{"id":20534,"date":"2024-01-05T15:49:10","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T22:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=20534"},"modified":"2024-01-05T15:49:10","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T22:49:10","slug":"welcome-to-the-human-race-2","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/welcome-to-the-human-race-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Human Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon: You\u2019re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is one of the people I love speaking to most: Parker Palmer. Parker Palmer is a world-renowned writer, speaker, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality, and social change. He\u2019s reached millions worldwide through his nine books, including Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, A Hidden Wholeness, and Healing the Heart of Democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With Sounds True, Parker Palmer has contributed to a new book called Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey through Depression. In this collection of perspectives, there are new insights and practices that reach beyond conventional models, and will help the reader receive depression\u2019s uninvited-yet-singular gifts.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Parker Palmer and I spoke about the potential meaningfulness of the passages of depression that he has encountered in his own life. We talked about why there\u2019s so much fear surrounding depression, and his thoughts of depression as a natural part of the human journey. Parker also offered advice that he might give to people who are caught in a difficult passage. Finally, we talked about his realization that depression can be \u201ca befriending force pushing you down onto safe ground.\u201d Here\u2019s my conversation with Parker Palmer:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Parker, Sounds True is publishing a new anthology called Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey through Depression. I wanted to start off by talking about this idea of \u201credefining the journey through depression,\u201d and how you see it. How do you see this journey [through] this dark land of depression?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Parker Palmer: Well, I like the emphasis on redefining a lot, Tami, because\u2014well, for a couple of reasons. As a person who\u2019s suffered from three profound experiences of clinical depression in his adult life\u2014two of them in my forties and one of them in my mid-sixties; I\u2019m soon to turn 75\u2014I\u2019m aware of a couple of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the most basic and crudest level, this culture defines depression as something shameful. That angers me a great deal. So, millions of people suffer not only from depression, but from the kind of aura of shamefulness that surrounds it\u2014as if it were some sort of character weakness, or a flaw in one\u2019s personality or makeup. The people who are close to those who are in depression are suffering the same way.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, that needs to be redefined. I think we\u2019ve come some ways in doing that, so that there\u2019s more open discussion in this culture about depression. Whenever you have open discussion, it\u2019s at least a bit of a sign that we\u2019re moving beyond the taboo state of affairs. So, that\u2019s one way in which it needs to be redefined.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think another way in which it needs to be redefined is that\u2014like many things\u2014it has been medicalized, if that\u2019s a word. I want to speak carefully here, because it\u2019s not that I want to reject or that I disbelieve in medical approaches to depression. I think there are elements of depression or certain forms of depression that are significantly related to DNA, to genetic makeup, and to brain chemistry. But, the tendency to reduce depression to no more than that [and] the tendency these days for psychiatrists, for example, to engage in no talk therapy whatsoever with their patients, but simply to prescribe drugs and track the impact of those drugs\u2014that seems to me to be unfortunate.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, I want to be clear: I\u2019m not against antidepressants. I have personally been helped by them\u2014although I feel lucky that I have not had to be on them long-term. I\u2019ve simply needed for the short term a kind of floor put under my emotional life so that I could get some clarity about what was happening to me and through me and with me and within me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, this reductionist tendency that we have in our culture to want to make it all about physical mechanism seems to me not only unfortunate but misguided and ultimately wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, <\/span>redefining depression from something taboo to something that we should be holding in community in open and vulnerable ways\u2014from something that\u2019s purely biological or mechanical to something that has dimensions, really, of spiritual and psychological mystery to it\u2014human mystery. Also, redefining it from something that is essentially meaningless to something that can be meaningful. All of that seems to me to be important<\/b>\u2014and why it is that I applaud your idea of redefining depression.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Now, Parker, you mentioned in your own life three passages\u2014two in your forties and one in your sixties. Could you tell us a little bit in terms of the meaningfulness\u2014the potential meaningfulness in depression\u2014how you were able to make meaning out of those passages in your life?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Well, the truth of the matter is that when I was in depression\u2014and I think this is true of most people, and I\u2019ve talked to a lot of people who have had this experience. <\/span>When I was in depression, making meaning was an impossible task. It was something to be endured.<\/span> As I\u2019ve written elsewhere\u2014in a little book called Make Your Life Speak, where I have a chapter about my experience with depression\u2014<\/span>there is to me a mystery as to how people survive that deep darkness<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come over the years to saying that depression is not so much like being lost in the dark as it is becoming the dark. What I mean by that is that in the depths of depression, you have no capacity to step back out of the darkness or a bit away from the darkness [to] say, \u201cOh, look what\u2019s happening to me. What is that all about?\u201d You don\u2019t have a self that is other than the darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, you\u2019ve become the dark rather than being lost in the dark. Therefore, you can\u2019t step back or get perspective, and try to make meaning of it. As I say in what I\u2019ve written about depression, I hear people say, \u201cI don\u2019t understand why so-and-so committed suicide.\u201d Well, I understand that perfectly. Depression is absolutely exhausting when you\u2019re in the depths of it, and I think the people who commit suicide often very simply need the rest. They need surcease.