The Profundity of Sadness
Sadness is a contemplative emotion.
Sadness is a post-event emotion. Whereas we might be afraid of what might happen, we become saddened by what has already happened. Sadness inspires rumination and regret. Sadness demands that we examine and learn from the failures of the past. There is no other emotion capable of pushing us so deeply into that quiet, pensive place within the confines of our mind.
When truly despondent, we enter a sort of dark underworld, where nothing but badness and shades of grey exist; sunny days are all too bright; smiling faces are only lying masks; and all sensations are reduced to bland, numb, colorless, scentless insipidity. Though there is not much good to be found in the darker shades of sadness, the enveloping effect of this emotional enclosure is never felt more palpably than at its peak intensity.
The lighter shades of sadness afford a supernatural tinting of the world, as though the spirits have by some measure gained sway on the material plane. There is a dreamlike fancifulness to moderate dejection. It does not make the world its own, like the more potent varieties, but simply colors all of one’s thoughts. One is able to see joy in others, but as it was with Tantalus before us, all cool waters rush away from thirsty mouths and all nourishing foods flee from hungry stomachs.
