Liked your preface, liked your answer. One thing the fellow said that bears more examination. "I tried meditation." But then he quit. Try it again. Keep trying it. Meditation is not a magical heal-all. It is a daily practice. It only works as a daily practice. It aint like happy pills. The important effects do not immediately show up upon completing meditation, although one will very likely feel better and more relaxed for a while.

I've had clinical depression, taken the pills. I do without now, quite well, thank you. Your remedies are quite right. Eat well, relax, exercise, don't beat up on yourself. I do yoga, swim, walk, et cetera. It really really helps.

The difficulty is in application. It takes training to relax in tense situations. It takes will power to exercise most days in a week. The essence is regular practice. It is not the mind we have to convince, but the body, and the body is slow to learn. It must learn than it WILL do these things, and then relaxation comes.

One suggestion: Don't take yourself too seriously. Laugh. Humor is a sense of proportion. Refusing to take yourself too seriously cuts down both on vainglorious strutting AND beating yourself up.

What you say about creativity is dead on (I have been a novelist and poet for nearly fifty years, and I am quite certain creativity is not the exclusive province of the most "gifted." So is what you say about painting duck decoys.

Be still and know that I am god works great. It is also possible to be still and know that you are you. It is the very same process. At first, when one practices stillness, panic attacks. Weather it. Calm follows.

There is this: Most depression is internalized fear. Fear is a physical state. It CANNOT be resolved solely by mental means. You must learn to take command of your body's behavior. Then, if fear strikes, you can loosen the appropriate muscles, make sure you are breathing fully and cleanly, and the fear will vanish. Like I say. Takes practice.

Thanks for your kind advice to this fellow. Hang in there. A lot of us have gone down that road. As you also implied, it might be that there's nothing functionally wrong with him, that his feelings are telling him something about the life he is living. Many many of us try to live the lives we think we are supposed to live instead of spending our lives discovering what to do next. The fact is, we all die.

That aint gloomy. Just a fact. One thing it means is we are all equal. One thing it means is this too shall pass. Properly meditated on, the fact becomes a source of celebration and happiness, not fear.

And thanks for sharing your awareness of the folly of pointing out folly in others, of the responsibilities of the writer, of the pointlessness of dislike. (So much better just not to eat the food, read the books, et cetera. No need to waste energy on dislike, eh?) Yes, I have lacerated the stupid before, sometimes in ways so subtle they did not know I had even responded. But sitting in judgment feels shitty. One does not wish to feel shitty. To give up levying judgment is not the same thing as abandoning discrimination. Who appointed us the policemen of thought?

I'm an aging ex-hippie nature lover too. The image of the monkeys in the suburbs was compelling. The way we live is spooky indeed, and yet most seldom examine it.

May I suggest one aid to meditation? The four noble truths of Buddhism, also known as the four seals of zen. Nobody has ever summarized the human condition better. If you contemplate these four facts long enough, you will find peace.

I found your comments on self-judgment very apt. Self-punishment imagines that we have far more importance than we actually do. It is often the result of childhood impressions, the notion that if we don't get it "right" we will be punished, perhaps in hell. By punishing outselves we imagine forestalling the greater punishment of an authority who judges us. It is not like that. We may experience pain and sorrow, but that is the human lot (the second noble truth of Buddhism). We are not being punished.

That old Eagles' song: "Get Over It."

Martin Luther King was a great man. Lyndon Johnson was not. The Civil Rights Act would not have been possible without both of them, however. It's a fact.

Another fact: Clinton is taking a lot more heat than Obama. Why? Now she is supposed to be so hyperprescient that she watches every word out of her mouth? How about just being who she is and letting us decide?

I was a supporter of John Edwards until his stupid-ass comments on her "teary" moment.

What I have seen in this latest storm of vitriol from the media--including feminists--is class. The willingness to keep on keeping on despite the calumny.

As many have said, any of the three Democratic candidates would be so much better than Bush that it would be hard to believe. Why not just celebrate the fact that we have three good candidates, and let the process play out?