There’s a speech in William Shakespeare’s comedy, “As You Like It,” known as the “Seven Ages of Man” speech. You may know it better, though, by its famous opening lines: Spoken by the cynical, melancholy Jaques, who prefers to wryly comment on the unfolding plot rather than taking a central role, the soliloquy moves through the seven stages of a man’s life from birth to death, infancy to old age.
Even long before I became marred in the grief of my father’s death, my depression latched onto the ending, to the dotage (the second childishness) and death (the mere oblivion): You see, as time has marched on and the years have flashed by, the ticking of the clock has become a central figure in my depression.
In my teens and 20s, that ticking clock felt like a shadow. I was young, sure, but my hidden and avoided fear at a lump on my jaw made me somewhat convinced I was going to die young.
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