“These are the kinds of things I would encourage people to think about:

• Is there some way I’m like that guy?

• Is there some way I’m like that cop?

• Would I overreact?

• Am I afraid?

• Am I giving enough oxygen to the black people in my community?

• Do I have enough awareness of the pain?

• Do I have enough awareness of the suffering?

• Or am I looking away when everyone else in the world can see, man, that community in your country is suffering?”

I forgot about that poem for a quarter-century. And then, one day, at the age of 39, I walked into a therapist’s office and started talking. Memories began to flood back. Those words resurfaced.

Eight years on, I find that one line is my eleven-word six-word memoir. It encapsulates my life.

There was the time of my life I spent building those calluses, protecting myself from unsafe emotional environments. You say family, I say death by a thousand cuts.

What’s the best way to deal with Coronavirus-induced depression?

We can work on mimicking in our modern lives the kinds of conditions that prevailed in our environment of evolutionary adaptedness. If that sounds daunting, or even impossible, I’ve simplified it down to six factors.

Taken together, the AL(i)VE^2 factors provide a framework for living a depression-resilient life.

When I didn’t respond, he raised his voice.

“Tell. Me. What. You. Want.”

Each word landed like a heavy left hook.

Feeling pummeled, I collapsed into the back seat. I thought, What do you mean, what do I want? I’m supposed to know what I want? I have no idea what I want.

You know how it is. You go on that 10-day meditation retreat and it completely changes your life.

You learn how to bring your awareness back to your breath and your body. You tame the wild stallion that is your mind.

You feel — for the first time in your entire life — what it’s like to have a peaceful mind.

You become aware, truly aware — for the first time in your entire life — of your body.

You discover an inner world you had no idea existed.