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I understand that. There\u2019s no mystery in that to me. The mystery to me is why some people come through to the other side and not only survive it, but thrive in the wake of it. I\u2019ve wondered about that question a lot, and I\u2019ve never come to an answer that fully satisfies me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, what I do know experientially is that in my case, I managed to get through the worst of those times and it\u2019s a very lonely journey. In each case, I had some help from the medical side. I had some help from the talk therapy side. And, I had a little bit of help from one or two understanding friends who knew how to be present to me in that experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although, lots and lots of friends and acquaintances didn\u2019t know how to be present to me. They were scared of me, I think. They gave off that fear\u2014they indicated that fear\u2014either by not getting anywhere near me, as if I had a contagious disease, or by trying to offer me what I know was well-intended but ultimately cheap advice that essentially allowed them to leave their version of a little gift in my hands and then get out of the room as quickly as possible. Of course, when that happens, it doesn\u2019t feel a gift at all. It feels like a rejection. It feels like a kind of curse<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ve often said to people who have asked me, \u201cWell, I have this friend or relative who is depressed. What should I do?\u201d and I said, \u201cWell, I can\u2019t prescribe in detail, but I can tell you this: <\/span>Do everything in your power to let them know that you\u2019re not afraid of them\u2014that you can be present to them in a way that expresses faith and confidence that they have what it takes to make it through<\/b>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And don\u2019t come to them with cheap advice. Don\u2019t come to them saying\u2014as people came to me saying\u2014\u201dBut Parker, you\u2019re such a good guy. You\u2019ve helped so many people. You\u2019ve written such good books. You\u2019ve given such good talks. Can\u2019t you fall back on all of that and pull yourself out of this hole?\u201d Well, when you hear something like that at a time in your life when you\u2019re feeling like a non-entity\u2014you\u2019ve totally lost your sense of self; you\u2019re feeling like dirt; you\u2019re feeling like a worm\u2014the only response you can make to that is, \u201cI\u2019ve defrauded one more person. And if they ever understood that I\u2019m really not a good guy and that all that stuff I wrote and said is really straw\u2014meaningless; of absolutely no utility now\u2014they would reject me. They would cast me into the outer darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Similarly, people came and said, \u201cBut Parker, it\u2019s such a beautiful day outside. Why don\u2019t you go out and soak up some sun and smell the flowers, as it were.\u201d That\u2019s ultimately depressing rather than encouraging because while you know intellectually that it\u2019s a beautiful day outside and you know intellectually that those flowers smell perfumed and lovely to other people, you don\u2019t have an ounce of capacity in your own body to really experience that beauty or that loveliness. So, the encouragement to get outdoors and see how lovely it is really turns out to be a discouraging reminder of your own incapacity at that time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, having worked my way through on that very lonely journey\u2014where only a very few people were able to offer the kind of presence, and therefore the kind of support, that I needed\u2014as I came out the other side, I think a couple of things happened that started allowing me to make meaning of the experience. One is that I found myself a more compassionate person. I think when you suffer, if you hold it in the right way\u2014in an open heart\u2014you become much more empathetic toward the suffering of other people. <\/span>Another way to say that is: you become less afraid of other people\u2019s suffering. You\u2019re more willing to be present to it in a faithful, abiding way because you no longer treat it as a sort of contagious disease that you too might catch<\/span>. You\u2019ve been there. You\u2019ve had yourself hollowed out by that suffering. You know how it feels, and you\u2019re able to exercise an empathetic presence to other people.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You become more compassionate in that sense\u2014at least, that was my experience over time. I think it was aided by a lot of reading that helped me reframe the experience [and] by a lot of solitude and walking in the woods that helped me reframe the experience. In some ways, [I was aided by] becoming a strange attractor. And I just don\u2019t mean me. I mean anyone who\u2019s had an experience like this and who holds it in this open way. A strange attractor of other people who have also taken that journey or who are somewhere on that journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, you start to develop a sense of community that\u2014in an odd way\u2014sort of normalizes the problem. It says to you, \u201cWe\u2019re all in this together, and this is part of the human experience.\u201d I\u2019ve always felt\u2014ever since having the experience of depression three times now and emerging on the other side; not only surviving, but thriving. It\u2019s very clear to me that the most important words I can say to someone who comes to me with almost any form of suffering\u2014after I\u2019ve listened to them deeply [and] after I\u2019ve attended to them profoundly. And these words may come after a long period of time. But, the most important words that I can say to them ultimately are, \u201cWelcome to the human race.\u201d You\u2019ve shared your calamity with me, and there is nothing in me that wants to say, \u201cI can\u2019t bear to hear that,\u201d or, \u201cHow could you ever let such a thing happen?\u201d or, \u201cWhat a marginal person you are to have had an experience like that.\u201d On the contrary, it\u2019s, \u201cWelcome to the human race.\u201d You have now entered the company of those who have experienced some of the deepest things that a human being can experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, you start to make meaning of it, I think, by realizing that this incredibly isolating experience called depression\u2014and it is isolating, to a greater extent than I imagined [was] survivable. But, you start to realize that this incredibly isolating experience called depression ultimately reconnects you with the human community in a deeper, wider, and richer way.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think the meaning-making goes on, and it probably takes different forms. I\u2019m sure it takes different forms for different people. I think a second kind of meaning-making that I would name\u2014second after this opening of compassion that it can help create\u2014is that it can make you more courageous. I started noticing after each of my depressions that my capacity to put myself in very intimidating or challenging situations had grown.