TED WILSON REVIEWS THE WORLD: DEPRESSION

★★☆☆☆

Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of the world. Today I am reviewing depression.

Depression is that feeling you get when you wonder why God bothered to make you and you can’t come up with an answer.

Everyone gets that feeling once in awhile — some more than others. The two types of people who get it the most are writers and comedians, with comedy writers obviously being the worst of the bunch. If I meet someone who is introduced as a comedian or writer, I immediately take a step back because you never know what might happen.

I’ve been pretty fortunate in that I can count the number of times I’ve been depressed on one hand. The root cause has always been the same: desire. Like the time I was depressed because I wanted my wife Rosie to come back to life. Or the time I wanted a fresh-baked blueberry pie but the woman who always baked it for me was Rosie and she was too deceased to make one. I had to buy a frozen pie.

The happiest people are those who have the most. Like celebrities. I imagine Kenny West is very happy because of his successful rap career, his beautiful wife, and all the goods they own. I bet they have one of everything. If they ask their butler to buy something they see on QVC, he probably says, “there’s already one in the other room.” I wish I had a butler.

The only time I saw Kenny West feeling sad was the time he wanted Beyonce to win an award and she didn’t. It did seem a little unfair not to give Beyonce that award. After all, she’s Beyonce.

Some people are depressed non-stop. They were born that way. I always want to give those people a hug and remind them, “Don’t worry, life is shorter than you think and it will all be over really soon.” If they knew how short life was they could wait it out.

One of the best ways to battle depression is with humor. If I get sad reading The Diary of Anne Frank, I’ll turn on an episode of Hogan’s Heroes to cheer me up. If the TV reception isn’t clear enough to watch Hogan’s Heroes, I’ll pop in one of my Gallagher VHS tapes. There’s always laughter to be found somewhere.

BEST FEATURE: Not caring about anything can really free you up to live a life uninhibited.
WORST FEATURE: The endless stream of tears means having to spend a lot on tissues.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing a baboon.