Received a short message from Patrik this afternoon.
The message read, "I love you."
Hold on ... What?
I had to look back at the sender name to make sure the message was not from someone else. Not that Patrik is not a loving, kind-hearted boy. He is. He just usually doesn't admit to as much.
Oh wait.
"Did your mom tell you to contact me?"
"No."
"You mean, you just said this all on your own?"
"Yes, Dad."
I spend the next few minutes in shock.
"Well, you know ... You know ... I love you, too."
Seems that Patrik is not the only one who doesn't generally admit to as much.
Patrik went on to say that he had been watching some sad stuff online, and just felt like talking. Some kind of video called "Streamers and Depression". How the online community and social media tend more often to depress than encourage.
But it was more than that, too.
"For me," he wrote, "it's depressing to see how the world is just spiralling down the drain.
Indeed. Maybe not so much the world, but certainly America. And it is depressing, discouraging, chilling, slightly nauseating. You could cut the malaise in America these days with a knife. And ruin the blade.
Southern author Walker Percy wrote about these times, these conditions and this atmosphere some forty years ago. The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins, The Message in the Bottle. The Thanatos Syndrome. It all seems to have come so suddenly; yet, in fact, it has been in the oven for a long time now, rising. Malaise, discontent, disillusionment, dis-ease. The rise of depression.
Welcome to our brave new world.
Glad that you're in it, Patrik. (And I do love you, bud).
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