What isness is…

I feel a bit like Bill Clinton with his, it all depends on what the meaning of is is.  I was glad Bill was crazyface4not a Republican, but I never liked Bill.  But better a man who solved his masculine inadequacies with out of the oval office blow jobs, than the massive overcompensator we now have.

But as I said.

I think there’s a difference between saying:

A:  “I am depressed.”

And B: “I am a depressive.”

A.J. Ayer dismisses all of Sartre’s philosophy as a pun having to do with “is-ness.”  Dickhead!  Talk about a tree getting in the way of the forest.

 This came to me in insomnia soaked moment somewhere towards dawn, another product of Effoxor withdrawal.

But what a difference a noun makes or maybe an adjective makes.

Twenty four little hours—and the difference is you.

But as I said.

 In “A” the emphasis is on “am” and followed, as it is, by an adjective, the “am-ness” here constructed is all temporality.  “A” says, I am, not that I was, or that I will be.  Just that I am, at this transparent moment.

 

In “B” the emphasis is on “depressive,” I think, and the “am-ness” here constructed takes to itself the air of a logical proposition.  Or maybe it’s that little article, “a,” that makes all the difference.

I have known for years that I “am” and “was” depressed, and for years that was different than saying, “I am a depressive.”  I am still reluctant to say the latter perhaps because it means, in its logical finality, that I have given up all hope of things being otherwise.  But lately, I have thought it more applicable; when one hits sixty—I know I generalize—but at least in my case—one has doubts about any important change.

Still I am reluctant because if one says, “I am a depressive,” that means being depressed has become part of one’s self-concept.  Being male is part of my self concept; but if I say I am horney I could be either male or female, horniness not being gender specific.

The problem though—and it is not a small one—is that if one goes around saying I am depressed and not I am a depressive, one is not adequately positioned, I think, to deal with one’s depression qua depression, to accept it as such, and to find accordingly ways of dealing with it or, if not that, living with it. Because it’s hard enough being depressed without being hard on yourself for being depressed.

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