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I\u2019m standing up in front of 5,000 physicians, for example, giving a lecture on what\u2019s wrong with medical education\u2014as I have occasion to do every now and then\u201430, 40 years ago that would have been a very intimidating experience for me. And I would have been operating out of a lot of ego defensiveness, I think.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, once you\u2019ve survived and thrived through one or two or three experiences of depression, you really have to say to yourself, \u201cWhat could be more daunting than that?\u201d I survived that, and so this thing in front of me right now\u2014these 5,000 highly educated, critical-listener physicians\u2014they really don\u2019t threaten me. This situation doesn\u2019t threaten me. When I\u2019m not threatened, I\u2019m more likely to come from a soulful place in myself rather than an ego-defensive place. For that very reason, what I do with those people is much more likely to be empathetic and well-received, even if the message I have to deliver is critical.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s another way in which I think you make meaning. Your depression becomes a sort of benchmark experience against which other things just don\u2019t look so bad. Since we have fairly frequent experiences in life of facing stuff that looks pretty tough, that\u2019s an asset. That\u2019s a piece of meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then I\u2019d name one more thing, Tami. I think you make meaning out of depression\u2014at least I make meaning out of depression\u2014by sharing the experiences as openly as I know how with other people. That\u2019s why over the years I\u2019ve written about it and I\u2019ve talked about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think the first important thing to say about that is that a person has to be sure that the experience of depression\u2014the experience of darkness\u2014is well integrated into his or her self-image and self-understanding before you begin sharing it, because if there\u2019s any residue in you of that shamefulness, that sense of being flawed, or that sense of, \u201cThis darkness is not part of who I should be,\u201d then you\u2019re not ready to share it. Sharing it would be a dangerous thing to do, and the message that you would convey\u2014whether you intended it or not\u2014would not be helpful.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It took me 10 years after my first depression\u2014which was in my mid-forties\u2014to feel that it was well-integrated enough that I could start to write and speak about it. So, it was the ability at that point to say, \u201cYes, I am all of the above. I am my darkness and my light. I am those months I spent cowering in the corner with the shades pulled down, as well as the guy who can get onstage in front of 5,000 physicians and deliver some challenging messages.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am all of that, and I don\u2019t need to blink any of it. It\u2019s my way of saying to myself, \u201cWelcome to the human race. We are a very mixed bag\u2014and Parker, that includes you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, as soon as I was able honestly to say that to myself, then I was ready to take what I\u2019ve named here as a third step in making meaning of depression\u2014which is sharing it with others in a way that can be healing and therapeutic and encouraging for them. People will sometimes say to me, \u201cWell, it\u2019s such a courageous thing for someone like you\u2014who is known for his spiritual writing and speaking, who seems to have it all together, and who\u2019s had a pretty successful life as measured by the world\u2019s standards\u2014it\u2019s so courageous of you to say that you spent months cowering in a corner with the shades pulled down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, from the beginning my response to that has been, \u201cNo, this isn\u2019t about courage at all. This is about staying healthy\u2014me staying healthy by showing up in the world as who I really am. One of the things you start to think about more profoundly at age 75\u2014as I said, I\u2019ll soon be there\u2014is your own mortality. As I\u2019ve thought about that, I can\u2019t think of a sadder way to die than with a sense that I never showed up in the world as who I really am.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, showing up with everything I\u2019ve got\u2014my darkness as well as my light\u2014is, I think, part of ultimately dying a good death. Dying with the ability to say, \u201cTo the best of my ability, I showed up in the world with everything I\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I put everything I\u2019ve got at the disposal of anyone who is interested in getting access to it. That includes my darkness as well as my light\u2014because if it\u2019s human, it\u2019s a deployable gift as long as we can explore it and explore its meaning together.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Now, Parker, I\u2019m curious if someone\u2019s listening to us right now and their experience is the experience you described of being the dark itself. They\u2019re listening to you. They\u2019re not in the meaning-making place at this moment. They\u2019re just that darkness. What might you say to that person in that state? I know you\u2019re not going to give them any kind of trite, feel-good answer\u2014but what can you say to somebody in that state?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Well, you know, that\u2019s a point, Tami, where I fundamentally don\u2019t believe in words\u2014even though I\u2019m a writer and a speaker. I generally believe in words a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As you know, I tell a story in the little book Let Your Life Speak about a friend who came to me in an incredible helpful way. In fact, I\u2019ve always thought of him as the one person who best understood what I was going through. This was a friend who came to my house at four o\u2019 clock or so every afternoon, having asked my permission to do so. [He] sat me down in an easy chair, removed my shoes and socks, and [then] for maybe a half an hour massaged my feet.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He hardly ever said anything. He was a man somewhat older than I\u2014a very intuitive man [and] a Quaker\u2014to whom the silence came naturally. But, somehow by intuition, he found the one place in my body where I could feel connected with another human being. His simple, wordless act of massaging my feet was a lifeline for me that kept me at least somewhat connected with the human race in the midst of this incredibly isolating experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He would occasionally say just a very few words, but they would always be reflective of his intuition about what was going on with me. So, he might say, \u201cI feel your struggle today,\u201d and that would be it. Or, he might say, \u201cIt feels like you\u2019re a little stronger today,\u201d and that would be it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There would never be any demand for conversation. He didn\u2019t say these things in a way that made me feel, \u201cOh, I\u2019d better make Bill feel like a good caregiver by saying \u2018yea\u2019 or \u2018nay\u2019 or something in between.