Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy. -Aristotle
We live in a society obsessed with happiness. This site is no exception. We’re constantly prodded with questions:
- Are you happy?
- Why not?
- Why don’t you do something to make yourself happy?
Sadness is perceived as unnatural and malignant. We’re encouraged to do whatever it takes to stop feeling sad. Frequently this means using anti-depressant drugs or other substances to physically change our mood.
But what’s the hidden cost of eradicating sadness?
Author Eric G. Wilson provides a discussion of what we might be losing in his book, Against Happiness. Listen to this brief interview on NPR to get the gist.
Wilson argues that sadness isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it goes hand in hand with creative genius. Countless thinkers (Hemingway and Lincoln to name a couple) have been prone to bouts of extreme sadness.
Sadness contributes to creative achievement as well as tragic demise. Would the world be better off if Hemingway had popped Prozac and lived to be 100?
I don’t know. And this isn’t meant to be an attack against anti-depressant medication or the people that need it. But what about the marginal people who experience the full spectrum of emotion?
Why are we so down on feeling down?
Next time you’re overcome by a melancholy mood, consider this:
- What is the cause of your sadness? Often the answer to this question can be the realization you need to make a change.
- How does sadness allow you to appreciate the pain of others?
- Does sadness make the happy times feel happier? Does it not have it’s own beauty?
Image by Joao Grando
I think there are beneficial things that come out of sadness of one kind or another, but I don’t think we should say we should “embrace sadness.” Embracing the BEAUTY of sadness, maybe, because it’s out of sadness that we are inspired to be better. When I am down, sad, etc., I’m fighting it, I’m trying to pick myself off the floor and go out and do something. This often results in bursts of inspiration. I see the time I’ve already lost, and I’m motivated to work harder. Although there are ups and downs, if I work hard at it the lows become less low, and the highs become higher.
I’d like to share two thoughts:
1. There is no way to “fight” sadness. Having experienced grief in a myriad of forms throughout my life I can tell you that the only way to survive is to embrace it and work through it. On the other side of this sadness you are able to appreciate the beauty and blessings of those moments of happiness that came before and since.
2. I’ll share a quote:
Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash.
Louis Aragon (1897-1982) French poet, novelist, and essayist.
I find this equally true – we need the spicy and the sweet on the palette of life, else it would be a bland existence.
Bruce
I think embracing it is really not quite the ideal… having my own problems with this particular problem, and so having some idea what these other individuals suffered with extreme depression (not at all like “sadness”) there is no…. It is a black, painful, horrific experience and no one who has such an illness wants to embrace it.
As Ryan said… what it does do is give you perspective. And it gives you a lot of incentive, once you become better, to try to pick up the pieces of your shattered life and try to desperately make up for lost time and whatever else got totally destroyed in the process. You get many chances to “rebuild” when you’re depressed, and perhaps there is something to that.
But as a depressive… you never embrace it, you never accept it… you fight it with everything you have, and if there is any advantage to it, it is through this fight not its acceptance.
I actually disclosed my experience to my readers, which talks about what the actual experience of this sort of depression is actually like. I’ve no idea of what you’ve experienced or not experienced, but depression of the sort Lincoln or Hemingway or myself have is of a very different sort than what the average person experiences.
http://www.mindfulink.com/2008/01/26/recovering-from-a-fall-part-i/
@bruce: This conflict or opposition is definetly necessary for life to continue on in the way we like. Knowing one helps us to know the other. I know sadness will always come back–the bitter with the sweat–but if I don’t do anything, I let down myself. You say you embrace happiness and “work through it” and I think that’s what I’m talking about when I say “fight.” I just don’t like to say “embrace” because in no way do I want to accept that my occassional sadness defines my life. The conflict and opposition defines it, and I think it’s what I do to work through it that defines my real character.
“The conflict and opposition defines it, and I think it’s what I do to work through it that defines my real character.”
Nicely said.
I definitely agree with that statement, and I think its much of what I had in mind when I was writing the post.
