“What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves. This is the most important of all voyages of discovery and without it all the rest are not only useless but disastrous.”
—THOMAS MERTON, TRAPPIST MONK
In the next hour, 60 people in the United States will attempt to kill themselves. Four of them will be successful. By the time you finish reading this chapter, one of your fellows will be dead—not from cancer, not from a worn-out heart, but from the unbearable burden of his own pain, the weight of which finally convinced him to place a gun to his precious temple or a razor blade to the wrist that his own mother held as she taught him to walk.
The World Health Organization estimates that by 2030, depression will outpace cancer, stroke, war, and accidents as the leading cause of disability and death.
I shouldn’t have to point out that something is wrong—foot-stompingly wrong—with this picture.
Something sacred has been violated. The human soul has lost faith.
Slowly, over time, we have given up our inheritance. We have turned over our power to think for ourselves, to make things up, to imagine, to plan, to dream. Instead, we grab our phones, reach for our remotes. We call Pizza Hut.
Inside each and every one of us is a master chef, an inventor, a writer, a statesman. All these heroes, these immense giants that exist within our souls, are literally dying from boredom. They’re sick to death of streaming Hulu.
Convenience food, streaming television, and ready-made everything is holding hostage the gods within us. It’s no wonder we’re all depressed. We, the greatest of all creators, with the capability to build cities and inspire nations, are squandering our time watching reruns of Sex and the City.
We have forgotten that whole galaxies exist within our grasp. Our deepest impulse is to create. Without it, life becomes sterile, little but rote recitation.
I’m not fool enough to suggest that something as simple as writing a poem or singing a song will change the suicide rate in this country. I’m not proposing that we trade in our Prozac for sketchbooks.
But it’s a start.
The very act of creating is an act of power, an act of hope. It’s a reminder that we are not powerless pawns, not cattle in a big cosmic slaughterhouse. Writing a song or drawing a vase of freshly picked delphiniums is a reminder that we can do something, a reminder that we have the power to make something from nothing. And as those reminders add up, as hope begins to grow, we no longer feel overwhelmed by our troubles, by the troubles of the world. We remember that we, as humans, as cocreators with the universe, have immense power to change things.
It is our responsibility to bear witness to the pulse and beauty of life. Our only job is to discover and sing our own song.
You can either answer the summons. Or you can die.
