Absurdity of the day

I'm in the middle of reading a fascinating book called, "A Brotherhood of Tyrants" that is a simple and readily accessible book on the connections between politics, psychology, and history. The work is a 3-man case study of the lives of Napolean Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, and Josef Stalin. By examining their lives through the writings of the people who observed them, the authors conclude that each of the men suffered from manic depression.

Moreover, the authors assert that it was the manic depression of the three men that made them seek absolute, totalitarian power and gave them the strength of will to achieve it. It also served as their undoing, though, and caused their empires to crumble around them.

I woke up this morning at about 3:00 am, feeling dark and morose, wondering if I myself might have a slight tendency toward manic depression, but then I decided that I didn't and now I feel obscenely happy. The world is my oyster and everything's going to come up pearls today. I can feel it.