We were born to do extraordinary things

I've struggled with depression for my entire life, more or less. I've gone through some incredibly dark times, and some beautiful times as well. Recently, due to an array of reasons, some that I can pinpoint and others that I can not, I've been struggling again. I say this not to ask for pity, but simply because it is the truth. That's always how I've felt about depression. It is a truth that I must deal with. I don’t know why I must, but I must.

When I think of depression it is not a scientific thing. Reason tells me that it is a chemical imbalance, it can be treated, et cetera, ad infinitum. The way I view it, however, is as darkness, and more than that, as darkness manifested in the shape of a beast. I struggle with this, sword held high, armor, war cries and so forth.

I have a tattoo on my right hand on the web of skin between thumb and forefinger. I got this for many reasons, but mostly because it reminds me of hope. My good friend Adam sent me a letter last summer with this drawn on the outside:

It reminds me of a sunrise. The cross is the sun with three rays coming from it and the word hope is the horizon. Additionally, a more detailed sunrise is drawn on the inside. A few months later I found a similar image on the back of the vinyl packaging of a record called f#a#[infinity] by the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Adam and our friend Ben had turned me onto this band. Ben even has the title of that album tattooed on his right collarbone. I thought that it would make a very pretty and simple tattoo and a tribute to my friends in general. For Adam, because he drew the picture; for Ben, because he also has an image from the same record drawn permanently on his body; For Andy (and now Louis, too), because it's on my hand, clearly visible when I write. For all of my friends, because it gives me hope, as they do. I ended up using the image from the record as the image for my tattoo.

I thought long and hard before doing it. Indeed, the idea obsessed me for about two weeks prior to actually doing it. I decided that hope is something I will always need, that everyone needs, and since this simple cross with three dashes around it reminds me of that, I would do it. After getting it done someone pointed out to me that from another angle it looks like a sword. [Here's a picture of it taken moments after its completion. I can see all of the images I have described in the tattoo, especially in this picture.]

How fitting! Thought I, that this tribute to my friends, my brothers and sisters, my fellow knights, would look like a sword. I see us all as knights with minds, pens, ink and paper as weapons, each other as shields, our own passion as armor. We all have our dragons to fight. Mine, as I mentioned, is this beast, this darkness: my depression. However, that's not the only foe we fight. Every day, to me, is a battle or a quest. Why do anything if you do not do it boldly?

I've only recently begun to pinpoint the fact that this is how I view the world. It's coming to me slowly. Reading some of the anarchist literature I have has informed some of my ideas, but so has the reading I've been doing for my lit class, English Literature before 1650. I'm rather fond of this world view. Epic battles, dragons to slay, armor… It's all rather romantic and, as a poet, I like it a lot.