Depression is not purely a feeling of despair and hopelessness, as many believe, but a window to discovery of yourself and ascension to a position of power. It is an emotion I personally enjoy in- by comparison, when I am within every other feeling, I am stupid, oblivious to myself. Within depression, I am ubiquitous in myself and in the rest of the world. I see the world in its true dark light, not the sugarcoated, lighthearted, optimistic picture many others choose to live in. Best of all, I am only myself when depressed.

Nevertheless, depression does have its down side. It ranges from mild, where you feel just lonely or confused about life, to the extreme, where you think of (and sometimes even try) swallowing a cupful of pills just to get rid of the pain in your heart sucking up all thoughts of anything but the horrible, horrible present. I have gone through both sides of depression (except for the trying to ingest a cupful of pills part), and I can say I enjoyed both the "ups" and downs. I don't know why. Possibly, I could be insane, which accounts for my emotional breakdowns, or maybe I just enjoy not living in a fantasy, an untrue rendition of what is really real. Either way, I have had more than a few harrowing experiences while in depression, which I will happily relay to you.

As part of said harrowing experiences, I have gone through periods of time where I saw the world as overly dark, a void, unchangeable, bleak, and lonely. I've gone through complete emotional breakdowns- crying, choking, more crying, and then insane laughing followed by thoughts of happily jumping off a cliff or drowning. Those extreme points would be followed by higher points of emotion- believing that my grief was misplaced, then reentering the void the next day. I have come out of this repetitive cycle, only to try to put myself back in it. The reason for that is spirituality; I have no idea who I am unless I am grieving. My very existence is wrapped in depression, my life being a repetitive cycle, every discrepancy negatively affecting everyone, including myself. I will never choose to leave my loop, while that is possible. In fact, I would choose to keep the cycle to depress myself even further. Why do I love depression so much? I'll answer that question next.

Before anything else, you must know a little about me. I hunger for a concise definition of who I truly am. Although I know I will never come across one, I still spend every waking picosecond of every nanosecond of every microsecond of every millisecond of every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of every waking decade searching for one, and I hope to add "of every century" to this mission statement of mine. Thus, I force myself into depression because I can only discover who I am through it. In happiness, I live in a superficially improved version of reality, deceiving myself into believing all can be right with the world and people can truly be or become good. In anger, I see the world through a red light, where everyone is evil and I am just another speck trying to survive by preventing the survival of others (actually, my anger is never that extreme). In jealousy, I ignore the gifts I have that few others do and hunger for what I can probably never have. In hatred, instead of seeing everything in a red light, I see one person in that red spotlight and make it my dying wish to ruin their life in revenge for whatever they may or may not have done to me. In satisfaction, I am overly full of myself and focus solely on what I have done instead of recognizing the superior achievements and characteristics of others. In romantic love (which I have only had to go through once), I am absorbed into one person, believing I can't continue without them, when I realize I truly can (which was when that "love ended). In depression, I am subconsciously completely aware of who I am and who others are. My insight into myself is transcendent and articulate, humble yet superior. I am at my best under a dark cloud, not a light one with positive connotations. I only ascend in darkness, receding from the light. For all of these reasons, I love depression.

Depression is my favorite emotion- I am myself only within it. I ask no one to follow my path less traveled- only few know the way. I have gotten to the end and started again, ending, and starting once more. This recursion is my life, and I have no desire to change it.