Sadness gives us the opportunity to fight and recognize our inner strength. If you run or hide from sadness then you miss this opportunity.
First, let me say that I in no way intended to minimize anyone’s personal experiences. I would differentiate between “sadness” which is brought on by an external event, and “depression” which is a clinical issue (I have some experience with this as well – I was diagnosed as bipolar several years ago; and it is a very different feeling which I agree should not and cannot be “embraced”.
I was referring to sadness as related to grief. In 1998 my 7 year old daughter died as the result of a sudden viral infection. Although I had suffered many forms of grief in my life – nothing prepared me for the abyss that comes from the death of a child. I was given a book at the time which helped me cope immensely. It was called “Swallowed by the Snake”. It compared dealing with grief to an old Indian (country – not native american) story of a village that was being terrorized by an enormous snake that continued to carry off it’s inhabitants and eat them. A young man went into the jungle with just a knife and a bag of rice. He was swallowed by the snake, but rather than fight it – he allowed himself to get accustomed to the darkness and confinement of the snake’s belly – and slowly cut off pieces of the snake from the inside – until he had worked his way through and into the light.
I have never really “put her death behind me”, but I have come to appreciate that I was blessed with a wondrous gift for seven years.
AGAIN – I did not intend for my comments to be insensitive.
Bruce
That’s unfortunate what happened to your daughter. Your positive attitude impresses me. You really are grateful for the time you did have, and I think that’s the most important thing.
I love the image of someone slowly cutting his way out of “the snake” or darkness, and finally getting into the light. It’s inspiring in ways. Thank you for sharing that.
“There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” ~ Carl Jung
Bravo – spot on for most of us. It’s ok, normal, etc. to be sad – especially about sad stuff! It will pass and eventually return. Thanks for the post.
That’s quite an interesting post, John! I’ve learned that sadness really does make the good times better. If you’ve got nothing to contrast it against, you’ll never learn to appreciate the upswing!
“Sadness is perceived as unnatural and malignant. We’re encouraged to do whatever it takes to stop feeling sad. Frequently this means using anti-depressant drugs or other substances to physically change our mood.”
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First off, antidepressants are not meant to alter a bout of ’sadness’. Sadness is not the same thing as depression. Depression is a total breakdown of emotional functioning which leads to difficulties in coping with life. Sadness is hardly comparable, and to compare depression with a ‘case of the blues’ is both condescending and shows a total lack of understanding.
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“In fact, it goes hand in hand with creative genius. Countless thinkers (Hemingway and Lincoln to name a couple) have been prone to bouts of extreme sadness.”
Countless thinkers and creative geniuses have also been perfectly content. To use this argument is simply to counter, in a very basic way, the argument that everyone should be ‘happy’. Sadness is not necessary for genius or great thought. Perhaps what you mean to say is that a wide range of life experience aids great thought, but although much life experience supplies pain and suffering, it also provides joy.
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“Sadness contributes to creative achievement as well as tragic demise. Would the world be better off if Hemingway had popped Prozac and lived to be 100?”
Would it be better if Hemignway had lived to 100? You mean, not killed himself? I hazard to say that YES, it would have been better. For Hemingway. This comment is so exceptionally insensitive, it boggles my mind. Are you seriously suggesting that depression is ok, as long as it serves the world?
And as for sadness contributing to creative achievement, well, yes. So does happiness. And numbness. And contentment. And breathing. And being creative. This statement is quite simply meaningless, and not only that, dangerous. How many people are now going to lord it over ‘happy’ people because they are not seen as ‘creative’ or ‘genius’ as soemone else?
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“I don’t know. And this isn’t meant to be an attack against anti-depressant medication or the people that need it. But what about the marginal people who experience the full spectrum of emotion?”
But didn’t you JUST say that depressed people (ie. Hemingway) should think twice about taking medication for the sake of their ‘genius’?
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“Next time you’re overcome by a melancholy mood, consider this:
* What is the cause of your sadness? Often the answer to this question can be the realization you need to make a change.
* How does sadness allow you to appreciate the pain of others?
