Things that the Discworld books have taught me...

A Wizard's staff has a knob on the end.
The hedgehog is a particularly lucky animal :o)

There, now we've got those out of the way... (And yep, I made up at least two verses to the 'Hedgehog Song' when I was a teenager. I'll bet you did too)

I haven't picked up a 'Discworld' book in a few years now (whenever I reviewed 'Unseen Academicals' on the old blog, that was the last time) but I still remember some of the things that I learned through laughter. Genre fiction takes itself far too seriously and needs a little fun poked at it from time to time. The series as a whole wouldn't miss 'The Colour of Magic' at all. If you laugh with a character (no matter who they are) then you'll want to follow them right to the bitter end. And sometimes, it's ok to admit that the jokes just aren't tickling you any more and that new laughs are waiting over the horizon.

The thing that has struck me just recently though is how Pratchett does away with the whole notion of good and evil. People are just people, trying to do their thing and continuously running smack bang into other people who are just trying to do their thing. Trying to create something for themselves out of the raw stuff of daily life. What really scares Pratchett though (or at least, what he thinks should scare us) is the grey conformity of the Auditors where creation and growth are stifled and there is nothing left to do but exist (and don't you just feel the note of despair in those passages).

I'm in a grey area right now and have been for a long time. The greyness of depression played a part in my old blog finishing and it's doing its level best to tread all over this one too (hence the lack of posts just recently). It's hard to muster up the energy to do anything other than just exist sometimes.
I'm not done yet though (not quite yet) and if you're feeling anything like me then hang in there for a bit longer. If you can, be a Terry Pratchett character trying to create a little something for themselves out of the raw stuff of daily life. Even if it's just writing a sentence or two; once you've done it then depression can't take it back, no matter how much it wants to. It's all yours and you can be damn proud of what you've done.

I'm rambling a bit now so will stop just about here before all meaning is lost. I just wanted to let you know that depression is a bitch but I've got your back. And read 'Guards! Guards!' One of the older Discworld books but still the best of a pretty amazing bunch ;o)