for one group to control all three at the same time. Elections also play a factor; congressmen and senators’ terms rarely overlap as the lengths of terms themselves are different. Even if a populist movement gained traction for a number of years, you’d still have to wait for the Supreme Court justices to literally die out before having complete control over all facets of government.

Of course, the largest aspect of compromise that is embedded into our great society is the constitution itself. The founding fathers wisely enacted a document that not only stood the test of time from a literary and poetic level, but from the basis of rule of law as well. They also helped forge the “Great Compromise” over the competing Virginia and New Jersey plans, and amazingly balanced the issue of states’ rights and national governance.

The biggest test of America’s ability to compromise was one of colossal proportions: slavery. It would be fair to say that politics would be defined by this issue for generations. Even here, the federalists’ brilliance was absolute. North and South wrung their hands together and bit a nasty bullet on the issue of polling slaves as part of the population, also known as the three-fifths compromise. Abolitionists hated the deal because it counted slaves as in the general populace, while keeping them enslaved. Yet southerners hated it because they didn’t get the representation they wanted. However, it will be argued that if everyone’s angry, maybe you’re doing something right legally.

Looking for modern day examples of national compromise is an easy task. Just look at abortion, an explosive topic. Both sides, pro-life and pro-choice, are adamant in their beliefs and can be vitriolic in their dealings with each other. You might think that an issue involving aborting a fetus would be pretty black or white, but that isn’t the case practically. While the Supreme Court ruled abortion constitutional in the 70’s, it did not rule that limitations couldn’t be put in place. Case in point, conservative states have enforced very stringent regulations on the practice, like teenagers having to inform their parents before an abortion can be performed, and that the operation itself can only be done at a certain gestation period. The Hyde Amendment, as adopted by congress, also bans direct federal funding of abortion.

It could be asked if all this compromising makes our country resistant to change. This is true, but only to a degree. Madison in Federalist Ten successfully argued that mob rule, or a direct democracy, would result in chaos and perhaps even an untimely death. He saw the value of a republic, but one that had the consent of the people: thus a democratic republic. While it may take time for legislation to get approved in both chambers of congress, not get vetoed by the president, and be ultimately upheld by the courts, it is in the end worth it over French Revolution-like anarchy. You don’t want an unpopular minority, a label that changes over time, to be swallowed up by the passions of a majority.

The proof that compromise works is in the very survival of our peculiar American society. If all this didn’t work, we would have inevitably been some meager banana republic with no proud legacy to call our own. Look at Thomas Jefferson, look at Abraham Lincoln, look at Franklin D. Roosevelt, look at Ronald Reagan. Are all these men the result of a false ideal? It might sound like an appeal to emotion, but it gets to a legitimate point… Why has American exceptionalism been the envy of the world? Why has America stood as a bulwark against the two greatest evils of our time: Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia? Maybe, as much as we disagree, there’s something to this American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Kefka and objective evil

“Why do people cling to life when they know they can’t live forever?” –Kefka Palazzo

While I can’t stand modern gaming, there’s one sure-fire way to get me to buy an Xbox One or PS4: Remake Final Fantasy 6. Of course, with Square Enix now dumbing down their products like reducing the Final Fantasy series to an MMO, that will probably never happen. I mean, since when did the creators of Kingdom Hearts publish games like Hitman? Whatever. The point is that FF6 ignited my childhood imagination with its wonderful characters and sense of adventure. Of course, every good story needs a good villain, right? Enter Kefka.

   

In all my years of gaming, I’ve never seen a more detestable villain such as Kefka. At first, you just think he’s the Emperor’s bumbling henchman. You soon discover, however, that while this guy may dress like a clown, he’s no Monty Python gag reel. Kefka burns cities, betrays his comrades, poisons children, and yes, even blows up the world. The thing that’s so disconcerting about Kefka is that he doesn’t try to justify his actions. He delights in the evil.

When the aforementioned apocalypse begins, Kekfa obtains God-like powers from three mystical statues. Now, completely unhinged, Kefka literally destroys the planet. The remnant of what emerges is called the World of Ruin. It’s here that our heroes gather together and form a resistance against seemingly impossible odds.

Why I like the older Final Fantasies, particularly FF6, over newer entries is simple: they have an objective good versus evil morality. Kefka isn’t misunderstood; it’s not that his mom didn’t raise him right. This is a man who is just pure evil. I think the changing times have grotesquely morphed our views on biblical truth. That’s why every JRPG villain now is some whiny, metrosexual-looking sadface.

Segueing back to reality, the concept of evil in our culture has become a myth. Everyone’s just a product of their genes, apparently, and can do no better because everything’s deterministic. Can’t we all just agree to disagree? That is, of course, if we can. Maybe I’m biologically predisposed to argue. Guess I’m just a victim then, huh? This is what we call bullshit, folks.

Here’s the crux of it. You can’t look at Kefka, a character who maniacally laughs while setting the world ablaze, and call him misunderstood. He’s evil. Similarly, the shooter of Sandy Hook may have had some mental health issues, but he made his own choices. He’s at fault. There is a devil… but there is a God as well.  

Attack on Titan and overcoming the odds

“It doesn’t matter how terrifying the world is. Fight. It doesn’t matter how cruel the world is. Fight. Fight!” -Eren Jeager in the Battle of Trost

Years from now, the cosmos will look back on Attack on Titan as the show that made anime cool again. After the golden age of the 90’s (Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Berserk, Evangelion) came the crushing and unrelenting mediocrity of the 2000’s. Barring a few successes early in the decade, the landscape had become a wasteland of high school girl nonsense. 2D animation itself was dying.

