There’s no specific thing—no event or thought—that is the primary focus of depression. There are events that can trigger a depression. But the illness takes on a life of its own. It is the feeling of being utterly terrified at nothing in particular. I think the hornet stands in for this “absent object” of terror.
Read MoreWhat’s strange is that the terror, the real terribleness of life, struck like a clock strikes twelve. Nothing so very interesting about twelve o’clock, post meridian or ante meridian. Either the sun sticks stupidly to its zenith. Or it’s dark. But it was an ordinary day in a bland apartment in the well-to-do neighborhood of Heungdeok. No especially unusual life event had transpired. No major upheavals had taken place.
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