Depressed Leo. Prompted by the author in Midjourney.

My Favorite Muse — Depression

Don’t Let it Go to Waste!

Some days just getting out of bed feels like the greatest achievement in your life. Coffee has no effect on you. You register the freshness of the air outside, you feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, but nothing more. You don’t enjoy it. Thinking of loved ones and your own mortality, all your failures, and the ticking away of time feels all the same to you. Depression can feel like being sucked out into space through an airlock. No noise. No emotion. No hope. Just blackness.

If this sounds familiar, you are in good company:

1. Virginia Woolf, a beacon in the realm of modernist storytelling, explored the inner workings of her characters, mirroring her personal mental health challenges within her impactful narratives.
2. Ernest Hemingway, a Nobel laureate, grappled with depression throughout his existence, an ordeal that seeped into his narratives of conflict, affection, and sorrow.
3. Sylvia Plath, acclaimed for her emotionally charged poetry and the novel “The Bell Jar,” portrayed her battle with depression, leaving a legacy of works that touch upon the depths of human emotion.
4. Fyodor Dostoevsky, a luminary in Russian literature and thought, known for his works like “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov,” faced…