I asked a question about Leonard Cohen...

[Andrew McGeever]

I want to make a couple of comments on this thread:
Leonard Cohen has suffered from depression in his life. It's an illness, and most people achieve recovery; a means to survive.
Leonard has articulated, through poetry, songs and meditations, his own means of survival. Far from being a poet of doom ("wrist-slitting stuff"), he has offered an intensely personal gift for all who have open hearts .
Tom Sakic got it right in his first post on this thread.
Suicide is an act, and Leonard's next act will be to publish "The Book of Longing" ( it's taking him so long.....but that's normal.....we can wait.... )
Andrew.

[Byron]

I worked with three lawyers who commited suicide. A shot, a rope and a car crash, were their individual ways of leaving their pain behind. The signs were there for those who knew them, but the serious contemplation of a colleague killing themself is too hard a notion to accept for most people. "Oh, he's down; he'll get over it; he'll pull himself together; he's just depressed; he's in the dumps" were all phrases used and are continued to be used. Can I say that it is recognised by the medical establishments that, those who have not experienced the actual illness described as Depression, have no understanding of what it is like. Those who suffer from Depression have said it is like asking someone to describe Faith. If you haven't experienced it you cannot truly describe it, and even then, only with great difficulty.
In the books we have read about lc, his autobiographers make mention of his depressive episodes. We have to be careful that the feeling described by many people as 'being depressed,' is not confused with full blown clinical or manic depression. There is no similarity at all for the sufferers of the two latter illnesses.
Depression is an illness caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. I take the view that lc has had a long lasting experience of the illness, and his approach to his writing, shows a manifestation of the pain and angst suffered by the heart and the mind, which touches on the human condition in our lives.
I agree with Tom Sakic and Andrew with this one.

[Murat Malay]

The subject becomes more interesting... But do you think there is a difference between an artiste who suffers from depression and an ordinary person who suffers from it ? I mean, what is the main reason of depression : weakness or sensibility ? Then we can maybe call a sensible man as if he is a weak person... Or some people might think that weak people are sensible...

http://muratmalay.4t.com

[Byron]

Perhaps people would be enlightened by reading all of the books by and on lc? HTH.

[Byron]

Depression is an illness caused by chemical imbalances in the brain.

Many illnesses are caused by chemical imbalances in the body. Depression is just one of those illnesses. Some people suffer from them, some people don't.

[Tchocolatl]

How we feel is a case of "the hen or the egg?". Our cultural background, the way we reacted etc. etc. have a great impact on the "chemical industry" of our body, you who are meditating, Byron, must know that - about alpha and beta modes, bla, bla, bla. Silence. Smile Play with the flower. Bla bla bla again). (BTW thanks again you and the others who put this subject (MT) on the carpet, I continue to do it since this thread in DH and the benefits energically speaking worth gold).

[Byron]

The differences we are discussing are between mood altering by relaxation techniques, as opposed to mind altering by nerve retardation in the brain caused by chemical loss, damage or over-supply.
TM and depression are as different as apples and oranges.

To discuss this topic further it would need the contributers to disclose medical experiences, which is something that should never appear on a public forum like this. Imagine the problems we would create if contributers dealt in depth with their own, personal, religious beliefs? It gets tricky enough in here when international politics are discussed.

Therefore, I for one will take no further part in this thread, which was started by a complete unknown who arrived with lc and depression tripping off his/her pen.

I will click on the stop watching this topic link which appears below this message on my PC.

[Murat Malay]

Tears come from my rainy brown eyes...

http://muratmalay.4t.com

An ember burns where it falls......

[Tchocolatl]

The differences we are discussing are between mood altering by relaxation techniques, as opposed to mind altering by nerve retardation in the brain caused by chemical loss, damage or over-supply.
TM and depression are as different as apples and oranges.

You told me Byron! I did not have understand.

I was stressing that the biological support (central and peripheral nervous systems) do react to ideas, behaviors, surrendings (and more, I do not want to be tedious, so I stop the list - I just add etc.). Persons with same brain desease or injury react very differently. It would not be like this if the sole bio explains everything.

I hope my post is clear, now. If not for Byron, who seems to have no intention to came back in this thread, at least for the people who may have (not) understand my first post. He may not be the only one.

As for LC's "case" I would never write a word about this subject reliated to him on the base of his poetry and/or songs and/or novels (interviews, yes, maybe) I would feel like by-passing a line between being a fan and a fanatic. If he (LC) wants to write about this : good. No problem.

The subject, however, is interesting in general.

[tomsakic]

Last year I wrote 16-page essay about melancholia/depression as main public persona (or misconception) of "Leonard Cohen" (the paper is still waiting for the English translation; one day soon, I hope) so I did some research in the matter, not only in Cohen's work, but also in book about brain, medicine literature, Freud and Julia Kristeva. I tried to relate "Leonard Cohen" (the persona, the public image, the act as Scobie wrote in his Derridian analysis) to the real Leonard Cohen thru his interviews (particularly the 2001 interviews). My first post here was the shortest conclusion of my essay, and on that only one important remark: the depression is totally blank, the people become tabula rasa and unable to speak about their condition at all. The fact that LC did sing continuosly about that condition is contradictory with that blankness - he did speak, he did sing. Out of blank periods he came with the song/poem.

