The Black Dog

If there is one person who I would have thought had all the attributes I don't have--and who I thought as the luckier for it, has committed suicide. Anthony Bourdain. Which goes to show you never can tell.

I'm a happy man, content. I like my life. I worry that I'm complacent, that I don't travel enough, that I don't have enough friends, that I'm not urbane, that I don't do enough activities. (All things that Anthony Bourdain had in spades.)

Depression, man. Kicks butt. No regard for achievement or anything else. Maybe addiction (he had a history.)

I should be grateful for what I have.

I have a wonderful wife, I'm solvent, my business is just enough of a challenge, I'm writing and achieving. I'm happy alone. I never get bored.  I'm healthy, knock wood, I don't have addictions.

I had clinical depression my final year in high school and for the next ten years of so. Came out of it slowly. It's one of the reasons I'm not terribly social. I'm very self-protective and I find that if I do too much outside stuff I tend to lose my equilibrium.

I get a sense that I did learn some wisdom from the experience--though the cost was so high I wouldn't recommend it.

The Black Dog never returned, though the literature says it might. 40 years free of it. I sort of doubt it will come back now--though I am always on the lookout.

I'm surprised I came through it all so well. In a sense, it happened early enough in my life that I was able to learn some hard lessons. I had a family who saw me through the hard parts.

And I was lucky.