* Does sadness make the happy times feel happier? Does it not have it’s own beauty?”
Finally, a *little* bit of sense. Although I hazard to say that needing sadness to ‘pay it’s way’ or contribute to something positive is the same as judging it as bad. Sometimes sadness is just there. It exists, it is part of life. It doesn’t HAVE to contribute to great change or development of empathy, although that is helpful.
If you always need you sadness to mean something, then you are setting yourself up for some pretty frustrating times.
Basically, what you have just said is that sadness is ok, as long as it contributes to some kind of happy, positive outcome: genius, creativity, empathy or change.
I can’t help but respond to Mia, acknowledging many of her comments generally, but also asserting the point that while depression may be, for her, “a total breakdown of emotional functioning which leads to difficulties in coping with life”, either humans are getting very, very weak, or doctors are substantially defining ‘depression’ down. Depression is not, by the way, a total breakdown, at least by any working definition I’ve seen.
Furthermore, we don’t know if Hemingway would have preferred the life he had, or a 100 year Prozacked haze. I’d imagine that many people would prefer to burn out than fade away. And, personally, I think people should think twice, or thrice, about taking medication, in the same way that people should reconsider suicide. Even us geniuses.
She sums it up well with “sadness is OK”. I agree with that.
When I defined depression as a total breakdown of emotional functioning, I did not mean to say that depression is the same as a breakdown, but rather that your emotional functioning (your ability to experience appropriate emotional responses) breaks down, ie, begins to disintegrate.
As for the assertion that many people would rather burn out than fade away, while I give credence to the idea that many people may, I stand by the opinion that it is insensitive to assume anything on the behalf of another.
Furthermore, a prozac haze is not always the outcome of antidepressants. There seems to be an assumption that antidepressants make you either happy or totally numb. Believe me, if this is what is happening to someone, I encourage them to seek alternative medication until they find one that actually normalises their emotional state. Antidepressants, as I have said earlier, are not there to make you unreasonably happy or totally zobie like, but rather to restore a normal state of emotional functioning. Although some people may never be able to reach this state through medication due to their brains chemical composition, for the majority of depression sufferers it is attainable.
I suppose I have a different perspective coming from South Africa; perhaps in the US people are extremely quick to self medicate? There is certainly something to be said about encouraging people to work through their feelings instead of going around them. I think thats probably what this article was initially about.
I want to commend you both
…for adding substantially to this article. Just like a book is a living, breathing, document that gets enhanced with each edition with reader feedback, blog literature become more multi-dimensional with the comments. Depression is a hot-potato subject in coastal parts of the US today, so people are particularly sensitive.
Mia, yes your perspective from South Africa is going to make an enormous difference. Causes for depression is not only internal and personal, but dependent on external forces of larger society too. I can attest that for many developed industrialized societies today such as Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Korea, coastal metropolitan US, England, Western Europe…the overall mood is gloomy somber due to unaffordable housing, people losing jobs during the information age to outsourcing or at least being pressured to overwork to keep existing jobs, and a once-leisure society being forced to swallow cut-throat competition and unpleasant changes brought upon by the internet, e-commerce, and developing countries opening their markets.
You might say it was our own society’s fault, for not making wiser decisions and safety nets to soften the blow, for letting our housing markets spiral out of control, but, here it is: when city homes are $400,000+ and not too much lower; wages are held stagnant by foreign competition, and job opportunities are diminishing in a recession, those who can’t afford the mortgage are renting out, compromising their future for a family and have a certain despair. This is highly correlated to the prevalence of “clinical depression” among middle class who are barely getting by to make payments in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco as well as Paris, Rome, London. For a time, I was in China and India, recipients of fresh opportunities and people being able to afford more, and the mood was noticeably more optimistic and less-desperate.
