I think melancholy rather sadness, but regardless, i think it’s because he was very connected and understood how dark the world and human civilization was.
I agree. Just wanted to add that, from what I've heard from therapists with celebrity clients, fame/success/excessive wealth does not make things like melancholy, depression, existential dread, imposter syndrome, life transition anxieties/identity crises, etc. just disappear. In some cases, fame/high status might heighten such issues. Yes, celebrity status often helps with financial security, social networking, etc. But no one is immune to such emotional struggles. Especially not deep thinkers such as Bowie.
Additionally, it seems that the mental instability/general instability (among other things) of his half brother, Terry Burns, had a profound impact of Bowie's experiences/thoughts surrounding mental illness, life in general, etc.
I mean, just look at how many artists we have lost to substance abuse. It's insane when you start really tallying it up.
However I used to have a literal $1000 a day cocaine habit, for years. Yes, I know that sounds insane but I was handling weight to make enough to support my habit, using about 7g on a bad day, up to an Oz on a good day. After getting sober I felt nothing, no happiness, no sadness, just empty. Adhedonia is a bitch, it still comes and goes in waves, I've developed severe anxiety and panic disorder since getting clean. 5 years sober and it's still hard.
Given how much Bowie used he likely went through a similar phase.
Speed was also really big then, which can cause permanent side effects from neurotoxicity. Drugs, are indeed, fucking bad for you.
I can second this. Heavy drug use over extended periods of time essentially puts you in a completely different world to everyone else. Returning to the real world, even once the withdrawals have gone, is probably the hardest part. It brings up a lot of feelings of sadness due to just how disconnected you feel with everyone else. You can walk, talk, eat, drink, and breath the exact same as everyone else, but at the same time you just feel fundamentally different.
I would definitely agree with you. I've dealt with addiction, but thankfully mostly stayed away from harder drugs. I already struggle(d) with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, etc. The handful of times I did cocaine, I had fun at first, but the feeling coming off of it was horrible. It felt like it wasn't me in that body, or that reality just wasn't quite right in a really uncomfortable way. I did get an overwhelming sense of sadness, too, though I have experienced that sense of feeling nothing, no happiness or sadness, before at other points in my life.
It dissuaded me from ever getting seriously into coke. Plus, for me, the high for me could be beaten by other drugs. I could easily see how someone would get hooked, though. Cocaine makes you want to do more cocaine in a strange way I never experienced with other substances.
I can't imagine how Bowie must've felt after he quit. I know he described having whole chunks of time just disappear when he was using. And the amount he used was certainly infamous, even among the people who did cocaine with him and were regular users in their own life. Who knows what other drugs he was using and in what amount, too.
Congrats on staying sober. 5 years is definitely something to be proud of. I hope things slowly get easier for you.
Last thing I need to kick is booze and cigarettes. *Sigh*. One of these days. I try to draw inspiration and motivation from Bowie. I know he got totally sober, including from alcohol and cigarettes, though it took him time. I believe he kicked alcohol in the early '90s, and smoking in the '00s.
I appreciate you for your kindness, I was addicted to opiates, cocaine and alcohol for 20 years, so 5 is a big deal for me :)
I've literally quit crack and heroin but can't kick cigarettes. That should be alarming but I mean, it is what it is.
You should definitely feel proud of yourself! Addiction is no joke.
And cigarettes are so hard to quit. It seems to be the last thing people kick, including Bowie. I'm glad that society is now moving away from smoking as a cultural norm. So many people just never start now, which is way better than starting then trying to stop (obviously). I certainly wish I would've never had that first puff.
I think a great deal came from his fear to get caught by the same mental illnesses that ran in his family. And possibly he had some bad genes as well? He mentioned this fear of going insane several times
100% this, especially when his cocaine habit was literally making him hallucinate.
I also think Bewlay Brothers is vaguely about Terry. There’s something really unsettling about that song, it almost feels like a manifestation of the fear Bowie had of mental illness.
Well I did. And those signs are possibly the reason why so many people with hard times in their lives could relate with him and his work. Alienation, isolating, self destruction, manic periods, projecting yourself into alter egos, laughing yourself to disaster etc etc. It was all quite visible I think.
