So Jill has joined the Guilty Remnant. As an AV Clubber writes, she may just miss her mom. The review links to a Vanity Fair writer's tweet about how the show is about depression.
What’s interesting is that the statement has some bias built in: It implies that depression offers clarity into the human condition—something more real, more reliable, more logical.There’s a term for this: depressive realism, a psychological hypothesis introduced in 1979 that suggested that maybe the reason certain people suffer from depression is because they’re able to see the world more clearly, without the bias of optimism. It’s a dark interpretation of the disease—and one that has been challenged quite a bit in the psychological community. But its particular insidious appeal, I think, is that depressive realism follows the logic of depression itself—this pessimism is the only sensible way to look at the world.A few weeks ago, Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson introduced the idea that The Leftovers serves, at least in part, as an examination of depression. That seems more relevant than ever in tonight’s episode, “Cairo,” which tells the story of how Jill Garvey, a teenage girl like Hazel, ends up joining the Guilty Remnant. There’s other stuff happening in this episode, but “Cairo” feels like Jill’s episode. This is the first time her struggle has felt important and real. And what it feels like is a struggle with depression.
With what's going on in Ferguson I think of Cornel West. A main distinction he would make was between optimism and hope. Things might not get better, but you hope they will. Being optimistic is unrealistic but being hopeful wards off despair.
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