Monday, September 01, 2008

melancholy and the man in 8A


The Man in 8A
Originally uploaded by Ingrid!
I for one am afraid that American culture's overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life.

I further am concerned that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations.


Adapted by the Chronicle Review from Eric G. Wilson's In Praise of Melancholy.

I clipped this earlier this morning but didn't know how to illustrate it or comment on it, so I shelved it.

Then PT Power tweeted about Ingrid!'s post re the Man in 8A.

I still don't know how to comment on it but I'm putting it out here because I find myself wrestling with a tangle of emotions -- as the presidential campaign unfolds, as I come to terms with my Grandmother's Alzheimer's and the fact that she's gone now, really, even though she's still here on this earth.

I'm trying to "hold it," as a friend advised me to, "like you would a sore toe."

To honor these feelings. To know that they're true.

3 comments:

Backblog said...

Thanks so much and yes, I share your concerns about "happiness."

Mikkel said...

I sat with my grandmother when she died. She'd had some variant of dementia for many years, if not Alzheimer's.

My advice to you is that you grit your teeth, keep running, and repeat the words: "I'm an infantry man" until they unexpectedly make sense. I'm sorry, but that's the best I can come up with. XXX

suttonhoo said...

good advice.

thanks.

Related Posts with Thumbnails