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, if someone is listening to this right now who is feeling like the darkness\u2014rather than just being lost in the dark\u2014it\u2019s hard for me to imagine that the words that I\u2019m speaking\u2014any words that I could speak\u2014would mean a lot to them unless there is somewhere in them for this person. [This would be] for reasons I wouldn\u2019t know or understand. Some glimmer of hope that a person who\u2019s been in the same place\u2014that they can articulate what that place is like and is talking from a post-depression experience, beyond surviving [and] into thriving. If there\u2019s some spark of hope in that for somebody, God bless them.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, I think the most important thing that such a person could do for themselves\u2014if they have the energy to do it\u2014is to seek out some kind of presence of the sort that my friend Bill gave to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s often something physical that doesn\u2019t involve language. I was hardly able to go outside during my experiences of depression. In part, it was because I didn\u2019t want to have social encounters. I was incapable of running across a person and having a conversation. But, what I could do was get on my bike and just zip around town. [Interestingly enough,] I often would ride vigorously through a very large cemetery that\u2019s not far from my home, that has this very extensive set of roadways running through it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find some comfort in that physical activity. Walking would sometimes work, but not during the daytime when I might run into someone else. I could do that only at night. If I had had access to a swimming pool or something of that sort\u2014or a warm body of water\u2014being in the water might have helped. But again, by myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, I don\u2019t think that verbal encouragement works in that deep, dark place. We have all these images from some of our spiritual traditions about the Cloud of Unknowing, or the deep and wordless darkness, or the void before life begins. Those are places where there\u2019s not a lot of chitchat. I think most words sound like mere chitchat when you\u2019re in that place.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Now, Parker, in the beginning of our conversation\u2014when we talked about the importance of redefining the journey through depression\u2014you talked about how having open conversations where we can just bring things out in front of ourselves, talk about our experiences of depression\u2014how important that is. Also, that many people are afraid of depression, and how [for] a person in a depressed state, the fear of other people can be quite painful. My question is: why do you think depression is something that is so hard for us to bring out into the open? Why are people so afraid of it?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Yes. That\u2019s a very important question that takes us partly into the depths of the human psyche. But, I think also it takes us into the nature of some of the distortions of American culture. It\u2019s not clear to me that all cultures have the same problem or as big a problem as we do around this.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But first, let\u2019s identify the fact that it\u2019s a very common experience for people who have suffered hard things to find other people avoiding them\u2014not just depression. If you\u2019re going through a divorce or you recently have been divorced, there will be people\u2014 who prior to that, would have talked easily with you\u2014who won\u2019t know what to say. A common phrase in our culture, or a common feeling in our culture, is, \u201cI don\u2019t know what to say. So, I\u2019m not going to call that person. I\u2019m going to walk around the block to avoid that person. I\u2019m not going to write that person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Similarly, if a spouse dies or a child dies or a tragedy of that proportion occurs in a family, we\u2019re afraid of it. We don\u2019t know what to say.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s a whole interesting analysis we can do [about] why it is that we don\u2019t know what to say. <\/span>I think it is that we live in a culture where everything is a problem that needs to be fixed. We don\u2019t know how to fix things like this\u2014like the ones I\u2019ve just named.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, part of the key to it is realizing that not everything is a problem that needs to be fixed. If we can get that monkey off our backs, we will find things to say. We will find ways to be present to one another.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a parallel: There are people listening to this or reading this who have had the experience of sitting at the bedside of a dying person. That\u2019s not an uncommon experience for people of a certain age. We learn something in that experience, which is that we\u2019re now looking at a situation that cannot be defined as a problem for which I have a fix\u2014or anyone has a fix. People die. No one can stop that when it\u2019s in its final stages.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, if we\u2019re sitting at the bedside of a dying person, we give up the illusion that we can somehow invade that person and that problem with our little toolkit in hand, and offer advice or suggestions or techniques or things to do that will fix everything up. That\u2019s a huge, powerful lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We also learn that the disrespectful thing that we could do would be to avert our eyes from the dying person\u2014to look away in disgust or in frustration that there\u2019s nothing we can do about it. That would feel like the most egotistic copout\u2014abandonment of a person who at that point simply needs our faithful attentiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, to summarize it, <\/span>we learn at the bedside of a dying person neither to invade nor evade what\u2019s going on\u2014but simply to hold it in our attentiveness<\/b>. <\/span>My own belief, Tami, is that when we\u2019re able to be present to another person that way, we are communicating without words some kind of confidence that this is part of the human journey and that the person we\u2019re with has whatever it takes to make this passage in their own time and in their own way<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m quite convinced\u2014looking back\u2014that that\u2019s what my friend Bill conveyed to me. He conveyed that he had a certain confidence in me that I didn\u2019t have in myself. Because he was not afraid of me, I could slowly, slowly start being less afraid of myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, <\/span>as long as we carry this fix-it thing with us, and we assume that if we\u2019re going to go to someone in depression, someone who\u2019s lost a loved one to death, or someone who\u2019s suffered some other grievous loss\u2014if we\u2019re going to go to them with the assumption that we have to fix it, then of course we\u2019re not going to know what to say because there\u2019s no fix<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If we let go of that assumption\u2014as we ought to do\u2014I think we can find ways to be present to such people that are very, very life-giving and very, very confidence-inducing. [It\u2019s] very connective, allowing them to rebuild that bridge back to the human community. \u201c<\/span>Welcome to the human race,\u201d is the silent message\u2014if we can show up without a fix in mind. Otherwise, the message is, \u201cI\u2019m going to take you on as a project.