From a letter by writer Norman Mailer in 1957

I thought this was profound writing: "...somehow I just don't believe in myself the way I used to, and indeed, worst of all, it doesn't even seem terribly important. I'm beginning to have the tolerance of the defeated - people I would have despised a few years ago now seem bearable - after all, I say to myself, I haven't done very well with all the luck I had, and perhaps I do wrong to judge them. Naturally these states proliferate. The desire to work recedes, and as it recedes one welcomes the depression of not working which increases the difficullty to begin work again, and it gets to be a drag. You know I think of these miserable years since the war and how everyone I know has been diminished by it, their rebellion tempered, their caution swollen to cowardice, their malice to hatred, until the worse of all is that I get close at times to thinking that perhaps we have overrated the possibilities of people, and then life becomes dreary indeed. Forgive the tirade. You have your depression, I have mine (I too am smoking again)..." Having been unemployed for awhile, and fancying myself a writer and yet never writing anything decent, I can totally relate...:)

Interesting Article on Consciousness

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/oct/15-could-an-inner-zombie-be-controlling-your-brain/?searchterm=an%20inner%20zombie%20controlling%20your%20brain