Jonathan Rottenberg, professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, writes about depression in "The Depths":

"One way to appreciate why these states have enduring value is to ponder what would happen if we had no capacity for them. Just as animals with no capacity for anxiety were gobbled up by predators long ago, without the capacity for sadness, we and other animals would probably commit rash acts and repeat costly mistakes."

He goes on to cite Lee Stringer's essay "Fading to Gray" - from "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression":

"Perhaps what we call depression isn’t really a disorder at all but, like physical pain, an alarm of sorts, alerting us that something is undoubtedly wrong; that perhaps it is time to stop, take a time-out, take as long as it takes, and attend to the unaddressed business of filling our souls."

Let Friedrich Nietzsche conclude today:

“If you are unwilling to endure your own suffering even for an hour, and continually forestall all possible misfortune, if you regard as deserving of annihilation, any suffering and pain generally as evil, as detestable, and as blots on existence, well, you have then, besides your religion of compassion, yet another religion in your heart (and this is perhaps the mother of the former)-the religion of smug ease. Ah, how little you know of the happiness of man, you comfortable and good-natured ones! For happiness and misfortune are brother and sister, and twins, who grow tall together, or, as with you, remain small together!”

A smile is nothing but an inversed frown (scientific illustration below). One grows the other. Our surviving ancestors saw dismal depths before uncovering ecstatic heights. Correlation - causation ?

Impossibles are now going out Tuesday and Thursdays ! If you'd like, reply to let me know you're in love with these or / and they're helping you connect the dots :D (super-smile)