What's Slough With You?

Mired in what it amuses me to call the Slough of Despond. I don't like the thing itself, but I do like the term. If you've ever tried to slog through an actual marsh for any distance at all, it will seem apt. I looked it up the other day, and what do you know, it's from The Pilgrim's Progress, of all things. It's almost certain that neither you nor I will ever read that book, so it's fun to at least know one term—and thus derive one benefit—from it without going to the trouble.

It's not fun to actually be in a slough of despond. It feels kind of bad. You feel sorry for yourself, for whatever's bothering you, and then people try to cheer you up by reminding you of other people's far worse problems and it doesn't seem to work somehow. Like the earthquake in China. Tens of thousands of candles blown out, poof, just like that. James Fallows, one of the finest journalists and human beings on the planet, has done a remarkable thing: He's posted pictures of Chinese school kids. Just regular pictures. You look, and you understand what tens of thousands means. You also understand what one means.

So anyway, I'm not wallowing in the slough. It's more a case of one's optimism and forward motion being challenged by circumstances. But if being dead isn't one of the circumstances, you owe it to yourself to keep plugging away, right?