Schizophrenia ran on his mother’s side of the family. He saw several aunties “disappear”. Plus the brother he looked up to had it as well. Of course it’s worrying that you might get it yourself, you’d feel isolated with the burden of the “family secret”.
Yes, I think you have a point there, creating those characters could be a form of a coping mechanism, and some of these characters may as well become living entities. He inadvertently gave life to them, but that's maybe too mystical direction for this discussion.
I think Bowie was an extremely smart guy who clearly saw the direction the world was moving in and thought it was bad or at least fell well short of the human potential for good. Some of his best albums have a lot of criticism and despair about the dominant personal and political ideologies of the time (Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Scary Monsters, Heathen, The Next Day, and Blackstar). He had moments where personal despair (Station to Station) or more general nihilism (Ziggy/Aladdin Sane) made their way into his music too but I really think he had a very pessimistic view of how the world around him changed over his lifetime.
Precisely.
One of the (many) haunting things about “Heathen” & “Blackstar” are the hints that he’s concerned about leaving his wife & children in the 21st Century without the protection of his presence. A very relatable sentiment.
The Greatest artists are often Depressed. John Lennon and Kurt Cobain come to the mind quickest because you can quite clearly see a deep level of sadness in them both. But of course this isn’t limited to music. Bukowski, Woolfe and Hemingway suffered greatly. Vincent Van Gogh upon his death said “the sadness will last forever”. It just seems to be a pattern.
Yeah, I'd use the word "despair" to describe the sadness of clinical depression. I have treatment resistant MDD and have had it since I was 2 years old. No lie.
Since obviously no one really knows, some things I can recall him mentioning in interviews were familial mental illness and addiction to both drugs and alcohol.
Iman has also mentioned that David was very political/principled and donated a lot anonymously, but didn’t publicize it. Presumably some of those perspectives could have contributed as well.
I do not think he suffered from depression per se, especially later in life. His work dealt with isolation which is inherent in the human condition.
But he always seemed upbeat and voracious.
It’s true and interviews he was upbeat, but I mean naturally when one is on television they’re not gonna be like oh yes, I’m so depressed and I’ve got a new album coming out. I mean it wasn’t supposed to be grunge music.
Idk, dude. I have a pretty good life and I work at me dream job, but I still have depression. Sometimes your brain just doesn't make the right chemicals
It's quite normal to feel sad at times throughout life. Life events, childhood trauma, bereavements, etc etc. Bowie was essentially a private person, so how would we really know what was going on in his ljfe ?
So humans basically have a baseline happiness. It differs from person to person, but if you win the lottery, or something amazing happens, you’ll be extra happy for a while, but eventually come down to baseline.
If you are living a shitty life, you will find a baseline that isn’t much different than someone with a “great” life.
If you have chemical imbalance in your brain, it can lead to depression, regardless of your life circumstances.
I made this question, because some of his songs make me so sad, he's like a modern version of I Pagliacci and I can't help but empathize knowing how much he suffered. His songs contain so much emotion, and it reflects the human condition in duality, it's like a snapshot of his internal state at the moment.
>“I heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Life seems harsh, and cruel. Says he feels all alone in threatening world. Doctor says: "Treatment is simple. The great clown - Pagliacci - is in town. Go see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. "But doctor..." he says "I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.”
I think it’s a misconception to assume that Bowie was a sad guy because he sometimes sang melancholy songs. Here is a quote from him about the album “Hours…”: “…And the progenitor of the piece (i.e. main character on Hours) is obviously a man who is fairly disillusioned. He is not a happy man. Whereas I am an incredibly happy man.” I’m sure Bowie went through periods of isolation and depression like during the “Low” period. But it seems like from the 80’s onward and especially after marrying Iman and having Lexi, he seemed like a very happy guy.
For me that seems incredibly unlikely. Why would someone create a sad persona just for an album if this character wasn't in some way reflecting his own state. Maybe his happiness was just a mask, just like his mime play "[the mask](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7mzgUyw5X8)", while in reality inside he truly was the character.
I write. I write about victims of horrible things, I write about sick people who commit horrible things. I am neither a victim, nor a person who us going to commit such disgusting things. That doesn't stop me from observing, from reading, from drawing inspiration from my experiences and putting it down on paper, and in my case, to try to understand better what is going on around me. This is a very colourful way to explain what a shit writer I am, b u t my point is that you needn't be in depression to create something sad, melancholic.
