Talk, and reap the consequences.

The way most people react when they see people acting depressed or purposely secluding themselves is to let them be. I know, because I've been on both sides of that picture. I've watched as other people shut everybody else out, and I've done the same thing myself. So I can say from experience that when I looked like I shut people out, I wanted people to talk to me. When I was in that mindset, I was in a period of testing people. I was trying to find out: Who actually cares? Who notices? Who will take the first step towards me? Because people tend to be too respectful of the way things look, depressed people get left to themselves.
I don't think that should be the way things happen. At the very least, we should make an attempt to see if people in a state of being down want to talk about it with us. In my life, I've chosen to risk being rebuffed for the chance that the people I see being sad need somebody to talk to. Does that make sense? It would be better to be rejected while trying than to never try and have wasted a chance.

Here's a poem that kind of addresses that topic:

Nobody knows who I am within;

What kinds of doubt and fear reside

Beneath my actions, or their origin.

Inside, so many dreams and wishes died.

If opportunity does come,

What will happen?

Will I go numb?

Or will I take it? What then?

Uncertainties rule

In my life, and I’m a fool.

Why can’t I turn this around?

Will I always be lost, and never found?

I can’t count the cost of happiness;

Conquer the darkness that leaves me with less.

People look, but never address the real problems

Or the aloneness that condemns

Me to live this life.

Inside, there’s a knife

Cutting deeper and deeper,
And a road, getting steep and still steeper.

Just some descriptory work....

Hello, faithful readers! Thought I'd share some of my writing that was a school assignment. I had to write descriptive paragraphs, and I had some fun with it. The second one refers to the famous Mario Chalmers three-pointer to send the 2008 College Basketball Championship game to overtime, where the Kansas Jayhawks owned Memphis and Derek Rose. Ahem. Anyway...enjoy. If you like them, feel free to tell me.

The way they held hands wasn’t simply a clasping of fingers, or a meeting of palms. No, they held hands, but really, it was a massage, a never-ending tracing of the lines in the hand, a constantly-moving dance like two lovers pressed close on the ballroom floor. Those in love should never just hold hands.

The way the shot left his hand was beautiful. Somehow, as it made its departure from its home to its destination, you knew, like you know an airplane will land where it’s supposed to, that it would fulfill the dream, the hope, the command it was given, and fall through the rim perfectly and completely.

The music playing filled the air with pleasantness, the strains of better times. The melody was unpredictable, yet sweet. The lyrics were poetry, the best poetry. The feeling revived within him of deep sadness over what had disintegrated gave testament to the strength of the song. He could identify with the message and heartbeat of the harmonies playing according to the rules set out for them. He felt as if the song had been written only for him, and for his situation. But the tune ended, and his sorrow did not, playing to the notes of a song written inside his head, set continually to “Repeat.”