Recently, I read a book called The secret diary of Hendrik Groen. It is a diary of an old dude who was living in an old age home. It’s a funny book, but since it is about old people, people died every now and then throughout the book. One of his friends develops dementia around half way and it develops into Alzheimer’s disease towards the end of the book.

While I was reading the book, I realised that depression is quite similar to Alzheimer’s in what it does to us. To make it clear to you, here’s what Wikipedia says about Alzheimer’s:

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens.[2] It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia.[2][11] The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events.[1] As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems with language, disorientation (including easily getting lost), mood swings, loss of motivation, self-neglect, and behavioral issues.[2] As a person’s condition declines, they often withdraw from family and society.[12] Gradually, bodily functions are lost, ultimately leading to death.[13] Although the speed of progression can vary, the typical life expectancy following diagnosis is three to nine years.[9][14]

Can you see it now?

In my experience, I found that depression does all of these things to us. We have trouble remembering the good things. We almost forget the language of happiness. We might be sitting on a table with other people trying to laugh on their jokes but not being able to say a word because we just don’t know how to say such funny things. We get lost in our own world all the time, no matter where we are. Mood swings, loss of motivation, self-neglect, and behavioural issues don’t even need an analogy. We withdraw from family and society because being around them makes us insecure. This withdrawl makes things even worse, and ultimately we head towards messing up our professional and personal life.

Of course, depression and Alzheimer’s are very different, but when I made this connection, I realised that the solution to depression is also something that the people with demtia use. They write down stuff on paper to remind them what to do in different situations. They have notes for everything that can happen in their daily life. Well, I haven’t met any person who had dementia or Alzheimer’s, but this is all I learned from watching Money Heist and reading this book. I trust them!

So with this knowledge, I also made some notes for myself. I was forgetting what’s good for me, so some time ago I made a list of things that are good for me and added them to my agenda. Now my phone keeps reminding me to do things. I try to do them as much as possible, but sometimes I cancel them and then I bear the consequences. Today is one such day.

But anyway. I will do better next time. Tomorrow I am going for kickfit. On Monday I will go to a live jazz event in a cafe. Next weekend I will go to see the tulip fields.

But all is not bad, here’s something new I did today

I bought Ghee! 😁😁😁😁😁

I have been looking for this thing since months! I didn’t want to order online and I couldn’t find it in local stores I knew about. Someone I know told me today about the store where I could buy it.

I brought shakkar (I don’t know what it is called in English but it is powdery and made of sugarcane and looks like jaggery) from India because I wanted to eat sweet rice. I also wanted to eat it with roti. At my home in India, tradiationally we serve shakkar soaked in ghee to the guests as a sweetner. It is not so common anymore in the cities, but is still commonly served like that in the rural regions. Of course, you don’t have to be a guest to eat shakkar, you can also get it if you are nice to your mom. 😊

One more thing thay’s new: I went to the other side of the city today. I was feeling miserable, and I had already cancelled my plan to go to the gym, so I went for a short ride. I love cycling. I feel relaxed when I go for a ride. I went to part of the city after more than 6 months. Now I can do it more often since the days are getting warmer and longer. Last summer, I often went for long rides ranging up to 25 kms on the evenings on the week days and about 50 kms on the weekends. I loved those! I need to fix the gears of my bike. After that I can go for long rides again.

This website keeps me sane. 🙃 I can say whatever I want for as long as I want and I don’t bother anyone. 😎 And above all, it makes me feel happy and satisfied.