On his solo album Mercury Falling, Sting writes that “everyone has to leave the darkness sometime.” For artists and intellectuals, however, the darkness is often where true brilliance and insight reside. Melancholia, it has long been known (and politely termed), is frequently the place from which creativity and originality flows. It doesn’t make it easy to live with, but it does offer some measure of hope and comfort to those of us who live with what modern medicine terms ”depression.”
There is just something about looking inward–a must for any writer or artist–that makes us particularly prone to melancholia.
my cup is cold, my paper’s old
my heart is sold to melancholia
my clothes are torn, my shoes are worn
my heart is borne to melancholia*
Now this doesn’t mean, of course, that creative and intellectual persons are unable to laugh, feel joy, or any other of the positive emotions which enrich the human experience. But the beauty we see in this world literally takes our breath away–a sparkling, clear blue autumn sky, the stars on a dark winter night, leaves dappled in soft light, the smile on a small child’s face. These things make us smile; they make us happy. But along with that we also live with these constant reminders of the fragility and fleeting nature of God’s world; we live with this knowledge and the resulting melancholia.
Thankfully, this ability to appreciate the beauty all around us is also sufficient inspiration to share what we see, feel, and experience with others. Sometimes it’s simply sharing…but in those rare moments we all long for, it becomes art.
So this weekend I will pack up my computer and head out to the bookstore or the coffee shop–my version of Hemingway sitting in a Paris cafe with his Moleskine journals and a freshly sharpened pencil. I will think, feel, and write…and I will gladly live with this thing called melancholia.
Pete Townshend, “Melancholia,” copyright Towser Tunes
