One of the things that separates youth from adulthood is the realization that the mood you are in is not the one you are stuck in for life. Very young children have this in spades: I often think the whole role of adults with children is to keep saying: this emotion will pass. When you get a bit older, this descent into a mood can deepen, and then you are really stuck, because you can see further, extrapolate more, and it all looks bleak ahead. In my experience, a number of youth suicides came from that -- a feeling that the valley they were in was never going to end. And there is nothing you can say, shouting from the neighbouring hills, overlooking other, maybe better landscapes in the distance, that will be of much use to anyone in that valley.

I remember one really bright student came in to see me once and he said: "Not only is the universe meaningless, but if it is, then my depression is meaningless, too, can there be anything more pathetic, what are we doing here?". Happily he survived, but I always remember that acid bath of withering uselessness that he articulated. I remember some theologian somewhere once said: "This is all God has given us to work with, but couldn't He have given us just a little more light, would it have been so bad?"

yours,

Peter