[ WP ] Depressed people are considered normal and happy , upbeat people are the outliers .

When he smiled, it was as if there should be music playing. He walked like there was a soft breeze accompanying him. If you stopped to talk, he'd tell you about the beauty of the sunrise or the innate glory of being a sentient being in a vast and complex universe. 
 
 It was a little weird, really. 
 
 But I kept on hanging out with him anyway. He'd sing while we shoveled shit into the algae tanks, or while we shoveled algae into the shrimp tanks. Old pop songs about love and heartbreak. I have no idea where he even found the time to learn them. But his voice was nice. 
 
 I remember one time, the heater shorted out in a mutie breeder tank. All those maybe incredibly valuable shrimp cooked to death and totally inedible because of the teratogens in their slurry. The rest of us cried. He just shrugged it off and started feeding shovelfuls of dead shrimp into the incinerator. I asked him how could he not feel it, and he said he did but that it was just a setback and it did n't really matter. *He thought a setback did n't matter. * 
 
 I'm ashamed to admit it now, but back when I was younger that attitude made me feel like a rebel. A rebel by proxy, I guess. There was something so mysterious about how he'd just smile at things, how unafraid he was. It was so edgy. 
 
 It was n't sustainable, of course. 
 
 He just kept getting happier. He'd walk around smiling, acting like he had no idea how concerned people were. He started laughing once, in a restaurant. I tried to get him to explain but all he could do was point at his plate and giggle. I could n't see it. But he was so... *happy*. 
 
 I should have been paying more attention. The signs were all there. But I was a teenager, and a little bit infatuated. And he seemed so confident. I know better now. But at the time that confidence was hypnotic. I got caught up in it. People have a need to conform. We want to believe that the people around us are right, so that we can live with them without anxiety. If you spend too long with a deviant, deviation starts looking normal. 
 
 Which is why when he said he was going to go outside, I did n't tell anyone. I'd fallen so far into that crazy thought pattern that I actually believed he'd succeed. So I *smiled* and said *'' good luck'' *. 
 
 There really was luck. Some deeply cynical genius had rigged the perimeter with sensors. They picked him up before he got anywhere near the doors. He was so far gone that he laughed when they hit him with the sleepy sticks. They took him to a hospital, where he kept talking about renewal and the irrepressible nature of life. He really believed that things would be OK. That time heals. That outside the doors there was a world of possibility instead of a hostile wasteland. 
 
 He was in for a couple of years, till they finally got his medication right. I grew up while he was away. Started to understand how things really work. The older I got the better I understood how disconnected from reality he'd been. For awhile I used to have bad dreams where I'd followed him outside and found nothing but red rocks with dust in their shadows. When they finally let him out, he came back to work. 
 
 He's a lot better now. Sometimes he hums, but he does n't talk about positive subjects any more. I have n't heard him laugh in years. 
 
 A week or so after he came back, I asked him to come to dinner. He did n't smile at all when he said yes. We ate shrimp while I apologized for not helping him when I should have. For not realizing he needed help. He forgave me.
