Application for a Job as a Human Being

In Application for a Job as a Human Being, Bejamin Maack recounts his daily life with depression. He writes about how confusing and difficult it is to live with this illness, and to love – his children, his girlfriend, himself. And how, time and again, he still manages. A disarmingly honest and direct and sometimes humorous depression diary.

When Benjamin Maack suffers another depressive episode in the spring of 2025, he begins to keep a diary on Instagram. He types his notes on his phone while sitting on the sofa, in the doctor's waiting room, before he picks his kids up from school. He writes about himself, about his thoughts and feelings. Through his writing, he reflects upon his daily life and on his thoughts and feelings, opening a space in which people can get close to his life, and in which he also finds connection with other people. In the comments and in personal messages, people write to him almost every day to say that his diary has made them feel less alone, that the posts give them hope and comfort, move them to tears, but also make them laugh.