Jim Carrey on sadness vs depression
by Francesco Eunchae: Jim Carrey
The reframe Jim Carrey offers here is the part worth sitting with: sadness comes from happenstance, grief, whatever did or didn't happen to you, while depression reads as the body refusing the character you've built out in the world. His line is "Depression is your body saying, 'I don't want to be this character anymore.'" He also gets into how draining it is to keep pretending you're someone you're not, and credits his friend Jeff Foster, a spiritual teacher, with the idea of hearing depressed as deep rest, rest from the role you've been trying to play #JimCarrey
Transcript (en)
The one thing, like people talk about depression all the time. The difference between depression and sadness, is sadness is just from happenstance. Whatever happened or didn't happen for you, or grief or whatever it is. And depression is your body saying, fuck you, I don't wanna be this character anymore. I don't wanna hold up this avatar that you've created in the world. It's too much for me. Right. And so a friend of mine who's a spiritual teacher has a really good take, his name is Jeff Foster, and his take on it is that they should change, you should think of the word as, sorry, of depressed as deep rest. Deep rest, your body needs to be depressed. It needs deep rest from the character that you've been trying to play.