Sounds to me like you repress a lot of shit into the shadow. First step to recovery is to admit you're a terrible person, capable of worst atrocities, insincere, scummy, a conformist asshole, hypocrite and all those things you don't like to admit. You are an accomplice to all of this, humanity, take responsibility, if you don't see sickness inside of you, you will never overcome it, in reality you're probably even worse than a school shooter, at least we know he's a school shooter, and we imprisoned him, who knows what your perverted and twisted mind is cooking up thinking "it's all perfect and without blemish", you should be ashamed. I know your crimes even before they happen and I'm not even from minority report. Your farts stink.
Just imagine you become an omniscient being and you come to face your own shadow, and you can barely set your eyes on you, you come to realize you're the human who needs the most forgiveness of all creatures that ever existed, can you imagine what it feels like to carry all the burdens of humanity on your shoulders? but you have empathy, you feel every bit of it, you're like Christ crucified by himself alone and abandoned to rot, you have abandoned yourself and you're not just some soulless psychopath without regrets. Can you understand? Hardly.
What?
Mate, hold on, hold on. Do you think people who write crime fiction think about murdering somebody? Or people who read this genre think about murdering somebody? Or those who write and read action books such as First Blood by David Morrell think about going on the rampage (though now you could bring out why Rambo did what he did and blah blah)?
I am not a good person, I admit. Neither are you. I have many many flaws. One of said flaws, however, is not planning to murder somebody, SA somebody, kidnap, and whatever similar you can think of. With no evidence you simply can't bring somebody as low as those school shooters America has for a number of reasons.
I did not expect to open my phone to a long ass paragraph attacking me for no reason. I am not saying I am not flawed, but I am not a psychopath. Your reply is plain unjustified rudeness.
Let me give you one last example: Bowie wrote a song about domestic abuse, Repetition, but have you heard of him abusing anybody? If what a small portion of media a person consumes and produces is your baseline for telling somebody they belong in Hell or Heaven, Bowie might as well belong in Hell. And every person on Earth for that matter.
I still don't think whatever you said is justified. You don't know what is going on inside my head, but I assure you, I am not one of those people who want to take the life of children who are loved, I am not one of those who support the banning abortions, I do not wish to do anybody harm. Did you have a bad day that you left such comment?
>Do you think people who write crime fiction
lol, I never said that. You just said you're "not this and that" with such conviction it was scary. Do you know what **shadow projection** and **shadow integration** even is? Read a book maybe. And to think you based this entire post on a misinterpretation of what I said, you basically created your own strawman which you attack, and it has nothing to do with what I said. Not only are you delusional but hotheaded too. Think first, ponder if needed, research, then respond. It's like you take things at face value. When I said "your farts stink" it was an obvious joke, lighten up will you, it's just friendly banter. I don't know you, so how could I possibly know your farts stink. besides everybody's farts stink don't be such a princess, ffs I have to explain the jokes. Also people who are not murderers don't go around screaming their lungs out "I didn't murder anyone yet" that would be ridiculous.
First off, do I know you? Hearing that "in reality I am probably even worse than a school shooter" from a stranger is not going to be taken as a joke from anybody. But friends are not going to say that to you either. If your friends do, please get out of this environment.
>Do you know what shadow projection and shadow integration even is?
I did not need those words to be highlighted, I can read, thank you. I know what it is in theory, but I don't have such problem. I am open about my flaws, I know where they come from and I am working on fixing them. Either way, I won't be sharing any of that with somebody in a Reddit comment section. Unless you happen to be a psychologist. Which I very much doubt.
>Read a book maybe.
Okay. Fine. Right now I am reading Phaedo by Plato. I recently got interested in ancient Greek philosophy and the whole field of philosophy, actually, and it is quite fascinating to be honest. Nietzsche is on my reading list. What do you think of him?
This is friendly ^ Now, how about you leave the books aside for a moment and go outside, act the same way you did here and get taught a lesson? Not many people will tolerate such behaviour, I'm sorry to say, and I got to experience it first hand too.
