The black dog of depression

I returned to the safety of street art today quite by chance. I saw this out of the corner of my eye as I drove out of town and hadn't even noticed it was another mural from the Cities of Hope exhibition.

The website says:

The female street art duo Cbloxx and AYLO painted a large-scale mural that highlights male suicide. The work was inspired by the documentary “Grayson Perry – All Man”, which explores how contemporary masculinity shapes the lives and expectations of men nowadays.

It seems there were 3 episodes:

Episode 1, HARD MAN, sees Grayson spend time with a group of cage fighters in the North East. As a self-described 'lifelong sissy', Grayson thinks the desire to be tough is holding modern men back. But as he explores the vulnerabilities that lie behind the fighters' public personas, takes part in the Durham miners' gala and meets the friends and family left behind in the wake of one young man’s suicide, what he uncovers reverses his expectations.

In Episode 2, TOP MAN, Grayson goes to Skelmersdale, Lancashire to meet two groups of men concerned with rank and territory: the police and the drug dealers they regularly arrest - as well as the local residents who live with this turf war. More than 80% of the crime and anti-social behaviour in the UK is caused by men, but the issue is rarely addressed in gender terms. As Grayson joins officers on a raid, and walks the boundary of the estate with some of the young men who live there, he finds universal male preoccupations bound up in this very local conflict.

Episode 3, RATIONAL MAN, finds Grayson among traders and hedge-fund managers in the City of London. The modern City, they tell him, is all about calm, cool rationality, but Grayson suspects that in the long journey from hunting mammoths to clicking mice, impulsive aggression and raw passion hasn't disappeared quite so easily. A tense final exhibition sees the financial powerbrokers come face to face with the work that Grayson has created.

Quote for today:
I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.
- Robin Williams