\u201d I can\u2019t think of anything more alienating to someone who\u2019s truly suffering than to be taken on as a project that allows the other person to prove what a skillful fixer they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Now, Parker, I\u2019m also curious: When you look back at your three passages through depression, could you say there is some type of intelligence at work in your life\u2014now, in retrospect, looking at these experiences\u2014and if so, what type of intelligence is that? What was trying to be worked out in you, if you will?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Interesting question. So, my general belief is that there is a vast intelligence at work in all of life. I don\u2019t see it as something outside of life, but as embedded in life itself\u2014in the world of nature and human nature. The great web of being.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very complex intelligence, that knows how to weave together the shadow and the light\u2014that knows how to weave together life and death. [It] knows how to weave together all kinds of things that our limited human intelligence wants to separate out as opposites or contradictions. Good and bad. Black and white. Light and dark. Or, I should say good versus bad\u2014right versus wrong, light versus dark.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s an intelligence that can hold it all, and the human mind has limited capacity\u2014but I think expandable capacity\u2014to understand that. In my life, the concept of the intellectual concept and what eventually becomes a spiritual\u2014and I think even a bodily\u2014understanding of paradox has been very, very important.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, paradox\u2014as everyone knows\u2014is this notion that not everything is either\/or. Some things are both\/and. In fact, some of the most important things\u2014most of the most important things\u2014are both\/and. I\u2019ve always loved what the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Neils Bohr said one time, when he said, \u201cThe opposite of an ordinary fact is a lie. But, the opposite of one profound truth may be another profound truth.\u201d That\u2019s paradox.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think Neils Bohr\u2019s statement is a very discriminating statement. He says, \u201cThe opposite of one profound may be another profound truth.\u201d You take it a case at a time, and you examine it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, for example: Am I made for community? Absolutely. The human self is a communal self. We wouldn\u2019t be here without community, and we can\u2019t go on without community.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Am I made for solitude? Absolutely\u2014because in its depths there is a lot about the human journey that is a solitary journey. We must learn to take it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In that light, it\u2019s possible to understand depression as one of the little deaths that allow us to practice for the big death. I have no evidence that there\u2019s any intelligence that did this intentionally to me. I think life is a very complex mixture of intentionality and accident. But, wherever it came from\u2014and I don\u2019t need to really know the answer to that\u2014I can make meaning of depression by saying that it allowed me to practice a certain form of dying\u2014short of the death of my actual body and my present form of consciousness\u2014that helps prepare me for the big death.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A lot of wisdom traditions have this notion of all the little deaths in life that help prepare us for the big death. When you ask people, \u201cWhat do you mean by \u2018the little deaths?\u2019\u201c they\u2019ll say things like, \u201cWell, things like the failure of your youthful vision for what your life was going to be. The loss of a meaningful relationship. The failure of a project in which you had invested enormous energy.\u201d Et cetera, et cetera. And, let\u2019s add depression to that list, if you survive it. It\u2019s one of the bigger kinds of little deaths.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If there\u2019s an intelligence at work in that, I think it\u2019s an intelligence that works through me as I try to sift and winnow the experience of depression and whatever it is that I might have to learn from that. So, causally, I don’t know where these things come from. But after the fact, I have some sense of what it means to tap into your own intelligence\u2014and I mean that in the sense of the multiple intelligences that every human being has. Not only cognitive rationality, but emotional intelligence, relational intelligence, bodily intelligence, intuitive intelligence, et cetera et cetera.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, to tap into your own intelligence in that larger sense and into the larger intelligence of the universe\u2014the cosmos that we\u2019ll never get our own finite minds around [and] that we keep opening to bit by bit as we accumulate life experience\u2014and hold it as thoughtfully and reflectively as we know how.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Now, Parker, in thinking about depression as a \u201clittle death,\u201d how do you think your three passages have prepared you for physical death?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: It\u2019s a great question, and it\u2019s a hard one to sort out because there\u2019s a part of me\u2014as I approach my seventy-fifth birthday in a month\u2014that wants to say that, in my case, just aging itself has prepared me. I\u2019m better prepared at age almost 75 than I was at 55 or 35 or 15 for dying. You\u2019ve seen more of it happen. People you love have gone ahead of you into what Dylan Thomas called, \u201cThat [good] night.\u201d You have a sense with some of them that they\u2019re making a path or leading the way\u2014the way they did earlier in your life, if they happened to be a parent or mentor that you loved and who loved you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s hard to sort out exactly what it is that offers the preparation. But, it seems to me that depression specifically\u2014again, if you have the good fortune to survive it and thrive in the wake of it\u2014it makes you less afraid of the dark. We have this thing about childhood\u2014many of us are afraid of the dark. It carries on into adulthood.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I remember asking a friend of mine\u2014this was back when we were both in our fifties\u2014who had recently experienced a death in his family. I said, \u201cSo, how are you feeling about your own death?\u201d He said, \u201cI don\u2019t like the idea, because I\u2019m afraid of the dark.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Well, it was partly a joke between friends, but there was also a kind of gravitas to it\u2014a kind of seriousness to it. The kind you get in gallows humor.