"Thats right, in the quest for more information and hopefully some snappy quotes, I, Ben Goddard headed off to the
Lemos & Crane RISE conference on "Happiness and Wellbeing". I was told there would be food and coffee...
Essentially what the conference boiled down to was Mental Health Care Professionals from various circles giving their opinion and findings on happiness, then discussing new and innovative ways to combat depression and other mental illnesses. As I remember that day at the moment it seems quite strange. The reason being this, when I was attending they all seemed marvellous ideas of ways to help. However, recently I have been encountering my own reccurrent problems with depression and despite hearing all these marvellous ideas, I couldnt possibly tell you what they were. Though I do remember one being essentially, a jolly good walk in the countryside, which yes would be great, though honestly right now, I would prefer Valium I think.
I managed to talk to some fascinating people though, who have dragged themselves up and out of black dog country and are doing well. I don't mean "functioning members of society", as society doesn't give a flying balls about me generally and the feeling is largely mutual, I mean well for themselves. They are an inspiration to me at the moment and encourage me not to dwell (as difficult as that is with uncontrollable thought patterns ).
I don't think David Cameron was listening, to find out if people were happy. Though I imagine you would have to shout pretty fucking loud for him to hear. As apparently half a million people booing as they proceeded past his front door was insufficient
(march against the cuts 2011).I did manage to have a good chat with the lovely
John Hegley the poet whilst I was there. I say "chat", he sweetly agreed to a short interview actually, but can we pretend that the two of us are super best friends now ? Either way you can hear more about this on the rado show which I am now metaphorically pointing to.
As it goes, writing this was quite therapeutic. Maybe next year I'll suggest writing reviews of RISE as a treatment for depression...."
This roving report forms part of the August show on the theme of HAPPINESS.
