Black Boxes, Double Alienation, & the Formative Loss of Depression
livingtogethersomehow.substack.com
In the published version of this text here I’ve changed the names of the building and removed the name of the institution to draw attention away from the particularities. Late on a Monday in early August my tutor emailed to let me know that someone had killed themselves on campus. By the next morning, before the day’s lecture, details emerged. It was an XXXX student, but not one of mine; he had jumped from one of the balconies high on Building 111, where our weekly lectures were held; some of the students in my subjects were posting and commenting on it. I knew all this from my office in an adjacent building, as I was procrastinating on preparing that week’s lecture by checking my email. As one among many employees working in that building, who had to give their lecture in that building, which the university had decided to open the day after the suicide, I felt upset. But about what? To the time of writing there has been something about the events of that week that’s stuck to me, above and beyond its inherent grimness and tragedy. Above all, for me, there was the following twofold emotional truth, realisations that stayed with me long after many of my colleagues forgot about it.
Black Boxes, Double Alienation, & the Formative Loss of Depression
Black Boxes, Double Alienation, & the…
Black Boxes, Double Alienation, & the Formative Loss of Depression
In the published version of this text here I’ve changed the names of the building and removed the name of the institution to draw attention away from the particularities. Late on a Monday in early August my tutor emailed to let me know that someone had killed themselves on campus. By the next morning, before the day’s lecture, details emerged. It was an XXXX student, but not one of mine; he had jumped from one of the balconies high on Building 111, where our weekly lectures were held; some of the students in my subjects were posting and commenting on it. I knew all this from my office in an adjacent building, as I was procrastinating on preparing that week’s lecture by checking my email. As one among many employees working in that building, who had to give their lecture in that building, which the university had decided to open the day after the suicide, I felt upset. But about what? To the time of writing there has been something about the events of that week that’s stuck to me, above and beyond its inherent grimness and tragedy. Above all, for me, there was the following twofold emotional truth, realisations that stayed with me long after many of my colleagues forgot about it.