Eat It Good: the Fine Art of Depression in the Modern Day

Eat It Good: The Fine Art Of Depression In The Modern Day

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So, this is the new normal. Under lockdown, we wear our masks, wash our hands, and scroll the days away while waiting for Miss Rona to see herself out. But there’s no need to be lonely while alone: DADDY is putting the social in social distancing for our QUARANTINE issue. 

I’ve done loads of things. Which of them should I tell you about? Should I tell you about sleeping all day long? Should I tell you about my ideas? Poetic. Corporate. Revolutionary. Political. Social. Accidentally racist or unintentionally misogynistic? Sure. Well. Let’s start with sleeping all day long.

Firstly, I recommend you wake up from your night’s sleep and have a shower. Once clean and comfortable, I suggest dressing yourself in clothing that is both appropriate for day-to-day activities as well as sleeping. Don’t worry, we won’t be doing any of those day-to-day activities today, we will simply not rule them out. Next, have a cup of coffee. Nothing like hot black energy juice to start the day. Then text everyone you could conceivably see that day with the following message.

“Hey, hows it goin’?”

Do not wait for the reply before snuggling up in bed under a warm duvet. Not too warm mind, this is simply the first of many naps you will be taking today. Make it comfortable but don’t make it cloud-like. Lay your head on a pillow. Sleep. Sleep I tell you. I recommend visualising the following:

YOU ARE A GORILLA SWINGING FROM TREE TO TREE IN A HUGE JUNGLE OF GREEN. YOU ARE ANGRY. YOU ARE FUMING. SOMEONE HAS STOLEN A BANANA FROM YOU AND IS RACING AWAY. YOU ARE IN SEARCH OF YOUR BANANA AND THE CULPRIT WHO THIEVED IT FROM YOU.

In this situation, the banana is sleep and the culprit is everyone. You should be angry, so angry that all you can do is sleep. Once you are in the throes of a fitful angry sleep you will soon find yourself waking, moaning, and howling. Do not worry. If someone else is worried about you simply hush them with a dart gun.

Once awake again, it may be an idea to eat something. Do not fall into that trap. Only another steaming cup of boiling blackness will do. That is your prize. Drink it. Drink it good. Now you are likely to have received some replies to your earlier message that could range from the following:

“Who are you?”

To

“Doing great thanks, hows you?”

I suggest whatever the reply you answer with the following message.

“Yeah, I know. Crazy huh? Anyway not feeling so great today, let’s reschedule for next week maybe? Deadlines etc etc. I know. Crazy huh?”

Now that you have satiated the social world with your excellent social skills you can consider your energy for the late morning truly expended. You’re exhausted. Imagining every scenario of reply, replying with all of the pressing of screens, pressing the send button, waiting. Waiting. Enough waiting. It’s time to sleep.

Do it. You know how.

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This sleep will be accompanied by the following visualisation.

You are a duck swimming round and round in a circle in the rain.

Here the water is the sleep. Under you always and tapping you gently on the head. This sleep is warm, restful, and nice.

Wake the fuck up. It’s 4 pm. Great right? You suddenly feel quite restless. Just like a fly. Just like all the flies around the sink. Forget those though. You are hungry but first, how about some coffee? How about just heating up the surplus from the morning? Perfect.

Drink it good. Don’t make me say it again.

Now you could eat. Toast. Butter. Nothing else. No frills. Eat it good. You are more awake than you have ever been during this day. Your whole bloody being is quivering with the expectation of action. Even your brain is doing something beyond conjuring up ridiculous fantastical scenarios. It wants feeding too. The brain wants to read something or hear something to buzz and bust out of its shell and scream ‘I’m clever. I understand it on so many different levels.’ Isn’t it awful? A nice smooth spliff will solve this conundrum.

Eat it. No. Sorry. Smoke it good.

Done? Well, thank god for that because truly only deities could invent such a relaxant. Oh, the edges and the buzzing and the shimmer it has all been replaced by the warm ‘Smudge’ tool on Adobe Photoshop. You’re back in bed, right? I didn’t even have to tell you this time.

Close them eyes. Think on this.

Your very own physical body is lying on a giant green screen. In the control room outside, the one that looks down at your body on a huge green screen, a selection of people are gathered around a computer. They are looking at your body laying flat over an image of the Eiffel Tower, now Big Ben, the Great Wall of China, the Statue of Liberty.

In this image, the people are the dream-makers. This sleep you’re gonna dream. It is going to be the deepest sleep yet. You’re going down under. You’re in the hole. You can’t see up because up looks like down and only images arrive and when they do they are from every angle as though you are living it out. But you’re not dreaming.

WAKE UP. IT IS 9 PM. DO NOT MOVE. STAY. STAY. STAY. GOOD. NOW. PICK UP THE LAPTOP. DO NOT BE A FOOL. I CAN TELL YOU HAVE RESIDUAL HIGH RIGHT NOW. SOME THINGS SLEEP CAN’T SOLVE SOMETIMES. DO NOT BE A FOOL, FIND AND GRAB THE CHARGER ALSO. PLUG IT IN.  OPEN THE LID AND FIND A FILM.

Just keep going. Submit. Remember you are without agency today because the day is over. The day is lost and the night is an empty vessel that expects no passengers. Meaning everyone already thinks you’re ill or is still quietly feeling the effects of a dart gun. It should be around midnight.

Drag yourself up. Hit the kitchen. Have a small amount of water. Have a cigarette if you like those. Have one if you don’t. Don’t have one if you are allergic. Don’t have one if you are not addicted. Don’t have one if you are not addicted yet. Don’t have one if it will seriously and perhaps even instantly damage your health, like the allergic thing but in a different way. If you don’t have one go directly back to bed. Once you’ve had one go directly back to bed. Put on those genuine pyjamas. The sleep suit, the cosy-costume whatever you call it. Get it on your body. Good.

Pick up your phone and log on to your favourite social media outlet. Browse. Scroll. Eat it good. Do it for half an hour. Give the fuck up. It makes you feel awful. You are supposed to have a certain amount of control. You do not care about these minutiae, these specific minutiae make you feel ill. They make you feel worthless. A self-imposed worthlessness. That is not a state conducive to sleep. Is it? No. Pick up your laptop again.

Marathon through another film or series. No questions, you know the rules. Put the phone away. Hell, turn it off. Keep it charged. Away from you.

Visualise yourself dying. Not horribly. Not painfully. Just peacefully dying away. Just easily dying into the night. Do not think about missing people, or losing people, or finding people and learning new things. Do not. Just visualise yourself dying.

When you wake for the next day. There’s loads of things to do.

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