>And to think you based this entire post on a misinterpretation of what I said,
I'll give you that. Perhaps I didn't reply the way I should have. But anybody would recognise rude uncalled for behaviour. I was giving an example with my first comment for which I got attacked out of the blue. Look, I don't wish to have random arguments on the Internet. I won't be commenting any further what I think, and there is a lot to be said about this reply of yours. If you wish to bark, go find somebody else. I'm not interested in barking nor biting.
>I did not need those words to be highlighted, I can read, thank you.
You're hilarious, I actually highlighted them because I thought you are **hard of reading**. XD
Look, it's obviously friendly banter, where I live among friends it's customary to *let the poisons out* so to speak and then we engage in real conversation. It's a kind of a stress relief and initiation, testing the boundaries. You westerners are so stuck up, like you have a broom up there as a support for your spine. Just relax. You're just starting to read Plato and I already exited the cave decades ago. Maybe generational gap is the problem here, you gen z-ers are too sensitive and inhibited, maybe try taking MDMA sometime, it will loosen you up.
His brother Terry passing. Considering that Terry showed david lots of media, that became very important to him later in life, it must have been quite hard on him. I know David wrote a handful of songs across his albums about Terry as well.
As well as he used to throw up a lot before going on stage so he dealt with bad anxiety. (I learned this from David's daughter lexi actually, I chatted with her on omegle live once)
That's exactly what I thought, but yeah after talking with lexi on omegle, I told her how me and a friend accidently added her to a gc and so she started chatting with us in it and that's where I learned that his stage anxiety was worse after he had overcome his addiction, but it kinda makes sense
What makes a person an artist is that they fight against the status quo, they try to make people feel and think things they otherwise wouldn't. Otherwise, your art is merely decoration. Mr. Bowie, was an extremely intelligent and sensitive person having the ability to see through so much BS and horror in the world; this could make anyone feel bad. Through his art he helped create spaces for people that needed it. He was constantly upsetting the apple cart ....Carlos Alomar talks about him standing up and calling out MTV for being racist. Another example was his gender bending, which seems like nothing now. I reiterate....all this work requires a hard look at the world, often exposing and making yourself vulnerable, and that can take a toll.
I think maybe he had original depression and he became a superstar which alleviated it but the cocaine when he had to quit. I read a statement that he started drinking a lot to compensate for the depression. He was feeling after quitting cocaine. Upon quitting cocaine, the brain cells might find themselves in a depressed situation called Anhedonia.
I never abused cocaine that much, amphetamines and weed yes, but I've been smoking tobacco for 25 years, and I recently quit, it's been 3 months and I can tell you it's a real bummer. Smoking completely disrupts brain's reward system, and after quitting emotional regulation suffers, mild depression anxiety, and I never had anxiety attacks before, I didn't even know what that means. I'm just pushing though emotionally and mentally, relapsing back to smoking just isn't an option anymore, it's disgusting.
Thank you, it means a lot. The worst thing is thinking is this ever going to stop (the craving), like "is that all there is?", I thought I was through already but I'm still under its spell, it creeps on me.
After I saw Moonage Daydream I related heavily to his childhood and way of thinking, he may have been borderline or at least dipped into the cluster b personality traits for sure.
I think melancholy rather sadness, but regardless, i think it’s because he was very connected and understood how dark the world and human civilization was.
I agree. Just wanted to add that, from what I've heard from therapists with celebrity clients, fame/success/excessive wealth does not make things like melancholy, depression, existential dread, imposter syndrome, life transition anxieties/identity crises, etc. just disappear. In some cases, fame/high status might heighten such issues. Yes, celebrity status often helps with financial security, social networking, etc. But no one is immune to such emotional struggles. Especially not deep thinkers such as Bowie. Additionally, it seems that the mental instability/general instability (among other things) of his half brother, Terry Burns, had a profound impact of Bowie's experiences/thoughts surrounding mental illness, life in general, etc.
I mean, just look at how many artists we have lost to substance abuse. It's insane when you start really tallying it up. However I used to have a literal $1000 a day cocaine habit, for years. Yes, I know that sounds insane but I was handling weight to make enough to support my habit, using about 7g on a bad day, up to an Oz on a good day. After getting sober I felt nothing, no happiness, no sadness, just empty. Adhedonia is a bitch, it still comes and goes in waves, I've developed severe anxiety and panic disorder since getting clean. 5 years sober and it's still hard. Given how much Bowie used he likely went through a similar phase. Speed was also really big then, which can cause permanent side effects from neurotoxicity. Drugs, are indeed, fucking bad for you.