I really believe that, properly done, traditional animation can bring a viewer to his knees in the realm of the imagination. Akira, for example, with its wide brush strokes of post-apocalyptic power, could never be harnessed in the tight confines of reality’s camera. The colors, as bright as Neo Tokyo in 2019, spill onto the canvas of the human eye.

If anime is to fade away, then Attack on Titan is its roaring epitaph. Mankind has been driven to the very brink of extinction by nightmarish giants (Titans) of an unknown origin. The remaining humans have endured by sealing themselves behind three massive walls. This strategy works for a hundred years, until the Titans break in.

For the first two episodes, literally the only thing that happens is that people get eaten... like, a lot of people. Three surviving children (Eren, Mikasa, and Armin) decide to fight for humanity’s future by joining the military. This is where the story kicks into high gear, as you get to see fantastic character development among their squad. For example, one cadet, Jean, starts out as a selfish jackass only to become the very model of a hero later on.

To spoil things, Eren gets devoured by a Titan in episode 5, and this obviously sets a particularly somber tone. One may be forgiven to think they’re watching The Walking Dead, with main characters just dying off for arbitrary reasons, until you see episode 8. There, it is revealed that Eren has survived, and not only that, but now has the mysterious ability to turn himself into a Titan of enormous strength.

With this newfound knowledge, humanity now pushed back to the last wall, launches a desperate counteroffensive, with Eren as their savior. Here, in episode 13, I think I just completely lost my proverbial shit. In the battle plans, Eren is to pick up a giant boulder to block the hole in the wall that the Titans are pouring through. It sounds great on paper, but maintaining one’s mental state in a Titan’s body is taxing, and Eren lashes out at Mikasa, his family.

All seems lost, until Eren remembers why he wanted to venture outside the walls in the first place… because he was born to the world, and he wanted to know it. He also remembers the death of his mother to the hands of the Titans, and in his rage, lifts the stone, and heaves it into the breach. At this point, it’s realized that for the first time, mankind has defeated the Titans.

The correlation to reality is this: Life sucks. A lot. But don’t give up! Persevere and fight the good fight! We humans are weak, it’s true, but together we can fly with the “Wings of Freedom.”

The leap to faith and the irrelevancy of apologetics

“Yet Abraham believed and did not doubt, he believed the preposterous. If Abraham had doubted -- then he would have done something else, something glorious; for how could Abraham do anything but what is great and glorious! He would have marched up to Mount Moriah, he would have cleft the fire-wood, lit the pyre, drawn the knife -- he would have cried out to God, "Despise not this sacrifice, it is not the best thing I possess, that I know well, for what is an old man in comparison with the child of promise; but it is the best I am able to give Thee. Let Isaac never come to know this, that he may console himself with his youth." He would have plunged the knife into his own breast. He would have been admired in the world, and his name would not have been forgotten; but it is one thing to be admired, and another to be the guiding star which saves the anguished.” -Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

Here’s an interesting fact: Kierkegaard coined the term “leap of faith.” Only, he didn’t. You see, while that is the phrase used by laypeople, Kierkegaard is actually quoted as saying the “leap to faith.” Is there really a difference? Well, to Kierkegaard there was. To him, there wasn’t just one leap you made and there, patiently waiting, sat belief. No, the whole enterprise of following Christ is faith. See the difference?

I have struggled. Doubt is a part of me. I’ve read books and articles on creationism. I’ve read books and articles on evolution. I’ve seen videos of atheists preaching. I’ve seen videos of Christians preaching. I’ve heard arguments for the historicity of Jesus. I’ve heard arguments for Jesus as a mythical legend. I’ve learned much, but know nothing. For every fact that lines up in the bookshelf of my mind, some forgotten corner starts to crumble into dust. What obscure science experiment or historical trinket could stop this vicious cycle?

Does the Christian need more knowledge? Does he need the manual or the vehicle of faith itself? I’d argue the latter. All the books in the world couldn’t bring someone to faith. As Kierkegaard himself noted, there were no professors or associate professors during the first century of Christianity. Everyone then accepted that faith could not be proven. There were no philosophers in the pews who wondered if God could make a rock so heavy He couldn’t lift. There were no baptized biologists that thought nature made itself. No, this was a time of simplicity.

Consider Abraham, as Kierkegaard once did. He could have offered himself to the Lord instead of Issac, his beloved son. Would this not have been considered morally praiseworthy in the pagan lands? A stoic father saving his son from a crooked and wicked deity. It is not true that he was to merely “sacrifice” Issac. That’s a deceptive euphemism. No, Abraham was to murder his own son. Isn’t that what the world would have believed? That an old man lost his mind and turned homicidal?

The truth, however, known only to Abraham, made him full of fear and trembling. He told no one his revelation, not even Sarah. Abraham did one thing and one thing only: He believed. He suspended every rule that society had put in place, and had faith in God instead. Tell me, of what possible use would Paley’s Watchmaker apologetic make? Abraham decided to forgo the universal and believe in his subjective (personal) relationship with the divine.

     

Contrary to Hawking, we can never know the mind of God. We can know what He did for us on the cross but we look through a glass darkly. We can debate God back and forth and still not have an answer. If we were merely weighing the evidence on some sort of cosmic scale, then we would cease to be truly religious in any sense at all. We would be no better than the Roman tax collectors.

If you want to put off believing in God because you have doubts, then you’d do well to not believe anything. External reality itself is a leap to faith. If you don’t have faith in Jesus, I can guarantee you have faith in something. Consider having faith in a God who loves you. He’s helped me.