Concerning the Origins of Despair, by Charles Freeland

Whatever’s at the root should remain constant. Its precise identity, though, isn’t that important. Ask the man who cleans the office windows. Who hangs above the street like an idea in someone’s head. He knows the balloons used to represent thought in comic books are designed merely to take up space. To allow their creator to get paid a full day’s wage without having to engage in a full day’s illustration. You may insert the learned commentary here. We won’t wait for it to accumulate. Imagine how destructive it all must be for those who spend the majority of their time in one place. Like New Mexico. Rather than, say, traveling to Azerbaijan and then elsewhere because they are restless. Of course, waiting around for the family to catch up with you, for the children to appear seemingly from out of nowhere like butterflies, remains the single best method of conquering despair. Unfortunately, it also insures you won’t be taken seriously by anyone who has discovered some new property of light. Who has recorded the behavior of gibbons in the deepest jungle. But should we concern ourselves with the opinions of people who pay that much attention to everything? Who keep their eyes forever open like statues? And wander the earth with the help of government grants and their collective memory of the magi? Probably it’s best to forget everything you’ve ever heard concerning the symptoms of despair. And, more to the point, the origins. It is not an ailment that lends itself to analysis. It’s not composed of component parts like a blanket which you have merely to un-stitch to see how it was made. It is, however -- as everyone knows -- something with the potential to grow unwieldy. To travel from one valley to the next, grinding everything before it to dust. The highways. The rivers. Even the library. Where we keep our topographical maps. The complete Dostoevsky.