Now, according to Freud and Kristeva, melancholy is the state of the culture. It's amazing coincidence how Kristeva (her 1989 book Black Sun) concluded that contemporary culture is breaking up, and only artists were there before, on that place where the others, the culture itself, is coming/yet to come. The melancholy is the face of the new world, and now the amazing coincidence: how Cohen explain his late popularity. "When I was singing in late 1970s 'This is the final days, this is the flood' everybody asked me 'What flood? About what do you sing?' Now when I sing 'There’ll be the breaking, of the ancient western code, Your private life will suddenly explode' everybody know what I sing".

Also, in 2001 he said: "I’ve been living in an exploded landscape for a long time. I have a place to situate all of this. Because I’ve felt that things were going to blow up – it wasn’t as specific as the twin towers – but I’ve felt for some time there was going to be a shaking of the situation." He was reffering to 9-11, but it can be related to the whole experience of living in our times. And again the same coincidence: Kristeva called the modern world "exploded culture" in ruins.

Back to main conlusion - LC was never really clinically manically-depressive person, only melancholic. Also, his depression didn't dissolve with cure, medicaments, or whatever, or even with Zen, but his old-age understanding that "there was nothing to be depressed about". It seems that he simply achieved some experience or - you could say - wisdom and that last 2 albums and 2001 interviews are saying that all over the place.

[Tchocolatl]

Thanks Tom, it is serious and luminous (and not an easy subject). I have enjoyed reading this.

I do not think, however, about our time and/or culture being so broken etc. Is is juts different and peopel are seing the past with too romantic eyes - that was not so beautiful, not more than our time, for sure.

Today, the difficulties lay in the rythm of life that seems to increase at the rythm of new sci. and tech. discoveries. Our environment is changing faster then ever and the sum of energy it takes to cope with constant adaptation is demanding.

For the melancholia and the popularity, old French singners, like Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, to name just these two, were very popular and even more sad then popular. If I remimber well, he was, at the beginning, influenced a little bythe Frenchies. And as the popularity of Leonard Cohen, well, he was a pop star of the stature of, let say, Bob Dylan. So, I always wonder when people are talking about him not being popular. I think that this is just another side of his persona (himself complaining about himself not being polupar) the truth is that he was ans he is still popular. He is just not "commercial". Big difference.

Cheers!

[Murat Malay]

SUICIDE

I must die without telling anyone.
A drop of blood must be on one corner of my mouth.
Those who don't know me
Will say,
-"No doubt he loved somebody.''
Those who know me,
-"Good for him. Poor man, he suffered a lot.''
But the true reason must be none of that.

Orhan Veli

[Tchocolatl]

Murat, I am living in an area where suicide is the 1st cause of mortality for men between 20 and 50 (I'm not quiet sure of the range of ages) according to the surveys and this is very painful to know that.

They say that suicide is a way to avoid the pain of the situation, the only solution one can think about deep in a black despair.

This is why I dislike so much this movie "Dead Poet Society". No "cause" or no idea worth the life of a person. There is always another solution.

Other people can be a support in a way they even not suspect. Don't you think so?

[tom.d.stiller]

And as the popularity of Leonard Cohen, well, he was a pop star of the stature of, let say, Bob Dylan. So, I always wonder when people are talking about him not being popular. I think that this is just another side of his persona (himself complaining about himself not being polupar) the truth is that he was ans he is still popular.

Thank you, Thocolatl, for these enlightening remarks. Without prematurely going into details I can say that you touched on a central issue of my current "work in progress" - a small article on Cohen's "To A Teacher".

Thanks again.

tom

[tomsakic]

I agree that this "he's not popular" comes from Leonard himself. That's the good pont, Tchoco. I grew up in culture where he's reffered to as "the legendary Cohen" whenever he turns up on radio or in newspapers.

About "brokeness of things", I generally agree, the past times always seems as golden age. Yet, in some other terms, there are some feeling of breaking up in recent culture and society, about which LC spoke very good in many 1990s interviews. Sometimes I admire him how he educated/clever actually is. usually when I read the interview with some good writer, singer or whatever, it appeared how ignorant he/she is actually (from where then comes the cognition in their works?). But that's never the case with Leonard. I admired yesterday who he jerked off the journalist at Helsinki 1988 TV interview. Like the answer on "What's the difference between poem and song?" LC answered like he knows everything about criticism and literary theory. Who the songs moves wiftly from mouth to mouth, lives in the moment, nd poem is read and reread on paper, surrounded with blank margins... Then that question about politics, or whenever LC falls in speaking about brokeness of things, deeper undestanding of our culture - mostly I'm not sure that his interviewers are able to follow him up. Except those at CBC Canada They always looks at him so interestingly and with some deep understanding in their look