José: I am depressed about me.
Marcia: How can that be?
José: What do you mean how can that be? I failed at being a certain way. It brings me down plus I might have Covid.
Marcia: But that is like saying you occupy a separate position which points a finger at another you proclaiming that isn’t me, this is me. But are you two separate selves or three or four?
Jennifer: You mean is the self more than one self?
Marcia: Right.
Jennifer: José, you do not know what you are talking about.
José: I am a moron and I let myself down over and over.
Jennifer: How?
José: I stay up too late and I have a sore throat and I need to get more sleep and I end up with too much anxiety. I am a moron. I might have Covid. I do this a lot.
Marcia: You see how you are believing in a divided self?
José: And exactly how does that help me Einstein?
Marcia: If you believe part of you is bad and part of you is good and both simultaneously are existing-
Jennifer: Then who is to say they are real in the first place?
Marcia: That is what I mean.
José: But Covid is real.
Jennifer: So?
Marcia: Nobody said Covid was not real.
Jennifer: You made it sound like an illusion. You think everything is an illusion.
Marcia: Well yes but that is another story.
José: So if I kick you it won’t hurt?
Marcia: That is not what I mean but yes it will hurt and yes everything is an illusion.
José: My depression is not an illusion.
Marcia: Well ok.
José: It is real.
Marcia: Will it be real next week? Next month? Is it real if you listen to Birds of Fire by the Mahavishnu Orchestra or if you start to watch Jackie Brown again. Those are your favourites right?
José: How can it be an illusion if it is real? But yes if I listen to my favourites it changes.
Marcia: Interesting.
José: You think you are better than me?
Marcia: No.
Jennifer: Person lost over here.
José: I think I need drugs. I really might have Covid.
Jennifer: You know some people really spend fifty years in a cave trying to work out heavy problems like this?
Marcia: So they say.
Jennifer: Maybe the mind is like a flashlight and whatever it points at gets illuminated. You point the mind at depression, it goes on about depression, you point at pizza it goes on about pizza.
José: I am not a flashlight.
Jennifer: I agree with Marcia, everything is both real and an illusion but it also is a concept that makes for freak outs. You can’t just explain that to the police when they pull you over.
Marcia. Cool.
Jennifer: In my opinion, your depression might be altered by considering impermanence. How the mind assumes different positions and even the fact that it can do that. Like being more than two selves at the same time, speaks to the fact that you might be being fooled about what you are or whether you even are.
Marcia: Shining its flashlight here or there.
José: Oy. You are not the sisters of mercy.
Marcia: You seem not depressed when you play your songs.
Jennifer: This is true.
José: Music is real. It makes you feel good.
Marcia: How can you prove it is real?
Jennifer: That is a good one for the cave.
Marcia: Music and time are invisible but real, right?
José: I need a Covid testing kit. I am leaving.
Marcia: Are you still depressed?
José: No. Now just annoyed.
Jennifer: Your welcome.