Watching the Paralympics adverts makes me a little angry. It is not just that in almost every other field Health & safety would have something to say about two people wilfully colliding into each other in a potentially dangerous wheeled device, but that to lose a limb and fight against all odds is considered highly admirable and commendable and yet to be 'wheel bound' with depression is a taboo. Strong words to compare the state of depression to a physical paralysis but actually its true. I pick up on the anger that some physically disabled people have and perhaps I am guessing to suggest that anger is a motivating force for some of these athletes.
I was very fortunate to be born a healthy physical specimen. I have even escaped broken bones from a high speed motorcycle spill and today I limp with an Achilles heel (badminton) injury trying to walk my dog. But the greatest Achilles heel injury is the lack of motivation to start another Monday, another week. I am trying to complete a dormer window repair on my roof and put the last few pieces of timber cladding up. There was a time in my younger days when I was at least three times quicker than the average woodworker. Today it is taking me hours to just cut with a saw two pieces of softwood.
Who is going to repair your roof when you get old?
Imagine not being able to tie up your shoe laces. That is how depression can affect the mind, an otherwise agile and capable mind. I am not saying that today I cannot tie up my boot laces to walk my dog but the ritual has reminded me that actually at the depth of paralysing depression I don't know how to tie up my shoe laces. No doctor has ever asked me to perform the task. It would not enter their heads that this seemingly automatic ritual is a highly complex motor skill and quite relevant to some forms of depression. Instead the question is what medication worked for you before. The greatest act of will is to keep off damaging medication.
A shoe rack designed by Jeremy Broun for Good Woodworking magazine readers to make (1990's)
Healthy normal people take so many things for granted - that they are loveable and can love and have a right and expect to be loved. Some go through life never knowing what it is like not to be loved. Of course everyone is damaged in some way but if you never had a mother to show you what love is and a father who beat the shit out of you, how on earth can you learn it? In the playground? I don't think so.
I am angry also today because I tried hard to follow the Christian doctrine throughout my life and for many years was encouraged to believe in God, the creator. Am I allowed to ask a childlike question: 'Well, who created God?' So we go through the ritual of counting blessings and cognitive therapy (that is so f..ing impossible to do) and going through a list of positive affirmations we arrive at the simple conclusion - to take each moment as it comes.
Perhaps wood is a gift from God to channel creative energy into or is it a chance material there for its own purpose but we got our hands on it? I am at least confident that I can build anything in wood (albeit on a good day) and I may be forgotten as a craftsman but I have not finished making yet. Perhaps one has to endure the bad days (years) to look forward to the better ones.
Depression may be a taboo but my observation is that people who suffer mental anguish often have an unusual awareness that makes their condition even more isolating. I came across a startling piece of furniture design on a website - a sculptural chair in stainless steel and was staggered to learn it sells for around £70,000. No wonder I am a forgotten craftsman! But I won't forget my ideals.
An acquaintance knocked on my door last week asking to stay overnight in order to see his young children the next day. He had been kicked out of his nest by his partner and was in a terrible state. I had performed guitar gigs with him and his creative career is now on the verge of blossoming. I encouraged him to hold onto his creativity but his reliance on a 'relationship' was very apparent. It took me many many years to learn the lesson that I did not need another half to make me feel a whole person. A very painful lesson and even more painful in the realisation this 'whole' person is full of holes! But my friend's creativity (like mine) is a precious gift and all I can do is encourage him in whatever small way I can that creativity pulls you through.
So, my dear reader, whoever you are, I feel a little better getting this off my chest. One of my tasks today is to process a substantial order of my woodworking/furniture making DVDs to send to the USA. There is no logical explanation that I cannot be motivated to respond instantly to somebody who values my work and says in an email 'I look forward to learning from you'. Lets hope my DVDs will not arrive as 'damaged goods'
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A unique collection of instructional and documentary style DVDs
Furniture Today 3 - showing the best of British contemporary furniture
against a historical backcloth. (2012)
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