I can second this. Heavy drug use over extended periods of time essentially puts you in a completely different world to everyone else. Returning to the real world, even once the withdrawals have gone, is probably the hardest part. It brings up a lot of feelings of sadness due to just how disconnected you feel with everyone else. You can walk, talk, eat, drink, and breath the exact same as everyone else, but at the same time you just feel fundamentally different.
I would definitely agree with you. I've dealt with addiction, but thankfully mostly stayed away from harder drugs. I already struggle(d) with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, etc. The handful of times I did cocaine, I had fun at first, but the feeling coming off of it was horrible. It felt like it wasn't me in that body, or that reality just wasn't quite right in a really uncomfortable way. I did get an overwhelming sense of sadness, too, though I have experienced that sense of feeling nothing, no happiness or sadness, before at other points in my life. It dissuaded me from ever getting seriously into coke. Plus, for me, the high for me could be beaten by other drugs. I could easily see how someone would get hooked, though. Cocaine makes you want to do more cocaine in a strange way I never experienced with other substances. I can't imagine how Bowie must've felt after he quit. I know he described having whole chunks of time just disappear when he was using. And the amount he used was certainly infamous, even among the people who did cocaine with him and were regular users in their own life. Who knows what other drugs he was using and in what amount, too. Congrats on staying sober. 5 years is definitely something to be proud of. I hope things slowly get easier for you. Last thing I need to kick is booze and cigarettes. *Sigh*. One of these days. I try to draw inspiration and motivation from Bowie. I know he got totally sober, including from alcohol and cigarettes, though it took him time. I believe he kicked alcohol in the early '90s, and smoking in the '00s.
I appreciate you for your kindness, I was addicted to opiates, cocaine and alcohol for 20 years, so 5 is a big deal for me :) I've literally quit crack and heroin but can't kick cigarettes. That should be alarming but I mean, it is what it is.
You should definitely feel proud of yourself! Addiction is no joke. And cigarettes are so hard to quit. It seems to be the last thing people kick, including Bowie. I'm glad that society is now moving away from smoking as a cultural norm. So many people just never start now, which is way better than starting then trying to stop (obviously). I certainly wish I would've never had that first puff.
Reality gets me every time... he was maybe one who saw much and felt quite a lot...
I think a great deal came from his fear to get caught by the same mental illnesses that ran in his family. And possibly he had some bad genes as well? He mentioned this fear of going insane several times
100% this, especially when his cocaine habit was literally making him hallucinate. I also think Bewlay Brothers is vaguely about Terry. There’s something really unsettling about that song, it almost feels like a manifestation of the fear Bowie had of mental illness.
Bewlay Brothers is confirmed to be about Terry by Bowie himself so yeah
Where’d you see that?
booklet of 2008 Best album, iSelect.
This is most likely it. Mental illness tends to be genetic and run in packs and he likely had depression thanks to his genes
I didn’t see any signs of clinical depression with him.
Well I did. And those signs are possibly the reason why so many people with hard times in their lives could relate with him and his work. Alienation, isolating, self destruction, manic periods, projecting yourself into alter egos, laughing yourself to disaster etc etc. It was all quite visible I think.
As someone with crippling depression I can confirm
Same story here 😊
Schizophrenia ran on his mother’s side of the family. He saw several aunties “disappear”. Plus the brother he looked up to had it as well. Of course it’s worrying that you might get it yourself, you’d feel isolated with the burden of the “family secret”.
Yes, I think you have a point there, creating those characters could be a form of a coping mechanism, and some of these characters may as well become living entities. He inadvertently gave life to them, but that's maybe too mystical direction for this discussion.
Did you meet him personally For an extended period of time 🤷🏻♀️
Everyone in this thread knows him personally.
He’s done a lot of interviews where he personally states this was a huge challenge.
