Paradox
I used to be happier when I’m sad.
In these past few years, I think I’ve been a whole lot less sad than I used to be. (Guess I finally outgrew the plague of adolescent angst.) I realized how much I missed my depression when I found myself feeling inexplicably sad one evening, alone in the studio I shared with Jen. She and some of the girls had gone to a nearby Hindu temple for worship, and I was all alone in the hall.
Sitting at my desk in dim lighting, I'd been listening to my favorite depression music (namely, the Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels OST), and missing - according to my journal - the company of a good Scotch. As I sank slowly into a blue funk, it felt like shrugging on a warm and comfortable old pullover: I was unhappy, but never more comfortable or happier being so.
These days, I don’t like being sad or depressed much. I still occasionally welcome a down-swing in my mood, but only if I felt too exhausted being happy. Happiness seems to take a lot out of you.
Being depressed takes a lot out of you too, but at least you’d be happy to just sit around and brood and contemplate (though not necessarily suicide). Being happy makes you wanna do stuff: being with people you love, sharing your joy, jumping around, skipping everywhere - generally making less perky people want to smack you for being so perky.
I guess I don’t like being depressed these days because it takes a lot more to get outta the rut, because you’re never quite that certain anymore that you will get outta the rut … because even being happy makes you sad.
A long time ago, I read an article that claimed a lot of people are afraid to be happy - to be too happy. Then, I’d thought: what bloody nonsense - why should anybody be afraid of being (too) happy?
Obviously I was a lot younger then, a lot greener, and wetter behind the ears.
Since then, I've realized I am really one of those people who are afraid to be too happy. You can’t ever trust happiness; it has a mind of its own. As Bījī (Kamini Kaushal) had said of Khushi ('happiness'; Rani Mukherjī) in Chori Chori (2003): "Khushi comes without announcing its arrival, on its own. And when it arrives, there is the fragrance of khushi everywhere."
It's true that when you're too happy, you'll soon be very unhappy. This is the emotional equivalence of the gravitational decree: what goes up must come down. And this is compounded by the physics equation
PE = mgh
Subsitute PE (potential energy) with the measurement of depression; m (mass) with the weight of happiness (thus: the happier, the heavier), h (height) with the zenith of exhilartion, and leave g (magnitude of acceleration due to gravity) be, for the calculation of exactly how hard you'd hit depression. The higher you are, the harder the fall.
No wonder people are afraid of happiness: they must be terrified of depression. It's easy to soar on the wings of happiness (shoot me if I get any cornier, please, somebody), but getting out of depression is a an uphill schlep on rollerblades with a fifty-pound haversack. If you're lucky, it'd be only two steps back for every step forward.
I think I'd like to be unreservedly and totally happy; really, I'd like that.
But as a person who is happy when they're sad, and sad when they're happy, and who used to be happier when they were sad, being unreservedly and totally happy is a little ... tough.
I wish I were happier when I am sad.
(23:20 SGT)
In these past few years, I think I’ve been a whole lot less sad than I used to be. (Guess I finally outgrew the plague of adolescent angst.) I realized how much I missed my depression when I found myself feeling inexplicably sad one evening, alone in the studio I shared with Jen. She and some of the girls had gone to a nearby Hindu temple for worship, and I was all alone in the hall.
Sitting at my desk in dim lighting, I'd been listening to my favorite depression music (namely, the Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels OST), and missing - according to my journal - the company of a good Scotch. As I sank slowly into a blue funk, it felt like shrugging on a warm and comfortable old pullover: I was unhappy, but never more comfortable or happier being so.
These days, I don’t like being sad or depressed much. I still occasionally welcome a down-swing in my mood, but only if I felt too exhausted being happy. Happiness seems to take a lot out of you.
Being depressed takes a lot out of you too, but at least you’d be happy to just sit around and brood and contemplate (though not necessarily suicide). Being happy makes you wanna do stuff: being with people you love, sharing your joy, jumping around, skipping everywhere - generally making less perky people want to smack you for being so perky.
I guess I don’t like being depressed these days because it takes a lot more to get outta the rut, because you’re never quite that certain anymore that you will get outta the rut … because even being happy makes you sad.
A long time ago, I read an article that claimed a lot of people are afraid to be happy - to be too happy. Then, I’d thought: what bloody nonsense - why should anybody be afraid of being (too) happy?
Obviously I was a lot younger then, a lot greener, and wetter behind the ears.
Since then, I've realized I am really one of those people who are afraid to be too happy. You can’t ever trust happiness; it has a mind of its own. As Bījī (Kamini Kaushal) had said of Khushi ('happiness'; Rani Mukherjī) in Chori Chori (2003): "Khushi comes without announcing its arrival, on its own. And when it arrives, there is the fragrance of khushi everywhere."
It's true that when you're too happy, you'll soon be very unhappy. This is the emotional equivalence of the gravitational decree: what goes up must come down. And this is compounded by the physics equation
Subsitute PE (potential energy) with the measurement of depression; m (mass) with the weight of happiness (thus: the happier, the heavier), h (height) with the zenith of exhilartion, and leave g (magnitude of acceleration due to gravity) be, for the calculation of exactly how hard you'd hit depression. The higher you are, the harder the fall.
No wonder people are afraid of happiness: they must be terrified of depression. It's easy to soar on the wings of happiness (shoot me if I get any cornier, please, somebody), but getting out of depression is a an uphill schlep on rollerblades with a fifty-pound haversack. If you're lucky, it'd be only two steps back for every step forward.
I think I'd like to be unreservedly and totally happy; really, I'd like that.
But as a person who is happy when they're sad, and sad when they're happy, and who used to be happier when they were sad, being unreservedly and totally happy is a little ... tough.
I wish I were happier when I am sad.
(23:20 SGT)
posted by s at 04:20
1 Comments:
omg. you're getting too analytical. the world needs more of you around to document and explain stuff.
though that equation was really off-putting... how perplexing it gets when there's a science (and an approximately logical answer) to feelings.
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