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I remember thinking at the time that\u2014because of the two experiences of depression that I had had by then\u2014I was not so afraid of the dark. I had actually come to understand that you can dwell in darkness and experience a certain kind of peace\u2014which I think is what led me to this notion that some people find kind of radical, which is that I\u2019m just not one of those people who says, \u201cI don\u2019t understand why so-and-so committed suicide.\u201d I understand. They needed the rest. They needed the peace. That\u2019s one of the things that that sort of darkness can bring you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, I think in that sense the experience of depression is preparatory to\u2014as some people would say\u2014the long darkness that death involves. I myself have no reliable reports from the other side of death and I\u2019ve never been there, so I have no idea what to expect. I\u2019m sure that\u2014like every other experience of my life\u2014whatever expectations I may have will be upended by the experience itself. I have a lot of evidence that I\u2019m not all that good at projecting exactly how it\u2019s going to be. I need to get there to find out.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, I think depression has made me less fearful of a lot of things. The big death at the end of the road is on that list.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Parker, when you got depressed in your sixties, did you think, \u201cOh my God. I went through this in my forties twice. I can\u2019t believe this is happening again.\u201d Like, \u201cThis is just terrible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Absolutely. I felt like, \u201cOh, wait a minute. This isn\u2019t fair. I\u2019ve been there, done that.\u201d I thought I had checked this off my to-do list.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s very interesting: My first and second depressions were in my forties. The third depression came 17 years later. Seventeen years is a long time. You almost forget that you were ever there. It takes you totally by surprise.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, yes. As I found myself sinking [and] I started to recognize the signs, I was angry when I still had a capacity to be angry. Ultimately, when you\u2019re in the depths of depression, you really have no emotional capacity at all. As I like to say to people who have never been there: clinical depression is not about feeling profoundly sad. It\u2019s about the terrifying realization that you can feel nothing at all\u2014which, to loop back for a moment, is why the friend who came and rubbed my feet and actually evoked a little feeling in my body was giving me a miraculous sense of connection. A small degree of emotional recovery or bodily recovery from this numbing experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, I was taken totally by surprise. I think that part of what helped me at that time, again, is that I went into it and\u2014while I still had some cognitive capacity left\u2014you think a lot in depression, but you don\u2019t think helpfully. While I still had some helpful cognitive capacity left\u2014before I hit the bottom\u2014I also had the thought that\u2014because I\u2019d been there a couple of times before and survived and been able to thrive in the wake of it\u2014that that might give me some tools or some reassurance that I could survive this one and thrive on the other side too.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The depression\u2014I think it\u2019s true of all three of my depressions\u2014[was] partly biological and partly situational. That\u2019s a very hard thing to sort out. Every psychiatrist I\u2019ve ever talked to who understands the medical side of this says that there\u2019s just a lot about depression that we don\u2019t understand. That seems to me to be appropriate humility about one of the mysteries of human life.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, on the biological side, there is some history of depression in my family, going back through several generations. So, it\u2019s not inconceivable I have some genetic predisposition. But, in each of the depressions, I could also identify\u2014as I began to emerge\u2014situational elements that had contributed to the depression. One of those situational elements when I was 65 was a growing awareness of my aging and my mortality. The depressing thought that was I was going to die, and I had fewer years of life ahead of me by a long shot than I had behind me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, in that sense, the depression at age 65 was one that\u2014as I emerged\u2014compelled me to do some deep thinking, some deep meditating, some meaningful talking, and\u2014in my own journaling, at least\u2014some meaningful writing about dying and death. It compelled me to face into that subject more profoundly than I had, so that it wouldn\u2019t just rear up and take me by surprise the way I think it did at that particular time in my life\u2014with 65 being a kind of symbolic road marker on the life journey that says, \u201cYou\u2019re really getting old!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, again, it served as a befriending force in my life. That prompts me, Tami, to say something that I first heard in one of my earlier depressions in my forties. At that time, I worked with a therapist. I think this was in my second depression. I worked with a therapist who listened to me very carefully for a long period of time, over a number of meetings. I felt that this was somebody who was really hearing me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, when he spoke, I was ready to listen. <\/span>At one critical get-together, he said to me, \u201cYou know, Parker, you seem to be imaging depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. I wonder if it would be possible to image your depression as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it\u2019s safe to stand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Those words didn\u2019t change things overnight, for sure. But, they made a real impression on me. I felt that something important had been said that was worth exploring and trying to understand more deeply.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was those words that led me to realize that\u2014at that stage in my life\u2014my depression had a lot to do with the fact that I was living at altitude. I managed\u2014and I write about this in Let Your Life Speak\u2014to identify several kinds of altitude at which I was living. So, there was the altitude of living in my ego rather than in my soul. There was the altitude of having embraced a kind of spirituality that was more about up, up, and away than it was about down to the ground of our being. There was an altitude involved in embracing an ethic composed of \u201coughts\u201d rather than an ethic that arose from the embodied values of my own life. There was an altitude involved in ambition that was all about flying high rather than serving in ways that were within my reach, and available to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When you\u2019re living life at altitude, if you trip and fall\u2014which we all do every day\u2014you have a long way to fall. You may kill yourself. If you\u2019re standing on the ground, you can fall again and again, and simply get up, dust yourself off, and take a next step.