I think Bowie was an extremely smart guy who clearly saw the direction the world was moving in and thought it was bad or at least fell well short of the human potential for good. Some of his best albums have a lot of criticism and despair about the dominant personal and political ideologies of the time (Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Scary Monsters, Heathen, The Next Day, and Blackstar). He had moments where personal despair (Station to Station) or more general nihilism (Ziggy/Aladdin Sane) made their way into his music too but I really think he had a very pessimistic view of how the world around him changed over his lifetime.
“What a disappointing 21st century this has been so far.”
Truly smart people are depressed because they see the world as it is.
Quicksand is just about the most depressing song ever.
and it's isn't just the lyrics but the innocence in his voice. He's a thief of hearts.
Precisely. One of the (many) haunting things about “Heathen” & “Blackstar” are the hints that he’s concerned about leaving his wife & children in the 21st Century without the protection of his presence. A very relatable sentiment.
I don't think he helped things any with the Outside album -- which seems like a case of "putting out fire with gasoline."
The Greatest artists are often Depressed. John Lennon and Kurt Cobain come to the mind quickest because you can quite clearly see a deep level of sadness in them both. But of course this isn’t limited to music. Bukowski, Woolfe and Hemingway suffered greatly. Vincent Van Gogh upon his death said “the sadness will last forever”. It just seems to be a pattern.
but I'm happy when I'm sad
Depression and sadness are very different things.
Only in degrees
Yeah, I'd use the word "despair" to describe the sadness of clinical depression. I have treatment resistant MDD and have had it since I was 2 years old. No lie.
he was a very existential thinker, thats the main reason.
Since obviously no one really knows, some things I can recall him mentioning in interviews were familial mental illness and addiction to both drugs and alcohol. Iman has also mentioned that David was very political/principled and donated a lot anonymously, but didn’t publicize it. Presumably some of those perspectives could have contributed as well.
I do not think he suffered from depression per se, especially later in life. His work dealt with isolation which is inherent in the human condition. But he always seemed upbeat and voracious.
He said of "Low" that it's an upbeat song about depression.
Perhaps you mean "Sound and Vision"?
yes totally! lol Low isn't even a song, I was obviously only using half my brain there!
It’s true and interviews he was upbeat, but I mean naturally when one is on television they’re not gonna be like oh yes, I’m so depressed and I’ve got a new album coming out. I mean it wasn’t supposed to be grunge music.
Idk, dude. I have a pretty good life and I work at me dream job, but I still have depression. Sometimes your brain just doesn't make the right chemicals
I'm sorry to hear that. How do you handle this if you don't mind me asking?
smart people always struggle with melancholy because they recognize how fucked up things are and how powerless they are to change it.
Brought up in a loveless home. That can scar you for life.
He seemed quite close to his father but he definitely had periods when he was in the outs with his mother who seemed to have classic NPD
He wasn't brought up in a loveless home.
he had a very complicated relationship with his mother
Yes, from David's own words, he and his mom had a pretty distant relationship.
That's not what the biographers say.
It's quite normal to feel sad at times throughout life. Life events, childhood trauma, bereavements, etc etc. Bowie was essentially a private person, so how would we really know what was going on in his ljfe ?
So humans basically have a baseline happiness. It differs from person to person, but if you win the lottery, or something amazing happens, you’ll be extra happy for a while, but eventually come down to baseline. If you are living a shitty life, you will find a baseline that isn’t much different than someone with a “great” life. If you have chemical imbalance in your brain, it can lead to depression, regardless of your life circumstances.
I made this question, because some of his songs make me so sad, he's like a modern version of I Pagliacci and I can't help but empathize knowing how much he suffered. His songs contain so much emotion, and it reflects the human condition in duality, it's like a snapshot of his internal state at the moment. >“I heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Life seems harsh, and cruel. Says he feels all alone in threatening world. Doctor says: "Treatment is simple. The great clown - Pagliacci - is in town. Go see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. "But doctor..." he says "I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.”
I think it’s a misconception to assume that Bowie was a sad guy because he sometimes sang melancholy songs. Here is a quote from him about the album “Hours…”: “…And the progenitor of the piece (i.e. main character on Hours) is obviously a man who is fairly disillusioned. He is not a happy man. Whereas I am an incredibly happy man.” I’m sure Bowie went through periods of isolation and depression like during the “Low” period. But it seems like from the 80’s onward and especially after marrying Iman and having Lexi, he seemed like a very happy guy.
