Cordula’s Web Blog

A friendly reminder to all of us incurable dreamers whose wishes didn’t come true last year… it’s Perseids’ time again! The peak is expected around August 12th, so hurry, catch your own shooting star, and send your dearest wish to the sky. May our dreams come true… if not in this world, then at least in our imagination.

Countless authors, poets and bards wrote about broken hearts, and how much they hurt… undoubtedly, a powerful metaphor, universally understood, regardless of age, culture and upbringing. Who didn’t feel the sharp emotional pain and distress of losing a loved one? But can hearts really break, physically?

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Punxsutawney Phil, the prognosticator of all prognosticators has spoken: it’s six more weeks of winter!

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So here we are again, on the Eve of 2010, waiting for… nothing but more of the same cruel pain. For hope, like a dying ember, loses with each passing year more of its flaky light, and despair sits firmly as ever in the deserted mansion of the soul.

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Yesterday, a huge earthquake followed by a tsunami hit the Samoan Islands, including Samoa. Casualties and damages are high, and help is badly needed. Our hearts go out to all bereaved survivors who lost loved ones to this major disaster.

On behalf of Cordula’s Web editorial team: please consider donating to relief organizations and sending humanitarian help and relief workers (e.g. via New Zealand’s Red Cross).

Thank you for caring.

I’ve just added The Left Banke’s Walk Away Renée lyrics to Cordula’s Web, associating them with a gloomy painting of a train station by Claude Monet, because many people — including myself — unconsciously project their own unrequited love with it.

Its background is particularly interesting. According to the song’s entry on Wikipedia, Michael Brown allegedly wrote about Renée Fladen, a tall blonde and then-girlfriend of bassist Tom Finn. He fell deeply in love with her; but since she was engaged, he couldn’t confess his love.

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If you’re a regular reader of Cordula’s Web, chances are high that you’re also experiencing more or less severe forms of depression, and seeking solace and a quiet place. Whatever the causes (PTSD, a broken heart, mourning, burnout, …), you probably realize that those are just psychological triggers. So what are the real physiological root causes of depression?

As if dwelling in the dark hole of despair wasn’t painful enough already, society, mental health therapists, and counselors often add insult to injury by insinuating that depression were some kind of mental health problem. Since pronounced feelings of guilt are among typical symptoms of depression, this only exacerbates the anguish by inducing unnecessary shame and additional self-loathing. But what if depression was actually a natural reaction, and quite useful for the survival of the species?

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If you loved Ally McBeal, you’ll certainly remember Vonda Shepard’s melancholic What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, with its unforgettable refrain:

What becomes of the brokenhearted,
Who had love that’s now departed?

Most people don’t take a broken heart seriously. Some may even gain a devilish pleasure out of breaking others’ hearts. To a mental sadist, or just a careless or heartless person, a broken heart is just a metaphor, since “mental pain isn’t real pain.” In our societies, taboos exist only to protect against physical violence, but inflicting mental pain is still widely accepted.

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On June 12th, 1987, US president Ronald Reagan delivered a famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate, challenging the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbatchev to dismantle the Berlin Wall:

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!“

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A common belief has it, that if you are able to quickly utter a wish while seeing a shooting star, your wish may eventually come true. However, you’ve got to be very quick about it: uttering a wish before or after the fact won’t work: the dying meteor has to be visible while you speak out your dearest hope.

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