If fewer things in life allure your attention; if you find yourself barely moved, scarcely enthusiastic; if what life offers no longer links you to a sense of future—or to a living past—then depression may be near.
For the depressed person, life-affordances narrow: as though life itself has withdrawn its invitations. Time flattens—not opening towards the future, but circling back into what has been, turning the present into a present-of-past. The openness of our being shrinks, where possibilities no longer disclose themselves.
Excitement fades, and with it, the pulse of life. The sense of being-alive is not simply muted, but drained—sucked out—leaving existence hollowed, emptied of the very warmth that makes being-alive the most precious gift God has given us.
