In Praise of Melancholy
As a follow-up to my last post, I thought I'd share this article by Eric Wilson with you. I heard him on CBC the other day talking about his new book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, which sounds quite compelling. I've long thought that the increased medicalisation of unhappiness can't be a good thing.
(Thanks to Jane for the link.)
(Thanks to Jane for the link.)
3 comments:
Good article. I'm inclined to agree: suffering is the crucible. However, a proviso: Nietzsche may have written, "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger" -- but he forgot that it can also crush and cripple.
I doubt that he did, Brian. Nietzsche was chronically ill and was often crushed and crippled by migraines and intestinal afflictions. And what eventually killed him first rendered him catatonic; he no doubt had intimations of the null to come before he lost contact with the world altogether. Indeed, the feverish pace of his last writings suggest he had a very good idea.
Maybe he wrote that when he was catatonic -- ooh, excuse my black wit.
Yes, you could be right there.
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