Fending off despair is a recent hobby of mine. A grim and difficult activity, it is not without bright spots and lowlights worth writing about. Click on the individual titles below or read the whole lot in one dark sitting here.
“What mankind hoped to learn in its outward push was who was actually in charge of all creation, and what all creation was all about… These unhappy agents found what had already been found in abundance on Earth – a nightmare of meaninglessness without end. The bounties of infinite outwardness were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.”
- Kurt Vonnegut, 1959
Meaninglessness without end in: Rain / Legs
“Here’s a sentence rarely used to open newspaper columns: why don’t the vast majority of people just blow their own heads off? You, with the coffee cup. You, with the shoes. Why are you bothering? What’s the point? Is there a point?”
- Charlie Brooker, 2007
Trying to find the point of:
Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Friday
“I don’t like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don’t like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second’s action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.”
- Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Drops of desperation in: Small Demons
“Churchill suffered from periodic bouts of acute depression which, with the Churchillian gift for apt expression, he called black dog.”
– John Colville, 1995
“Winston Churchill had a black dog his name was written on it
It followed him around from town to town
It’d bring him down
took him for a good long ride
took him for a good look around“
- Reg Mombassa, 1998
Three small plays about the Black Dog:
The Limit / Therapy / Writer’s Block
