Wednesday, February 13, 2008

BOOKS!

NPR has an interesting little book blurb today. and i'm going to run out this weekend and get it. actually, i'll probably end up ordering it, because i'm pretty sure this isn't one of those books that i'll be able to just scoop up at Borders or something. not that i'd want to go downtown in the masses of tourists anyways this weekend. but whatever.

so this guy is a Lit professor at Wake and has written a book called Against Happiness, which, from what i ascertain, basically argues against everybody being happy all the goddamn time. like i said, i haven't read it--i'm going to--but apparently this guy makes the argument that all of these artists [Virginia Woolf, Dylan Thomas (who, i've ironically been re-reading a lot of lately), Hemingway, Van Gogh] were all quite depressed in every clinical sense of the word--most of which also, relatedly, were severe addicts of some sort or another--but the pain of their lives brings joy and beauty to the lives of some since. i for one, as awful as this sounds, couldn't be happier that Dylan Thomas was a manic-depressive alcoholic. without that, i wouldn't have "Clown in the Moon." (my 3rd favorite poem of all time. they just don't write 'em like they used to...).

the author also points out our society's eagerness to over-prescribe meds for even "mild" sadness. one wonders if this over prescription of psychotrophic drugs may carry any of the types of consequences that the medical community is now seeing as a result of the over-prescription of antibiotics (drug-resistent viruses, etc.)...

anyhow, this looks interesting. i'll let you know how it is.

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