Griot Style

Yes, this is what depression looks like too

A.B. Godfreed
4 min readMar 5, 2020
iCollective Art by A.B. Godfreed

I felt sorry for myself — a sorrow — at being able to clutch at proverbial straws, making out that this life had a point at all.

I listened to them tell those tales that I had regularly reeled off — griot style. Those acts of faith by those who reject the accuracy of religious opium, but yet share the same sentiment exactly.

For you see, life requires a reasoning, a rationale that defies all reason — a way of making the self believe that its repetitive motion is not just much of the same muchness, but rather an endurance in pain for nirvana.

And what of this nirvana? If you ask me, it’s nothing but another sub-stratum of more of the same.

You see, the series reflect each other in the requirement of mindless repetition. It’s just the scenery that changes.

So, on that slave-trade ship was a life-threatening madness — bringing with it, a great sense of despair, a need to jump off the merry-go-round and its heart-wrenching — yet monotonous — tonal structures. On that ship, was also a social interaction: a sharing of pain (and maybe even some small-joy), and the re-telling of that tale — griot style. Indicating that you were not alone in this crisis of faith.

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A.B. Godfreed

Non-Entity with a clear purpose to transform self (& perhaps the world) through critical consciousness and Love.