psychology

I just finished reading this very nice article by Eric G. Wilson a Professor of English at Wake Forest University. in his article, In Praise of Melancholy the Professor suggests that by focusing too much on simple happiness as an indicator of mental health, Americans (He writes as an American, about his nation.) are losing an important dimension to their being, the dimension of recurrent sorrow, also known as melancholy. By losing the capacity to feel sadness, these "Americans" of Prof Wilson's essay, are foreclosing on their capacity to feel Joy. By sticking to the middle ground, a neither here nor there kind of generalized contentment, there is no acceptance for the bigger, (okay fine transcendent) emotions.

Wilson writes:

Melancholia pushes against the easy "either/or" of the status quo. It thrives in unexplored middle ground between oppositions, in the "both/and." It fosters fresh insights into relationships between oppositions, especially that great polarity life and death. It encourages new ways of conceiving and naming the mysterious connections between antinomies. It returns us to innocence, to the ability to play in the potential without being constrained to the actual. Such respites from causality refresh our relationship to the world, grant us beautiful vistas, energize our hearts and our minds.

Indeed, the world is much of the time boring, controlled as it is by staid habits. It seems overly familiar, tired, repetitious. Then along comes what Keats calls the melancholy fit, and suddenly the planet again turns interesting. The veil of familiarity falls away. There before us shimmer bracing possibilities. We are called to forge untested links to our environments. We are summoned to be creative.