For me, there are two symbols going on here. I've often used the notion of trains/subways as a metaphor for depression (the dirt, single traveling; perhaps the prospect of leaving everything and everyone behind, again being singularity). Reading(/art), on the other hand, has always been a Noble Passion. It's education and enlightenment. Thus, the bettering of people and society. Healthy and wholesome, wholly what depression is not.

I would view an image like this as one of the Noble Passions in the midst of our painful world. It's the hope that makes studying and glorifying the arts so necessary and worthwhile. It's what makes living worthwhile.

Yet this image caused me marked confusion.

I have been trying to make sense, for a while now, of the fact that there are elements of my depression I very much enjoy and appreciate (even now, my brain is immediately wondering if that's not some thought influenced and created by the depression or simply some insane idea loftily thought up while the depression isn't that bad at this moment).

This picture (rather surprisingly) elicits such strong emotions from me not because the two symbols contrast each other but because they exist together here.

Yet, behind this, there was always this question of "Why?" As per always, I need to have some reason, to explain it.

As I said before, depression is sickness. It is suffering. It is unhealthy. So why be drawn to it? I can provide an explanation of the beauty in sadness, the way that I think our best natures can come out during suffering, etc.

All of which would be valid. But I think the part that unnerves my need for an explanation of everything is evident in my uneasiness about depression appearing with art as if they belong together. It's that, bluntly, I like it, sans explanations – and, as I've said multiple times, I really shouldn't necessarily.

I imagine it's the same uneasiness I get when liking something simply because it elicits nostalgia. Nostalgia over something that was defensively great (i.e. aspects of my childhood)? Acceptable. Longing purely out of nostalgia? Problematic.

And the reason that it seems so inappropriate for it to feel like these two symbols above go together is because, while I can defend art along such lines as I've done above, I just want to simply like these things.

Maybe it's because it's general; after all, you generally don't just like a book for no reason: I have very specific reasonings as to why The Great Gatsby is the shit. It's that, on some purely emotional level (ugh…), I just want to idolize Art.

While this brings up questions and ideas of its own, it also zeros in on an issue I've been trying to deal with for a while now: I'm tired of running from my depression. I don't mean in that I accept and fully embrace the disorder that will be a lifelong ordeal; I already do that openly, perhaps overzealously. I mean that I accept that it's not only something I partially enjoy for very particular reasons but that it's something which colors the entirety of my world and that I can't understand or experience the world outside of that lens.

Art is beautiful in the environment of that empty train station right before daybreak, when there's near to no one there.

You can see strains of this argument in past entries (third portion): the narrator has to stress that healing is the important thing, at the end. Yet perhaps that too simplifies it. There are aspects of depression I like, even if they may not be healthy for me. And saying that I had to learn to cope with depression always seemed like a diluted argument compared to saying you must heal from it but the former may be reality and it's what I want. I don't want to render myself nonfunctional or in massive pain but I don't want to have to offer explanations for, say, the morbid.

When something means a lot to someone, I think you should share it (I've mentioned this somewhere on this xanga before). And that has inevitably meant that I want someone who can appreciate depression with me.

More than that, I want someone who'll equally understand the religious experience I have with art.

Or someone who thinks going through as many museums as we can get our hands on in the spans of a day is a worthwhile effort.

Or would be piqued by the prospect of going out to a park at 2 in the morning.

Or to stay up all night just analyzing the shit out of everything and anything.

Or really loves hip hop.

Or horror movies.

Or feminism.

Or quotes.

Or, if ze doesn't, ze's at least willing to try to see why I do and tries to be a part of it just as I want to see everything that ze appreciates, and why, because ze's a person with a story and a history and dreams and aspirations and feelings and those are important and interesting.

Okay, so maybe I can't quite divorce myself from needing an explanation for things. But I think the reason why this no-explanation buisness arose is that there is clearly an emotional, non-explanational, aspect (even if elicited by a logical reasoning) of all this.

And I want someone to have, or try to have, that same emotional reaction to these things that I do. Because they're important to me.

And they are how I see this world.

I happened across this image on imgur. Some might remember that I posted an image from the same event a long while ago in another post on here (http://thirst2.xanga.com/716273608/race-sex-sexual-orientation---an-intelligent-assessment-of-controversy/).

Longstanding tensions between disgruntled African American sanitation workers and Memphis city officials erupted on February 12, 1968 when nearly one thousand workers refused to report to work demanding higher wages, safer working conditions, and recognition of their union, local 1733 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Despite organizing city-wide boycotts, sit-ins, and daily marches, the city's sanitation workers were initially unable to secure concessions from municipal officials. At the urging of Reverend James T. Lawson, Martin Luther King, Jr. agreed to come to Memphis and lead a nonviolent demonstration in support of the sanitation workers. On March 29 over five thousand demonstrators, carrying signs which read "I Am A Man," participated in King's march. However, the peaceful demonstration took a turn for the worse when an estimated two hundred participants began breaking storefront windows and looting. The ensuing violence resulted in the death of Larry Payne, a sixteen year old African American who was killed by Memphis police officers, the imposition of a city-wide curfew, and the mobilization of nearly four thousand National Guard troops. Deeply troubled by the violent outbreak, King vowed to return to Memphis to lead a peaceful demonstration. On April 3, 1968, nearly two months after the initial start of the strike, King returned to Memphis and delivered what would be his last public speech. The following evening King was assassinated on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel. In the wake of King's death, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent James Reynolds, undersecretary of labor, to Memphis to help resolve the strike. Nearly two weeks later on April 16, the Memphis sanitation workers' strike ended when the city agreed to issue raises to African American employees and recognize the workers' union.

There are those who would call the image (or at least the sign) iconic. Reading the comments of imgur, it would seem otherwise.

They see his beard and know he is a man.

Who let beardy in line without a sign?

Epic Beard.

You say you a man? You a funky man...

so racist... white people can be men too

Who brings a sign to a gun fight?

Talk about irony. The beardy is not a man.

I think anyone who reads this xanga readily understands that I'm not very fond on the concept of gender-roles; that being said, they existed (stiflingly) in the 50s and the notion of being a man held importance. The phrase "I AM A MAN" here refered not only to the fact that African Americans were human but that they ought to have the same rights that white men had: the ability to work, the right to respect, etc. Literally that White America consistently and systematically emasculated black men.

The reason the white person does not have a sign, imgur, is because he has all those things already. He is there as an ally and to support.

While three or so comments seem to understand that this is related to civil rights (not entirely difficult to figure out), none seem to be aware of what this picture is of, specifically. Iconic indeed.

And, don't get me wrong. I'm generally of the opinion you can make a joke out of almost anything. Some of those comments would be funny with the understanding that everyone knew what the picture was of and respected what it represented. See, this is imgur; this is the photo upload site where, if you upload a picture of the military or something related to Queer rights, everyone goes somber, talking about the need to respect these sacred things.

Apparently not for race.

But we know that's not actually it; they're just woefully ignorant of black history – which really isn't their fault. As I was talking about jazz music with my dad, I off-handedly mentioned the Harlem Renaissance – at which point he asked me to explain what that was.

He had never been taught about it; he had never even heard of it.