2022-11-12 Sat 12:37 PM > I think this [doctor] might be useful to me – if my black dog returns. He seems quite away from me now — it is such a relief. All the colours come back into the picture. > —Winston Churchill, 1911 ^[From https://theconversation.com/winston-churchill-and-his-black-dog-of-greatness-36570, citing *The Churchills* by Mary Lovell 2011] ![[DALL·E 2022-11-12 13.15.57 - when the black dog of depression enters, the color drains. digital art.png]] Churchill called the depression that would periodically visit him his "black dog". This seems like a fine way to conceptualize my own depressive moods. In relating with Catherine recently it has been useful to take notice and to let her know when my "black dog" is present. This gives her context on what is otherwise invisible about my internal experience — and it is a factor that has a large influence on my behavior and availability for connection. I suspect it would be quite valuable for me to train a part ([[The managers want integration too]]) that tracks my black dog level and maintains an awareness of it. This part would experiment with making this information available to other parts in various circumstances, and eventually my system would learn to integrate this information. How can I train such a part? Might imagine that there are a few aspects. 1. Traning the classifier to even be able to discern the current black dog level on demand 2. Training the habit of this part to run continuously, or to do spot checks regularly, or at useful intervals, or at the right moments 3. Training the rest of the system to hear and integrate this information. Eg, how should I adjust my behavioral policy and decisions given a hightened black dog level? And given a heightened black dog level, how to understand the cause? And what to do to lower the black dog level? Am I currently able to inquire and discover, on demand, the current status of my black dog? I think so. I think that right now it's about a 6 out of 10. Fairly significant. How strong is my noticing habit? Well, I think not super strong, but also I don't have much logic in place about what to *do* about it, so there hasn't been much benefit to checking. As of 2022-11-12 Sat 20:16 PM, I have no immediate concrete plan here beyond letting this percolate and holding the passive intention to let it be explored. # [[Journal section]] ### 2023-10-31 Tue 19.29pm Checking in on this today: I think I actually massively progressed on this since I wrote about it. I now feel like I'm quite aware of my depressed-or-not-depressed level, and when it's down I label that for people.