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Depression is the seeing the distorted rays but it solves the problem incorrectly. Instead of re-focusing the lens, the light is turned off. Surviving depressions gives you new perspective because you had to find an original source to have escaped.

Having seen 'true' fire you now have a touchstone with which to recognize and reject distortions. You can fall into another type of depression where you don't realize that you yourself are the source of those distortions.

The first type of depressions leads to being dark and emo. The second type leads to being overly bright and guru-ish.

As a 2x2: Radiant and Distorted Radiant and Non Distorted Dark (The distortion doesn't matter when it's dark)

The point is not to change your level of radiance, e.g. how famous you are, how much "you" is seen by others. It is to remove the distortion, which can be done at any level of radiance.

You can remove the distortion both at the dark end and the light end with different pros and cons for each path

At the bright end, you'll realize that no matter where you go, who you're with, or how much money or status you have. Nothing changes. Your happiness always ends up at the same base level. You realize the futility of chasing external things.

At the dark end it's far less easy to be dazzled by distortion and illusion. You're less likely to fall into the trap of chasing higher highs which can lead you on decade long goose chases.