Back to the article, though… I find that individuals who come to believe depression as a necessary pre-cursor for great masterpieces are dangerously mislead. Reveling in it, they believe, leads to insightful aha moments. That has led many to deliberately choose risky lives of broken relationships, drug addiction, dissolution, self-pity alcohol dependency, and more damage to society than a healthy-functioning individual. It is a vicious cycle that doesn’t break easily. For every Marc Jacobs and Amy Winehouse, there are hundreds or thousands more creative minds who achieve distinction by discipline, practice, collaboration and personal fulfillment. None of the people I have ever met at LucasArts or Dreamworks is encouraged to be depressed. They are prolific precisely because they pay attention to details, to the present moment, and yes, sometimes being sad over loss also leads to that acute awareness of pain, but it’s better to just train oneself to be aware of inspiration rather than to be sad for its sake. (Following that argument, one might be led to believe that the most hopeless human despair might lead to abundant artistic genius: Haiti has not shown that to be the case.)
Sadness is unavoidable. It’s healthy, it’s empathy, and in appropriate times, it’s what makes us higher-order human beings. You can’t be genuine without it. I cry more for others than I cry for myself: for their demise, for their difficulties, for their being cheated, for callousness, for exploitation. It’s understandable to recoil, or grit our teeth and bear the trauma and say “yes grieve, life is unfair, now let’s figure out what I can do to ease the pain.” It’s growth and maturity in a world that falls short of our hopes, a society that isn’t ideal, people who abuse our trust, etc.
Despair is triggered by so many things: The individualist US has a culture that is devastatingly isolating for many immigrants who come from more crowded, inter-dependent societies. Russia produces top-tiered competitive young people who can barely find jobs to survive. East Asia has an intensely stressful academia where a higher score may mean being able to break a family out of generation-debt and poverty. Latin American barrios copes with cocaine disruption and an economic stagnation. Then there’s deaths, loss of jobs, being excluded from the cool crowd, demoralizing and abusive families, etc.
The important thing is to reach out and connect, as all of you have done. Encourage and fit into each other’s lives. In sorrow, satisfaction comes with relating and serving one another, to build relationships either temporary or lasting, and having a useful role that you belong to. Spend quality time with one another, by that, I mean do your mundane everyday errands with someone else who cares for you. Dig the trenches together. The worst experiences of my life have always been made into fonder memories when I think back to those with whom I shared the struggle, it builds resilience and character and I can say: “Remember when you felt so awful?”
Maybe it’s the Shakleton phenomena (the Brit captain whose team was stranded in Antarctica) but even in seemingly hopeless scenarios, there is beauty and heroism in the struggle… as long as you have someone to confide with.
I find what you say about the importance of sharing your pain with others and using a support system in order to do so very true. Many of those living in the west are cut of from communities and support, and this obviously leads to a lower baseline in emotional functioning. When you add this to the insane media creations that we are bombarded with every day, selling us this idea of happiness, it compounds the sense of isolation and creates a guilt cycle wherein we punish ourselves for being ‘abnormal’ for being sad/ depressed.
It is therefore incredibly important to be able to acknowledge ones own feelings and accept them, for they are a part of being human. ‘Humanity’, to me, seems almost to have become a product. Highly industrialised cultures have gotten to such a point in ‘lifestyle branding’ that many of us have internalised the images that we see to the point of viewing our lives and experiences through a media filter. On a simple level, this causes a disconnect, and while this is obviously not the only cause of depression/ insecurity/ isolation, it certainly contributes.
I feel that it is partly this mediated view of our lives that contributes to emotional insecurity when faced with economic recession, job insecurity etc. We look at our lives, and they don’t look the way they ‘are meant to’. We look around and compare what we have to what others have, and when we are finished comparing we are so far from reality that it is difficult to accept. Obviously I am not trying to belittle anyones struggle, and the fears that many experience are very real (family emergencies, losing your house etc are all very frightening and traumatic).
If we are able to reconnect with those around us and break away from this media fuelled ideal, we will all be much happier for it. I hazard to guess that this is what the original article was meant to be about. My difficulty with the way the ideas were presented, though, stems from the way in which sadness is ‘meant’ to alter or enrich your personal cache – through creativity, genius, etc etc. To me, this is just an extention of the human as brand mentality. Sometimes, we are just messy creatures, with loose ends in our lives and our minds, struggles, foibles and pain. And thats ok.
