In all things beautiful

I have been battling depression since, at the cost of sounding over-dramatic, as long as I can remember. Considering how in my mere 24 years of existence, depression has plagued the better part of the past ten, I can be reasonably excused for stretching the truth a tad. This post begins as a venting of repressed feelings on a sleepless night, however, I hope to be able to provide a sliver of hope to my equally suffering brethren by the end of this.

It saddens me to see how everyone today, regardless of living in the first world or the third, claims to be riddled with depression merely because something upset them momentarily. On a similar note, mood swings are hastily covered up under the pretext of bipolar syndrome these days. Not to belittle these pangs of pain felt by so many, presumably well meaning, people, I hope to reach out to those who are actually, genuinely depressed. Because, you see, depression isn’t just a feeling, it is a state of being. A hopeless state at that. If you see the word hope recurring at a more than alarming frequency in this post, fret not, as it is indeed hope that this narrative stems from.

There is hope, indeed, in all things beautiful. There is hope in the voice of a father asking how you’re doing while it takes all you have to not breakdown and cry on hearing this query over the phone. There is hope in a lover’s inquiry of how your day went while he himself is undertaking a long, arduous drive back home after a tiring day at work. There is, yet, hope in your closest friend casually asking if you slept alright over an innocent cup of coffee.

If you find waking up each day a herculean task after having snatched a few moments of dear sleep when your body wore out of exhaustion in the wee hours of morning, I implore you to hope. Yes, I agree we’ve been brought up fearing hope to be a dangerous thing but what is life without a few risks, eh? Even if every day finds you sinking deeper into the quagmire of your Kafkaesque despair, even if hoping seems an exercise in futility almost akin to chasing the will-o-the-wisp and life does not seem worth the pain you undergo, you should persist. Because life persists in all things beautiful.

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