fact checking

Depressed persons have low self-esteem. Whether the low self-esteem engenders depression, or is a product of it, is not known. My guess is that there is a synergy. Both drive each other. The depressed person reads rejection in the smallest of gestures, in the ordinary exchanges that mark our days. For example, if the depressed person plans to meet a friend, and the friend cancels, the reason given is only an excuse. The depressed person can not help but regard the cancellation as a reflection on him/herself. "If I were not a ____________, so-and-so would not have cancelled." Fill in the blank: loser, down-head, bummer, drag. Some people, not depressed, exude self-esteem. Confident, sure of themselves, they fill entire rooms with their prideful energy. Most people radiate toward those who give off power, and it is not possible for a depressed person to give off power. Most people shun the company of depressives. Who wants to spend time with someone who has such a bleak visage, such sadness, such heaviness? So, another synergy: depressed people become lonely, and loneliness feeds depression. Maybe that is why so many artists are depressed. Artists give off power through their creations, not through themselves. Think of Rothko. Mild-mannered in public. Tortured by depression, he kills himself at the height of his creative powers. But look at his paintings. They radiate strength and heavenly beauty. They are lighter than air. They suggest eternity.

I hear that there is a bar, or club, or some such thing, on the Lower East Side, called Rothko. When I heard that, I had to laugh.