My mom has often described me as "someone who is more naturally melancholy." Anyone who knows me well, who I have at all spilled my emotions to will say I am generally in a perpetual state of some form of sadness. I am drawn to tragic books and stories, and I tend to dislike a good old fashion "and they lived happily ever after." And I like it, I like my melancholy cloak. You could even say I enjoy it. I like the tears shed after a poignantly despairing novel, I like sitting alone in my room on a rainy day and exploring the depth of faults and the tragedies of the human race, and to some extent I "like" the revelation of past or present sorrows in a persons life - the bond of trust it indicates and forms, but also the depth it gives a person. The saddest people are deepest, and know how to laugh the sincerest.
Now, before I go on I would like to make one thing clear. I am not talking about the medical diagnosis "depression." No, I am talking about an inner kind of sorrow that is not necessarily unpleasant. Depression is a very unpleasant, very dangerous thing, but what I like to call "artistic depression" is something entirely different. It's actually something quite beautiful.
The Art of Being Sad
What exactly are "artistic depressions," and why are they beautiful? Well, let me start with an example.
Vincent Van Gogh. The guy had a sad life - his paintings never appreciated until well after his life, completely rejected by most of society, eaten up by anxiety and mental illness. Vincent said to his brother Theo, "I wish they would take me as I am."
And I think it's this ability that I label as "artistic depression." It's allowing the sorrows we experience in life to burst through us into something beautiful - not necessarily happy, and not necessarily sad, but unique and gorgeous in their own loud, outstanding statements.
This, for me, is my favorite God-given gift. Sadness entered this world, but it is my belief God gave us something to lessen the pain, He gave us an outlet.
That is why Van Gogh's paintings, why Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis, the hosts of artists that profoundly effect our emotions and lives, are able to do just that. They are able to use their sadness to transform the world into layers of beauty and meaning.
"Sad is happy for deep people."
Maybe that is why I can say I like being "sad."
The way I see it, life is a photo in an editing software, and sorrow is the vibrancy tool. It allows us to brighten the colors, sharpen the edges, focus and blur. This is testified by the beauty we find in sad songs, in sad stories and movies and TV and poems. It touches our heart, because we see how our own sorrow could itself be transformed into beauty.
And to me, it's also a reminder. A reminder of the Divide and the Bridge, of the Justice and the Mercy, the only way we can experience Joy. Sorrow is our great companion through life, something harsh and something wonderful.
Our emotions define us, they filter us, they allow us to experience, they warn us and scold us, and they allow Creation.
So revel in your artistic depressions (because we all as humans have them). It is not something to hide, or bottle up, or keep secret, or be ashamed of. Sorrow is the outlet of beauty, so let it out.
There is no limit to the things you can create.
^(OvO)^