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s the way I started to make sense of the notion that depression could be a befriending force pressing you down to ground on which it\u2019s safe to stand. It\u2019s been interesting to me over the years\u2014I think Let Your Life Speak was published in 1999. So, for the last 15 years or so, I\u2019ve had so many people say that that analysis of altitude\u2014and the difference between living at altitude and living on the ground\u2014spoke to their condition and helped them understand what was going on with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This also leads me to say that the depression I had at age 65\u2014and I\u2019ve written about this too\u2014was partly around the political situation in our country, which certainly hasn\u2019t gotten any better over the last 10 years. [It] has in fact\u2014in some ways\u2014gotten worse. I do think that we pick up depressive elements not only from our psyches and from our genetic makeup\u2014from our brain chemistry [and] all that internal stuff\u2014we also pick it up from the environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the moment, I\u2019m not referring to chemicals in the environment\u2014although that\u2019s a problem. I\u2019m referring instead to things going on in the culture and in the society at large. When I was 65\u2014which would have been in 2004\u2014it was a very depressing time in American politics, which is something I\u2019ve always cared about.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019ve learned in depression is once you do get a little energy and are able to get a little perspective on what it is that\u2019s generating your depression\u2014or helping to generate it\u2014it\u2019s important if you possibly can to become proactive in relation to whatever that may be. So, as a writer, one way I have of becoming proactive is to start writing again. Out of that came a book called Healing the Heart of Democracy\u2014which actually begins with a prelude in which I talk about my depression, which was in part personal and in part political, and how I started trying to understand the way in which the personal and political are related.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[I] found great illumination, incidentally, in studying the life of Abraham Lincoln, who had been depressed since he was a very young man. This great figure in American political life was so depressed when he was 19 or 20 that his neighbors would take him in to keep watch over him. They\u2019d have him live in their houses for periods of time for fear [that] he would take his life. The community helped see him through.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lincoln never totally overcame his depression. There\u2019s a great Biblical phrase: \u201cA man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.\u201d Anyone who\u2019s ever seen one of the classic photographs of Lincoln\u2019s face\u2014and that includes almost everybody\u2014will know immediately that that phrase is very descriptive of the face you see in those photographs.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think it was this capacity to hold his own light and his own darkness that made Lincoln the reconciling president we need at the time\u2014at the time, obviously, of the Civil War. Lincoln was the president who didn\u2019t try to demonize either side. He was firm, he was leaderly, and he was decisive, but he did not engage in the demonization and the blame game that is so toxic in American politics today. I think one reason for that is that he had long experience at saying to himself, \u201cI am all of the above. I am my darkness as well as my light,\u201d and, for that reason, didn\u2019t have much trouble saying, \u201cThis Union that we treasure is one of darkness and of light. What we have here is not a perfect Union, but a national organism that is always in search of the \u2018more perfect\u2019 Union.\u201d Because that\u2019s the way he had to live his own life in order to survive and thrive.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, when I understood the situational element of my depression at age 65, I was able to become proactive about\u2014in the form of writing a book\u2014that gave me my way of coming to grips with trying to make a contribution to the social and cultural conditions that I was finding depressive.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Now, Parker, just to make sure I\u2019m understanding you correctly when you\u2019re talking about Abraham Lincoln: It sounds to me that what you\u2019re saying is that you have a sense that his experience with depression is part of what equipped him to be able to be the force of reconciliation that he was in American history. Is that correct?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Absolutely. There is no question about it. Anyone who would like to study up further on that: there\u2019s a wonderful book that I drew on heavily in Healing the Heart of Democracy by a man named Joshua Wolf Shenk. His book is called Lincoln\u2019s Melancholy. \u201cMelancholy\u201d was the nineteenth-century name for what we would now call clinical depression.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shenk makes a very, very good case that what you just said, Tami, is true. His depression didn\u2019t disable him for the presidency, but equipped him for the presidency at that very critical time in American history. Because, here was a man who had had to reconcile the shadow and the light in himself in order to move forward as a whole human being. He was tempted as a young man to suicide, but he also felt this strong calling to play a significant role in political leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, he called upon this complex mix of darkness and light in himself as tools\u2014as really an energy source\u2014in playing that political role. It\u2019s interesting and it\u2019s very sad to contrast that with a fact that some of us can remember, which is that when George McGovern ran for president and chose a senator named Thomas Eagleton as his vice-presidential candidate, it came out after a while that Eagleton had been treated for depression. He was forced to step down from the vice-presidential candidacy and McGovern had to choose a different running mate because of the taboo nature of this in our contemporary society.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rewrite American history and have Abraham Lincoln stepping down because a neighbor steps forward and says, \u201cYou know, when he was a young man, he had suicidal thoughts all the time.\u201d Rewrite American history that way and you get a very dicey picture of what our national fate might have been. It\u2019s hard for me to pick another president off the long list of American presidents who could have done what Lincoln did during the Civil War as a reconciler. I think his capacity for reconciliation externally came from his lifelong practice of inner reconciliation.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d be willing to bet that anybody you can identify as a public reconciler of darkness and light is someone who has deep and long experience of that same kind of reconciliation inwardly. You just can\u2019t do it outwardly if you haven\u2019t been there inwardly.