Like many millions of people, i have experienced severe, clinical depression. And i think that depression is one of the most misleading and inadequate words in our vocabulary. In this way, i took the making of this programme as an occasion to walk myself, with some trepidation, back through the spiritual territory of despair. I was overwhelmed by all the books i hadn't read, the places i hadn't travelled. At the bottom of a dark place i now recognize as my first depression, early in his second year of college.