[...] post from a couple weeks back on the beauty of sadness opened up a great discussion about the difference between sadness and depression and the merits of [...]
I really enjoy articals like the one above, solely based on the fact that they lead to numerous different discussions between the readers. I personally am battling clinical depression (not sadness) , and I strongly agree that there is an enourmous contrast between the two. I don’t believe that there is way to fight sadness, but only ways to accept and embrace it. Sadness is and emotion that we all feel, and without it there would be no such emotion as happiness. Depression is, as Mia said, a breakdown of ” your ability to experience appropriate emotional responses”, not the feeling you get after the death of a loved one or the lose of something sincere to you. The conversation between Mia and Victoria has inspired me and given me hope that real, genuine, people are still out there, feeling similar emotions as I. I just wanted to let you know that by posting your conversation, you have both earned my respect, and given me hope that no matter how bad things may seem at times there will always be a better day ahead. I hope that you both are able to read this at some time and realize how you have helped me and hopefully some other readers. I am grateful for having happened to come across this artical and the conversations it began. With all sincerity, Thank You.
Hi Kyle
I am so happy that this conversation made a difference to you. For what its worth, it made a difference to me, too.
Keep well
Mia
Sadness can be very beautiful. I suppose it’s like the whole light and dark think, innit? Without some sadness, you can’t really have happiness at all. In fact, I think some bad feelings may be a key to a truly happy life or mindset.
All I know is, nothing, NOTHING feels quite like a good cry. It’s like those tears purge some of your muddy thoughts and once you’re done, you can see a hope nugget….
I relish certain music. Rachmaninov , Ryuichi Sakamoto, even Empire of the Sun “We are the people”, all make me cry with very little conscious depressive thought.
I can listen to the piano tune Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and cry buckets of tears, wallowing in emotion, NOT self pitty.
I love these pieces. I haven’t a clue how they work for me.
Crying seems to be a release.
Composers have the creative ability to weave sometimes the simplest of chord structures into profoundly moving and beautiful compositions
There is a mighty paradox at work here.
In my opinion, it’s the resistance to sadness which causes so much emptiness and depression in the world. Sadness is part of the meaning of life. That’s why we find sad music beautiful. In the world we live in today, success is measured by material wealth and visible achievements, not by how deep and rich your experience of the world is and how alive you are inside. Depression is the opposite of aliveness – not the opposite of happiness. Sadness is a fact of life, because loss is the inevitable consequence of attachment – everybody we love will either leave us or die, unless we leave them or die first. We all suffer losses all the time – relationships that go sour, things that get stolen or lost. People who are unwilling to feel the extent of their sadness will build walls against strong attachments in order to prevent future sadness. Subconsciously we know that forming a new attachment will bring us future grief, so we avoid real connection. We accumulate wealth and possessions or learn to be impressive in other ways to attract false friends, but it doesn’t cure the emptiness inside. Living consciously through sadness and finding it’s beauty and the peace that comes from learning not to resist it gives one the courage to be open to the world and all it’s hidden dangers. It’s the fear of uncomfortable feelings that causes so much anxiety and depression. Feeling the feelings and learning not to resist them or judge them allows one to process the events of one’s life and in this way the feelings become integrated. But we’re taught from before we can remember to hide our sadness from others, and eventually we learn to hide it from ourselves. So we never learn the skill of simply experiencing it for what it is and letting it take it’s natural course – it pulls at us all our lives, driving us to try harder and harder to be happy, when all the time the sadness is there, waiting for us, offering us an alternative path which, if we only had the wisdom, we could take, allowing ourselves to go with the flow of our emotions, instead of resisting all the time. And the inevitable discovery one makes is that our emotions dissipate and integrate as we allow them to be, and from that follows peace of mind – which is the real reward – peace to be present in the world. That is the real happiness we crave. I think many people mistake excitement and stimulation for happiness. But true happiness is a much deeper thrill – the thrill of being truly alive to this cruel but beautiful world.