It was recently my birthday and I got what I thought was a really neat gift from my wife and children. It's a poster from The Mathematics Geneology Project tracing my academic genealogy back as far as can be traced. I received my Ph.D. in Combinatorics and Optimization (a type of mathematics), specializing in cryptography from the University of Waterloo. So for example, I studied under Scott Vanstone, so he is my academic father. Scott studied under Ron Mullin, so Ron is my academic grandfather. Ron studied under Bill Tutte, so Bill is my academic great-grandfather, etc. The poster is very interesting. It has some famous names on it like Jacobi, Leibniz, Copernicus, going all the way back to Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī in the 1200's. It, of course, has Scott, Ron and Bill on it as well.
Despite the fact that I really liked this gift and that it is really interesting, I can't help but feel some sadness when looking at the poster though. It is a reminder of what I once was and once was able to do, and I am no longer that person any more. After getting my Ph.D. I went to work for a company called Entrust, that made cryptographic software. Eventually I rose to the position of Chief Cryptographer for the company. I was never one of the top cryptographers in the world, but I had my place. I travelled the world attending cryptography conferences, representing Entrust and Canada on international standards bodies and performing various tasks for the company. All of that is gone now.
Over the past several years I have seen my depression take away much of my intelligence. I can no longer put the effort into reading and understanding that I once could. I can no longer solve problems that I once could. Making decisions is a really difficult chore for me. I was never the smartest person in the world, but I could hold my own, and a lot of that is gone now.
Depression is very debilitating. That is reason enough for wanting to get rid of it and to try any means possible to do so. However, I also feel as though I have lost a part of me. I want to get that part of me back. I want to be the person that I used to be. I want back the intelligence that I once had. I want to be able to read and understand papers and specifications that I used to. I want to contribute to society in a meaningful way.
That is one of the reasons that I am considering something as drastic as surgery for my depression. I have become a different person and I want the old person back. Nothing that I have tried thus far has been able to make a dent in the depression, but surgery holds out the hope that I could possibly go into remission and perhaps retake part of my life that has been taken away from me.