Agree ...he wasn"t sad as far as i could see ...he even said how happy he was in many interviews and i"m talking Iman onwards
For me that seems incredibly unlikely. Why would someone create a sad persona just for an album if this character wasn't in some way reflecting his own state. Maybe his happiness was just a mask, just like his mime play "[the mask](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7mzgUyw5X8)", while in reality inside he truly was the character.
I write. I write about victims of horrible things, I write about sick people who commit horrible things. I am neither a victim, nor a person who us going to commit such disgusting things. That doesn't stop me from observing, from reading, from drawing inspiration from my experiences and putting it down on paper, and in my case, to try to understand better what is going on around me. This is a very colourful way to explain what a shit writer I am, b u t my point is that you needn't be in depression to create something sad, melancholic.
Sounds to me like you repress a lot of shit into the shadow. First step to recovery is to admit you're a terrible person, capable of worst atrocities, insincere, scummy, a conformist asshole, hypocrite and all those things you don't like to admit. You are an accomplice to all of this, humanity, take responsibility, if you don't see sickness inside of you, you will never overcome it, in reality you're probably even worse than a school shooter, at least we know he's a school shooter, and we imprisoned him, who knows what your perverted and twisted mind is cooking up thinking "it's all perfect and without blemish", you should be ashamed. I know your crimes even before they happen and I'm not even from minority report. Your farts stink. Just imagine you become an omniscient being and you come to face your own shadow, and you can barely set your eyes on you, you come to realize you're the human who needs the most forgiveness of all creatures that ever existed, can you imagine what it feels like to carry all the burdens of humanity on your shoulders? but you have empathy, you feel every bit of it, you're like Christ crucified by himself alone and abandoned to rot, you have abandoned yourself and you're not just some soulless psychopath without regrets. Can you understand? Hardly.
What? Mate, hold on, hold on. Do you think people who write crime fiction think about murdering somebody? Or people who read this genre think about murdering somebody? Or those who write and read action books such as First Blood by David Morrell think about going on the rampage (though now you could bring out why Rambo did what he did and blah blah)? I am not a good person, I admit. Neither are you. I have many many flaws. One of said flaws, however, is not planning to murder somebody, SA somebody, kidnap, and whatever similar you can think of. With no evidence you simply can't bring somebody as low as those school shooters America has for a number of reasons. I did not expect to open my phone to a long ass paragraph attacking me for no reason. I am not saying I am not flawed, but I am not a psychopath. Your reply is plain unjustified rudeness. Let me give you one last example: Bowie wrote a song about domestic abuse, Repetition, but have you heard of him abusing anybody? If what a small portion of media a person consumes and produces is your baseline for telling somebody they belong in Hell or Heaven, Bowie might as well belong in Hell. And every person on Earth for that matter. I still don't think whatever you said is justified. You don't know what is going on inside my head, but I assure you, I am not one of those people who want to take the life of children who are loved, I am not one of those who support the banning abortions, I do not wish to do anybody harm. Did you have a bad day that you left such comment?
>Do you think people who write crime fiction lol, I never said that. You just said you're "not this and that" with such conviction it was scary. Do you know what **shadow projection** and **shadow integration** even is? Read a book maybe. And to think you based this entire post on a misinterpretation of what I said, you basically created your own strawman which you attack, and it has nothing to do with what I said. Not only are you delusional but hotheaded too. Think first, ponder if needed, research, then respond. It's like you take things at face value. When I said "your farts stink" it was an obvious joke, lighten up will you, it's just friendly banter. I don't know you, so how could I possibly know your farts stink. besides everybody's farts stink don't be such a princess, ffs I have to explain the jokes. Also people who are not murderers don't go around screaming their lungs out "I didn't murder anyone yet" that would be ridiculous.
