I had been simply treating water, settling on surviving and avoiding pain rather than being actively involved in seeking out life.

Anybody who's had to contend with mental illness - whether it's depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever - actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they've had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.

I had been simply treating water, settling on surviving and avoiding pain rather than being actively involved in seeking out life.

But then back on lithium and rotating on the planet at the same pace as everyone else, you find your credit is decimated, your mortification complete: mania is not a luxury one can easily afford. It is devastating to have the illness and aggravating to have to pay for medications, blood tests, and psychotherapy. They, at least, are partially deductible. But money spent while manic doesn't fit into the Internal Revenue Service concept of medical expense or business loss. So after mania, when most depressed, you're given excellent reason to be even more so.

Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.

The quickness and flexibility of a well mind, a belief or hope that things will eventually sort themselves out-these are the resources lost to a person when the brain is ill.

Nature is the first tutor. No one remains untouched or unschooled by the earth, seasons, and heavens.