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EPILOGUE: My Misery, My Cure and My Joy

cont.

It is important for both you and me to remember that before my ship came in I had many days in the past few years when I said to myself that I could be no happier. I remember a Thursday in the Spring of l980 when I was walking to my office and I thought: The trees are lovely. The sun feels good on my back. Wife and children are physically and mentally well. I feel no pain. I have a good job and no money worries. I see peaceful activities on the campus around me. I'd be a fool not to be happy. And I am happy, as happy as one could be. In fact, this is the best day of my life. (On other days since l975 I had also said to myself, this is the best day of my life, or the best Sabbath of my life. But there is no contradiction among such superlatives.)

Then starting June, l980, many good things happened to me professionally. It started with a controversial article that immediately became very well-known, and led to many invitations to speak and write; that represented a chance for me to reach a wide audience with a set of ideas that had previously fallen mostly on deaf ears, or more exactly, on no ears. Each new writing expanded my possibilities and invitations even more. Then a book on these ideas came out in August, l981, and immediately was taken up by magazines, newspapers, radio and television. Journalists call me frequently for my views on happenings in this field. My work has come to be seen as legitimate though controversial. My friends joke that I'm a celebrity. Who wouldn't find this easy to take?

But my happiness is not based on this "success." I was undepressed before it happened, and I'm rather confident I'll be undepressed after all this blows over. Being happy because of what is happening outside you is too shaky a basis for happiness. I want the joy and serenity that comes from within me, even despite adversity. And it is that joy and serenity that the methods of this book brought to me--and perhaps will bring you, too. With all my heart I hope that you, too, will soon reflect on some days as being the best days of your life, and that the other days will be without pain. Please struggle to reach that peaceful shore, for your own sake and for me.

October 12, 1988
In 1981 I thought I had hit the jackpot. And in perhaps the most important respect this was so: My main professional work had a large effect in changing the thinking of both academic researchers and the lay public. But for a variety of reasons, some of which I think I understand and some of which I surely do not understand, my profession did not take me to its bosom on this account, or make the way easier for my subsequent professional work; access to the non-technical public did become easier, however.

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The organizations that oppose my viewpoint continue to dominate public thinking, though the scientific basis for their arguments has been eroded. I have had to conclude that though I may have made a dent in the armor of the opposing viewpoint, and perhaps provided some ammunition for others engaged on the same side of the struggle as I am, the opposing viewpoint will continue to roll on inexorably, though perhaps with a bit less exuberance and carelessness than in the past.

These outcomes have pained and frustrated me. And I have had to keep my pain and frustration to myself lest my unbuttoned words and acts seem "unprofessional" and therefore work against me. (Indeed, I am being careful in these very words on the subject.)

The pain and frustration have taken me to the brink of depression many times during the years since about 1983 or so. But the methods for fighting depression described in this book -- and especially my basic values about human life as described in Chapter 18, even though it is no longer necessary for my grown-up children's sake that I remain undepressed -- have pulled me back from the brink again and again. That is a lot to be thankful for, and perhaps as much as a human being can expect. As to the future -- I must wait and see. Will continued unsuccessful struggle make me feel so helpless that I will feel driven from the field, and therefore escape from the negative self- comparisons into either cheerful or apathetic resignation? Will I re-interpret what has happened as success rather than failure, as acceptance rather than rejection, and therefore have positive self-comparisons with respect to this work?

I end with an open question: If I had continued to experience complete lack of success with my main work, rather than the breakthrough that occurred around 1980, could I have continued to maintain my underlying cheerfulness, or would the quagmire of rejection have sucked me inexorably into depression? Perhaps I could have escaped by giving up that line of work entirely, but that would have meant giving up some of my most cherished ideals, and it is not at all sure that I could have produced more positive results in any related field of work that I enjoyed and respected.

I began this epilogue by saying that I healed myself. But healing is seldom perfect, and health never is forever. I hope that you can do even better than I have done. It will make me happy if you do.

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