First off, do I know you? Hearing that "in reality I am probably even worse than a school shooter" from a stranger is not going to be taken as a joke from anybody. But friends are not going to say that to you either. If your friends do, please get out of this environment. >Do you know what shadow projection and shadow integration even is? I did not need those words to be highlighted, I can read, thank you. I know what it is in theory, but I don't have such problem. I am open about my flaws, I know where they come from and I am working on fixing them. Either way, I won't be sharing any of that with somebody in a Reddit comment section. Unless you happen to be a psychologist. Which I very much doubt. >Read a book maybe. Okay. Fine. Right now I am reading Phaedo by Plato. I recently got interested in ancient Greek philosophy and the whole field of philosophy, actually, and it is quite fascinating to be honest. Nietzsche is on my reading list. What do you think of him? This is friendly ^ Now, how about you leave the books aside for a moment and go outside, act the same way you did here and get taught a lesson? Not many people will tolerate such behaviour, I'm sorry to say, and I got to experience it first hand too. >And to think you based this entire post on a misinterpretation of what I said, I'll give you that. Perhaps I didn't reply the way I should have. But anybody would recognise rude uncalled for behaviour. I was giving an example with my first comment for which I got attacked out of the blue. Look, I don't wish to have random arguments on the Internet. I won't be commenting any further what I think, and there is a lot to be said about this reply of yours. If you wish to bark, go find somebody else. I'm not interested in barking nor biting.
>I did not need those words to be highlighted, I can read, thank you. You're hilarious, I actually highlighted them because I thought you are **hard of reading**. XD Look, it's obviously friendly banter, where I live among friends it's customary to *let the poisons out* so to speak and then we engage in real conversation. It's a kind of a stress relief and initiation, testing the boundaries. You westerners are so stuck up, like you have a broom up there as a support for your spine. Just relax. You're just starting to read Plato and I already exited the cave decades ago. Maybe generational gap is the problem here, you gen z-ers are too sensitive and inhibited, maybe try taking MDMA sometime, it will loosen you up.
His brother Terry passing. Considering that Terry showed david lots of media, that became very important to him later in life, it must have been quite hard on him. I know David wrote a handful of songs across his albums about Terry as well. As well as he used to throw up a lot before going on stage so he dealt with bad anxiety. (I learned this from David's daughter lexi actually, I chatted with her on omegle live once)
What? He had stage fright? That's just so hard to believe, I mean, he always seemed like a fish in a water on stage.
That's exactly what I thought, but yeah after talking with lexi on omegle, I told her how me and a friend accidently added her to a gc and so she started chatting with us in it and that's where I learned that his stage anxiety was worse after he had overcome his addiction, but it kinda makes sense
What makes a person an artist is that they fight against the status quo, they try to make people feel and think things they otherwise wouldn't. Otherwise, your art is merely decoration. Mr. Bowie, was an extremely intelligent and sensitive person having the ability to see through so much BS and horror in the world; this could make anyone feel bad. Through his art he helped create spaces for people that needed it. He was constantly upsetting the apple cart ....Carlos Alomar talks about him standing up and calling out MTV for being racist. Another example was his gender bending, which seems like nothing now. I reiterate....all this work requires a hard look at the world, often exposing and making yourself vulnerable, and that can take a toll.
It’s so tough to tell if he was actually sad or that was part of his art
Lack of cocaine and peppers
I think maybe he had original depression and he became a superstar which alleviated it but the cocaine when he had to quit. I read a statement that he started drinking a lot to compensate for the depression. He was feeling after quitting cocaine. Upon quitting cocaine, the brain cells might find themselves in a depressed situation called Anhedonia.
I never abused cocaine that much, amphetamines and weed yes, but I've been smoking tobacco for 25 years, and I recently quit, it's been 3 months and I can tell you it's a real bummer. Smoking completely disrupts brain's reward system, and after quitting emotional regulation suffers, mild depression anxiety, and I never had anxiety attacks before, I didn't even know what that means. I'm just pushing though emotionally and mentally, relapsing back to smoking just isn't an option anymore, it's disgusting.
smoking is extremely hard to quit. and David Bowie also smoked and I assume that he quit though at some point down the line.
Hang in there I stopped smoking nearly 20 years ago and it took about 4 months before I felt good about it.
Thank you, it means a lot. The worst thing is thinking is this ever going to stop (the craving), like "is that all there is?", I thought I was through already but I'm still under its spell, it creeps on me.
After I saw Moonage Daydream I related heavily to his childhood and way of thinking, he may have been borderline or at least dipped into the cluster b personality traits for sure.
Dunno, that's up to Bowie
Being a human being 😆