THE GOVERNANCE CIRCLE

"...So cling to nothing too tightly, even yourself, / and when it’s time to let go, let go with grace, / for nothing is owned, only borrowed..." — James McCrae. James McCrae’s poem titled “ Instructions Before Visiting Earth ” seems to be having another viral moment these days. The man has unwittingly created a masterpiece on the art of living gracefully, one that is worth revisiting from to time.   The extract above inspired some thoughts which I would like to share in this piece to help anyone dealing with invasive dark thoughts. When we are in the depths of depression, our thoughts feel like heavy, permanent fixtures of our identity. We treat them as if they are solid truths—as if they are us . But what if we started treating them as guests? What if we acknowledged that our thoughts, our moods, and even our current mental states (even the happiest of them) are not possessions we own, but experiences we are simply borrowing for a time? Western education has us co...

There's a strange kind of respect I've come to have for depression — not for what it does to a person, but for what it reveals about the mind experiencing it. What if the very capacity to experience deep, all-consuming depression is proof of an immense, untapped power? Think about what depression actually requires of the mind: with terrifying singular focus it generates thoughts so convincing that they override hunger, ambition, curiosity, and self-preservation; it builds a narrative so airtight that a person who once had dreams, plans, and momentum can wake up and abandon them all. That's not a small feat.   That's not a "weak mind." That is an extraordinarily powerful cognitive engine. We don't usually talk about depression this way. We talk about it as an absence — a lack of motivation, a lack of energy, a lack of joy. But absence isn't the only thing that’s happening. Something is very much present and very much active: a relentless i...