2
" Classifying depression as an illness serves the psychiatric community and pharmaceutical corporations well; it also soothes the frightened, guilty, indifferent, busy, sadistic, and unschooled. To understand depression as a call for life-changes is not profitable. Stagnation is not a medical term. The 17.5 million Americans diagnosed as suffering a major depression in 1997 were mostly damned. (Psychobiological examinations confuse cause and symptom.) Deficient serotonergic functioning, ventral prefrontal cerebral cortex, dis-inhibition of impulsive-aggressive behavior, blah blah blah: the medical lexicon boils emotion from human being. Go take a drug, the doctor says. Pain is a biochemical phenomenon. Erase all memory. "
― Antonella Gambotto-Burke , The Eclipse: A Memoir Of Suicide
5
" Right! Let's get on with it! All right... you... Will... have trained as apprentice to Ranger Halt of Redmont Fief these last five twelvemonths and blah blah blah and so on and so on. You've shown the necessary level of proficiency in the use of the weapons a Ranger uses- the longbow, the saxe knife, the throwing knife." He paused and glanced up Halt. " He has shown the proficiency, hasn't he? Of course he has," he went on, before Halt could answer. " Furthermore, you are a trusted officer in the service of the King and so on and so on and hi diddle diddle dee dee..." He glanced up again. " These forms really do carry on a bit, don't they? But I have to make a pretense of reading them. And so forth and so on and such like." He paused, nodded several times, then continued." So basically..." He flicked a few more pages, found the one he was after and then continued, " You are in all ways ready to assume the position and authority of a fully operational Ranger in the Kingdom of Araluen. Correct?" He glanced up again, his eyebrows raised. Will realized he was waiting for an answer." Correct," he said hastily, then in case that wasn't enough, he added, " Yes. I mean... I do... I am. Yes." " Well, good for you. "