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Parker, I just have two final questions for you here. The first one is\u2014in listening to you talk about these three big depressions, the curiosity that came up for me was: do you have in you any fear\u2014especially you talked about potentially the genetic factor in depression and how it runs in your family\u2014do you have any fear that a fourth depression might come upon you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Well, it\u2019s a great question. The answer is: I don\u2019t. I\u2019ll qualify that by saying, \u201cTo the best of my knowledge.\u201d I think there are some things that stay hidden away in us [and] take us by surprise. So, we have to get there to find out.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have a vivid memory that your question brings back, Tami\u2014of the day that I talked to a psychiatrist about my third depression. I told him how surprised I was that this had overtaken me 17 years after my second one. He was\u2014as I said\u2014not a talk therapist, but someone who was expert in the science of the subject. He said, \u201cWell, statistics show that if you have one depression, you have a 25 percent chance of having a second depression. If you have a second depression, you have a 50 percent chance of having a third depression. And, if you have a third depression, you have a 75 percent chance of having a fourth depression.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have a vivid memory of walking out of that office just saying this mantra to myself: \u201cI am not a statistic. I am not a statistic. I am not a statistic.\u201d I don\u2019t believe I am or anybody else is.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I faced into that one early on, and as far as I know, I moved past it. I\u2019m not aware of holding that fear at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: And then my final question, Parker, is that I was quite taken when you were talking about finding ourselves at different altitudes in our life. I might use my own language for that, saying finding myself kind of inflated or blown up in some way\u2014like a big balloon filled with helium. Unrealism, not connected to the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m wondering if you\u2014here at the end of our conversation\u2014could share with us [whether there are] ways you in your life now stay connected to the ground. Intentional things that you do to keep yourself grounded, embodied, and not at altitude from life.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Well, I think it\u2019s a wonderful question and I think it\u2019s an agenda for all stages of life. I\u2019ll have to say again that I think the aging process itself\u2014at least as I\u2019m experiencing it\u2014is a grounding process.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leonard Cohen is, I think, one of the wisest philosophers of our time\u2014to say nothing of being a brilliant songwriter. He has this great line in one of his songs, where he\u2019s reflecting on age\u2014I think he\u2019s almost 80 now\u2014and he says, \u201cI ache in the places where I used to play.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When you start experiencing your body that way, it has a grounding effect. It\u2019s one of the signs of your mortality. It\u2019s one of the signs that you need to slow it down a bit and be a little more gentle with yourself and keep it a little closer to the ground. You realize that if you go flying off that trampoline or off that ski slope, you\u2019re not going to bounce as readily as you did 20 or 30 years ago. You\u2019re much more likely to break something or crack something.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s that. There\u2019s simply the biological process of actually descending toward the earth, which you start to feel as you start to experience the finitude and fallibility of your body. I\u2019m reminded of a great phrase that I believe belongs to Teilhard de Chardin, who said, \u201cWe must learn to be hallowed by our losses.\u201d I think that the hallowing in these physical losses or liabilities can come as we do live closer to the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The other thing that\u2019s become important to me\u2014and for some people, this has been a part of life since they were quite young. But it wasn\u2019t for me when I was young; it is now. That\u2019s spending more time outdoors in nature. I spent a number of years either at the keyboard of a typewriter or word processer without poking my nose out very much. But, I think in the last 20 years or so, I\u2019ve developed a real tropism toward the outdoors. I just find a gravitational pull there that involves walking in the woods, walking alongside big water, hiking mountain trails when I can, being in the ocean when I\u2019m able to get there, et cetera et cetera. That is itself very, very grounding.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I also think that it\u2019s grounding to have a partner and friends who know you for your shadow as well as your light\u2014who know you in all of your complexity\u2014and who aren\u2019t afraid of naming that complexity [and] obviously embrace it, because they are a partner or they are friends. [They] can help remind you that you don\u2019t wear a cape and you can\u2019t fly. Those kinds of relationships are very grounding in themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, for me, it comes from a whole variety of angles that have to do with\u2014I just remembered the correct phrase from Teilhard de Chardin. \u201cHallowing our diminishments,\u201d was the phrase he used. I like that idea. I like that idea very, very much.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We have diminishments throughout our lives. It\u2019s just that there are earlier stages of life when we don\u2019t want to look at them. We don\u2019t want to acknowledge them. We don\u2019t want to be honest about them, because we think it\u2019s important to maintain the illusion that we can fly. It\u2019s a good thing to be reminded that we can\u2019t, and there is a lot to be seen by taking a good walk.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: Parker, I always love talking with you. Quite honestly, you\u2019re one of my favorite people to have a conversation with!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Well, the same here, Tami. You ask such amazing questions and I always feel totally trusting with you. I never feel like I have to hold back on what I want to say.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: You are the welcome sign. You are a human welcome sign. You welcome. Thank you so much.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PP: Thank you, Tami.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: With Sounds True, Parker Palmer is a contributor to a new anthology called Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey through Depression. He\u2019s also written about his experience of depression in his book Let Your Life Speak. Parker has also created an audio series with Sounds True\u2014An Undivided Life: Seeking Wholeness in Ourselves, Our Work, and Our World.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-20534","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWelcome To The Human Race 2 - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Welcome To The Human Race 2. 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