When birds fly back to their nests at dusk in a scramble, I feel melancholic. Their chattering, the changing hue of the sky, the reminder of a day gone by in life makes me more alive but also joggles me up.
This is certainly not depression but a beautiful way of preening myself. It is beautiful because you stop there, at that point in time, and go deeper. That is why we become quieter and tend to travel with our thoughts, experiences, incidents beyond the surrounding realms.
The immediate environment transports you to your inner self. This sanctum sanctorum is always unchanged, stable, and unmoved. But we rarely visit our core. That visit when done, is so refreshing, so exhilarating and throbbing that you remain there, or at least a part of you is always an inhabitant there.
Some of us are affected by the changing weather or little things around, like a flowering plant or an unseasonal dash of rain with the earth smelling wet and real or late-night drive with soulful music or a beautiful little girl begging and staring at you in strange bewilderment at the traffic light.
For the sensitive, these moments are forever. But many do not notice them and remain completely untouched. Melancholy happens to the introspective ones, mostly. Even if it is for a moment, it runs deep and can be retrieved when conditions, both internal and external, trigger. I cherish the retrieval because that is when I am befriending myself through moods.
There is an uncanny constancy in melancholy. Meditative. It is a realism, which cocoons you from the vicissitudes of daily humdrum. It is an escape but a realistic one and not a decamp. Because in melancholy you are there, always present and experiencing. You are not abdicating and enjoying an artificial riddance.
Melancholy helps create art and abstract because it is the intersection of realism and surrealism. It is that point where you are within yourself, which is perched in an ephemeral world. You know everything is supposed to slip by and yet every moment touches you and stays like a monument. You savour the ‘staying’ value of melancholy.
It is certainly more real because it is yours, it is authentic. Contrary to quick judgments, many times, melancholy results in a sense of bonding with oneself. It makes one feel secure, because the happiness around you is shallow and it is not yours. Not to say that happiness is avoidable and to be abhorred. Certainly not. But what I mean is that it depends on something, someone. That is the reason why these days there are growing cases of external locus of control on one’s life.
Externalities define life. Material creatures have encroached long back, and they are permanent squatters in the generations to come. They make you dependent, however happy you feel for a few moments. And the honeymoon gets over, much sooner than you had ever expected, because the saturation also comes much faster. This lands you in a slump. But melancholy is neither depression nor superficiality. It is the point in between which is untouched by both the extremes.
Melancholy is more authentic because you are not dependent on anyone. It is yours, absolutely yours and that is why many people get creative when they are melancholic. Hugo had said that melancholy is the happiness of being sad. It helps us get over sadness or mental misery. Hence a Guru Dutt could touch the inner emotional threads through his creations. Shelly, the English poet had said that a poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Melancholy brings back confidence and could be a method of self-discovery. This comes with great insight. Your sadness can help you more than your happiness. We never look at sadness closely. We avoid doing that.
Slavery is not the natural, inherent desire of human beings. If a situation, or a woman or a man gives you joy, you become dependent. At the same time, you feel deep hate or irritation because of dependence. So, life tends to blow hot and blow cold.
Love your melancholy and you will start loving yourself and naturally propel you to contribute to the beauty all around.
Herman Hesse said aptly that, “I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.”
When you are melancholic, it is a momentous phenomenon. It is sacred, something of your own, personal. Say hello and get acquainted with it, go deeper into it, and you will be surprised with its beauty and fragrance. Sit silently when you are melancholic.
Melancholia has its own beauty. It is silent and it is coming because you are alone. It is offering you the opportunity to travel deeper into yourself or your aloneness. I have witnessed it coming and have treated it as a friend. It has opened the door of my eternal aloneness. There is no way not to be alone. We try to cloak our aloneness in many artificial ways. We can delude ourselves, but we cannot succeed. And we are running away everywhere – in relationship, in ambition and in everything.
Rather than hopping from one shallow happiness to another and let go of your unreturnable time, it is better to use melancholy as a means for meditation.
Yes, melancholy certainly matures and transforms.
