Stillness, reading, joy

So far this year, I have been spending more time offline, reading good books. This has largely been my attempt to counter my first ever experience, at the age of forty-five, of severe depression (it seems some percentage of women with no history of depression experience it during menopause). So, I'm taking the drugs, doing the therapy, and reading. I figure that reading saved my life when I was a kid, and it would probably be the best medicine now. There was a lot to enjoy in this article
The Joy of Quiet
By PICO IYER
Published: December 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html

but I particularly liked this bit:

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None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism; it’s just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”
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