Underblog Rides Again

We Are Not Alone

"Comment-ça va?" asked one of my fellow seminarians, as we waited for the down elevator, she to smoke a cigarette and I to make my way to the surface lot. "Ça va bien" I lied.
She nodded and fumbled with her Marlboro "Tres bien."
"Actually, I forgot how to say 'only so-so.'"
"Is something the matter? Like your health or something?"
The elevator landed at ground level.
"Actually, I am debating with myself whether I want to continue with the program, whether I want to give it up. But so much of the rest of my life depends on the decision, like what am I doing here at all. But I figure it is not such a great idea to make big decisions like this when I am feeling so lousy."
"Wow. So you are serious," she replied as she lit her cigarette.
"I used to get depressed during the summer. I would be so busy during the school year that I didn't have time to be depressed. Now I manage to stay depressed all year long."
"What's it like?" she asked.
"I seem to be suffering from a deep and profound unhappiness."
She seemed to like the phrase "deep and profound unhappiness," repeating it back to me.
"I feel bad that I am not really doing anything. Like, sometimes I wonder what I am doing here." she confessed.
"You mean academically? I know I do after taking [so and so]'s class."
"Academically, not really. But just the work itself. The writing, the reading, all of it. Everyone seems to be walking around like everything is normal. No one talks about it."
"I think we all depend on each other to keep our spirits up, and we are afraid that if someone speaks up the spell will be broken. Everyone else is so involved: MIRC, Theory Colloquium. I don't do any of that. I think the percentage of people in the department on anti-depressants is really high."
"You know when I went back home for a semester, and I came back and I said to myself 'I am going to finish this thing.' And now it's two semesters later and I am not so sure this is what I want to do. Not just the study, I love to read. But is this what I want to do forever?"
"Exactly. And there really is no end in sight."
"You know, I love the sunlight. I love being in the sun, waking up in the morning and seeing the sunlight, it just makes me happy. But now, it doesn't cheer me up. The other day, I woke up and the sun was shining and I didn't even bother to open the blinds."
"That's one of the signs."
"Of what?"
"Depression."
"Depression? Really?"
"One of the signs, there are hundreds."
"Oh."
"But I think it is really common here. For the students, and for the faculty too. And I'm not sure if it is the time we spend doing the work, the intensity with which we do it, or the environment itself."
We both shivered in the night air. "You don't have to wait for me to finish my cigarette."
"I know. But I am enjoying this. There's no way I am going to cut this short!"
"You took one prelim, right?" she asked. "So don't give up: you are halfway there. I haven't even taken one."
"You'll be fine."
As I walked back to the car, the idea that what our department needs is some kind of collective gripe session came to me: no one who just got a job or fellowship or just defended would be invited. Just us losers.