dark poetry

Sad is not Bad

S

Life is simple. We are born, we live, then we die. Nature isn’t simple. Human nature is neither simple nor consistent. We are emotional creatures. Have you ever heard “I over E,” meaning intellect over emotion? I’ve also been told, “lead with your heart,” “go with your gut,” “trust your intuition.” Has anyone ever told you “get over it (Eagle’s song notwithstanding)” or to “cheer up?”

This is about our relationship with sadness. I am not talking about clinical depression or that which is caused by chronic physical pain. This is about things that make us sad. To pull the fence in a little tighter, I’m also not talking about those things in our lives that cause us to feel sad. Such events as the loss of a pet or loved one, denial for promotion, or failing at something important do us make us sad. I’m talking about self-inflicted sad things that we choose to bring on ourselves consciously and deliberately–for pleasure. It’s a paradox, but it’s one of those things about human nature that I love.

sad6Stephen King has made a successful career out of scaring the hell out of many of us. We (not all) like to be frightened. Scary movies are fun. They are not for everyone, but a lot of people love them. Why? Is it the same with sad books, movies, songs, or plays? We keep going back for more.

I don’t think I am going out on a limb by saying that we like sad songs. They make us feel good. It’s true and you know it. I love dark, sad poetry, sad movies, books, and songs. But few who know me would say I am sad. This has been going on with people as long as we have had any form of entertainment. For evidence of my claim, I offer one research report and one report on an Ohio State University professor.

  1. “The pleasures of sad music: a systematic review” is quite long, but the abstract gets the point across.
  2. “Smiling Through the Tears: Study shows how tearjerkers make people happier” is a down to earth report of research projects focused on movies.

sad7My focus here is music. A friend loved the song Dance Me to The End of Love by Leonard Cohen. That is until she learned that the inspiration of the song was in fact the Holocaust. It is a lovely and beautiful song, but that sadness changed the song for her. The song is not sad by itself, but because the inspiration was so tragic, her opinion of the song changes from love to sadness.

When we listen to sad songs, we like them. Country & Western music is replete with sad songs. In the opinion of many, including Elvis, the saddest song ever was I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hank Williams (1949). I want to warn you, when I hear this song it plays in my head for hours afterward (this is BJ Thomas).

Another I like is Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers (1965). Actually, the song is much older than that. It is one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century. The song’s publishing manager reports over 1,500 recordings have been made by more than 670 artists in multiple languages. In 1936, Bing Crosby turned it down.

My third choice, I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan (1996), is in close running with about a hundred others.

 

sad12For sad movies, I have listed only five. It could be hundreds.

  1. sad10Love Story (1970)
  2. Ghost (1990)
  3. The Green Mile (1999)
  4. Titanic (1997)
  5. P.S. I love you (2007)

We all have our favorites. That is my final bit of evidence. We wouldn’t enjoy sad songs, movies, books, plays, and art if they made us feel bad. What are your favorites in sad music, movies, plays, books, or art?

Dark Side

DThis may be the most difficult topic for me, but it’s early in the A-to-Z Challenge. I may find subjects that are greater challenges. Regarding the dark side of human nature, I would simply prefer to accept it and move on. My research of our dark nature has revealed that we humans actually want to deal with it in reality, art, life, drama, poetry, fiction, behavior, and nature. Many of us admit to a duality of human nature, but even more of us reject the dark truths.

Dark PoetryMy dark side calls to me. I ask, “What do you want?”

It calls again. “Stop!” I say, “You’re bad. Nobody likes you. If I accept you, nobody will like me.”

Through art, literature, and life I feel the tug and I hear the voice. “To be fully human, you must accept and understand me. Fear me not, judge me not. Your rejection of me is ironically exactly what your fear is about—ego.”

Am I imprisoned by my own thinking? Aren’t we all? The Bard speaks to me through Hamlet, “Why then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.” Do I judge the dark side unfairly? Is it my thinking that makes the dark side so – bad? If I pursue the dark side of human nature through art, literature, or science; is that bad? Would I be bad or become less good and more evil? What do I fear?

Embrace Dark SideIn addition to Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray), which I’ve read, I shall add the following.

Edgar Allen Poe
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Young Goodman Brown)
John Keats (Ode to a Nightingale)
William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment)
D. H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers)

Next week I plan to blog on Jekyll and Hyde from the classic book by  R. L. Stevenson for more on this topic.

Maybe then I can begin to learn and to eventually know. The maxim on the Temple of Apollo attributed to Socrates is “Know thyself.” It isn’t know thy good-self or thy light-self.

THE REBEL
Shaking his clenched fist at nobody
and shouting out in anger at nothing,
the proud, haughty rebel grits his teeth
and stands firm, straight and tall against
an enemy never seen nor ever heard;
crossing his arms in defensive defiance
against an adversary whose dwelling place
is in the dark, shadowy chambers of his
tumultuous and solitary, lofty and lonely mind.
[Dedicated to Albert Camus] ~ Kenneth Norman Cook

We may never know if the basic nature of mankind is good or evil, if we are fallen or risen. But we know something is there. We can hear it calling  to us. To know it. Embrace the darkness as well as the light.

I read this yesterday: “If you took a picture of your soul, what would it look like?”good-and-evil-2

 

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. Please join me on Our Rainy Journey. I hope you enjoy it. I plan to write about things on the journey of life that interest me. When I wonder if you may be interested as well, I shall blog about it.

I want to explain my choice of a name: I wanted pluviophile, but it was taken. Pluviolover was not—close enough. I am a pluviophile, which is a lover of rain; someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days. I will indeed be writing about rain and my reaction to it. I will not do that often, but if you’re curious, do look in.

Additionally, I want to write about the importance of how we feel; about happiness and laughter, the human condition, and the dark side. I want to write about love, art, pain and suffering. And I want to write about rain, walking, and doing.

I also want to write about my more current, albeit brief, experience as a writer. I believe that we are all writers, we are all in this together, and we learn from each other. Writing has been, and is, a discovery for me, inside and out.

While I consider myself to be happy, I am enigmatically intrigued by our human nature and enjoy dark poetry and exploration of the human condition, especially as it applies to the dark side of our nature.

Recently, I had the opportunity to decide where I wanted to live. I chose the Pacific Northwest, in western Washington State. I have been here about a year and I love it, so far.

I like music, rain, romance, comedy, adventure, mystery, and fantasy. Oh, and food. Second oh, and beer. I like food and beer. If there is ever a longevity study on survival rates for people who live on stout and Italian food, I plan to volunteer. Third oh, I should not forget coffee.

While politically active and opinionated, I’ll avoid talking about religion and politics. I’ve had numerous discussions and debates over the years on both topics. I can’t recall changing anyone’s mind or having my thinking altered a smidgen. I was given the gift of the opinion of others and I’ve learned from that. I appreciate the people who do write on those two topics, but I shall not contribute.

I am new to the blogosphere. I have read that posting on my blog only a time or two a week is a good start. I will do what I can. However, there is a challenge that some of my friends are tempting (daring?) me with: the A to Z Blog Challenge during the month of April. I believe I will do that. It will mean posting on my blog every day, topically assigned to a specific letter of the alphabet, in order. My theme will be all of the above. Let me see now, A is for….