Back during my days of activity in the anarchist scene ten years ago, I was humorously praised by a comrade for my special “melancholy” nature. I am not clinically or even chronically depressed like some people I know, but I am more straightforward with my melancholia than a number of such people, who are convinced that any sign of dissatisfaction or unhappiness is simply a sign of illness. Here in the U.S., even in “revolutionary groups” - those claiming to be anarchist, etc. - it often seems that people look down upon those who express too much sadness or dissatisfaction. It seems that more people want to be around the kind of person who always keeps the chin up, refrains from complaining and even acts as though s/he loves everyone - the kind who will willingly embrace everyone with hugs and never stay brooding in the corner. But, of course, there is definitely a place for brooding in the corner, and for melancholia, which should never be underrated.
In more mainstream American society, the tendency for shallow happiness, or displays of same, is even worse. It seems that this nation’s culture, more than the vast majority of nations’ cultures (at least to the extent that cultures can be distinguished according to nation), strongly encourages people to act content no matter how miserable their actual circumstances are, and strongly looks down upon those who would complain. And that is another big reason that I, personally, would love to get the hell away from America one of these days…
In a long session of Net surfing (something I don’t do much these days - unless I’m just looking for good music and videos), I was quite pleased to stumble upon this article from last month by someone named Eric G. Wilson, confirming many of my own feelings on this topic. So, here, then are a few choice paragraphs:.
My fears grow out of my suspicion that the predominant form of American happiness breeds blandness. This kind of happiness appears to disregard the value of sadness. This brand of supposed joy, moreover, seems to foster an ignorance of life’s enduring and vital polarity between agony and ecstasy, dejection and ebullience. Trying to forget sadness and its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos, this sort of happiness insinuates that the blues are an aberrant state that should be cursed as weakness of will or removed with the help of a little pink pill.
I’m not questioning joy in general. For instance, I’m not challenging that unbearable exuberance that suddenly emerges from long suffering. I’m not troubled by that hard-earned tranquillity that comes from long meditation on the world’s sorrows. I’m not criticizing that slow-burning bliss that issues from a life spent helping those who hurt. And I’m not romanticizing clinical depression. I realize that there are many lost souls out there who require medication to keep from killing themselves or harming their friends and families….
I do, however, wonder why so many people experiencing melancholia are now taking pills simply to ease the pain. Of course there is a fine line between what I’m calling melancholia and what society calls depression. In my mind, what separates the two is degree of activity. Both forms are more or less chronic sadness that leads to continuing unease with how things are — persistent feelings that the world is not quite right, that it is a place of suffering, stupidity, and evil. Depression (as I see it, at least) causes apathy in the face of this unease, lethargy approaching total paralysis, an inability to feel much of anything one way or another. In contrast, melancholia generates a deep feeling in regard to this same anxiety, a turbulence of heart that results in an active questioning of the status quo, a perpetual longing to create new ways of being and seeing.
. . .
The American dream of happiness might be a nightmare. What passes for bliss could well be a dystopia of flaccid grins. Our passion for felicity hints at an ominous hatred for all that grows and thrives and then dies. I’d hate for us to awaken one morning and regret what we’ve done in the name of untroubled enjoyment. I’d hate for us to crawl out of our beds and walk out into a country denuded of gorgeous lonely roads and the grandeur of desolate hotels, of half-cracked geniuses and their frantic poems. I’d hate for us to come to consciousness when it’s too late to live.
