A while back, I came across a site called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. On face value, such an enterprise might seem slightly morose, self-indulgent, downright emo and bordering on nihilistic — and some particular words might support this (there is, for example, a word — Lachesism — for internally egging on catastrophic events for the disruption and resulting clarity they might bring about into otherwise mundane everyday life). But if you have a spare hour or so, ideally more, I recommend taking a deep dive — a lot of the words also have cool videos accompanying them, with thoroughly life affirming and almost YouTube-redeeming comments sections.
Firstly, not all words actually describe a ‘sorrow’. Midding — perhaps my favourite, both because of its name and in turn how accurately it captures my desired contribution to most social situations — describes the tranquil pleasure of being near but not quite within a gathering, “feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included, safe in the knowledge that everyone is together and everyone is okay, with all the thrill of being there without the burden of having to be”. Back in my heyday, I remember this as describing exactly the experience of early morning comedowns with friends after a summer festival — probably still the most vividly happiest experiences of my life, even if they were artificially created and unsustainable.
Also, some of the words are so on point it is hard to dismiss as something that is not in fact entirely necessary in describing the human condition, for example:
Morii — the desire to capture a fleeting moment — provides a sound underlying rationale for a significant amount of content on social media.
And:
Keta — a memory that leaps back into your mind from the distant past — is such a fundamental human experience that it is a wonder it took this long to be named.
One of the most widely known, is Sonder: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. That is a serious word. An incredibly humbling, ego-combating reminder of our place in the world.
Words like this, and the site as a whole, suggest that many fundamental yet largely undefined human experiences are wrapped in a sense of nagging but not overwhelming sadness. But this sadness is also somewhat subjective: is Sonder really a feeling that should bring on sorrow? The fact that the word, based on the comments section, evokes an almost universal feeling of melancholy probably reflects the relentless inflation of the station of the individual within our society; that we are conditioned to believe in our own importance and uniqueness to such an extent that to realise the person walking by you in the street is probably going through the same highs and lows becomes a profound challenge to our sense of self. But once you get over it, once you appreciate the life-affirming properties of understanding such human complexity, it can also be a word that brings about great and profound joy.
Reflective rhetorical question time. Is sadness a human creation, just a reflection of an individual spiritual failing, or inability to be sufficiently grateful, or a consequence of transitioning from a state of being controlled by our ego? Or is it an inherent human quality, one that comes hand in hand with those other ‘S’ words of sacrifice and suffering? Perhaps somewhere in between: is it simply a natural and unavoidable reaction to living in a broken world? Whatever it stems from, sadness is obviously real, it is everywhere in society, there are different ways of dealing with it, and — self evidently given current rates of depression and suicide — many of those ways that are currently employed don’t seem to be very effective.
One take might be that sadness isn’t given the appropriate attention and credence it requires. Others might say it is given too much. I can see good claims for both.
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Early qualifier for what I am about to say next: I love teaching Bahá’í children’s classes. It’s one thing I really miss in Esperance where, as we aren’t at the stage (yet) to be holding regular weekly classes, it is limited to small school holiday camps. I love the virtues: how simple yet profoundly complex they are to teach; how quickly nearly every child gets the idea of these virtues as gems buried within in us, which just need to be uncovered and given a regular polish before they are shining brightly for all to see. And, despite it being a tougher sell to parents, I love where the classes go after the virtues: teaching religion as a progressively revealed, historically sequential social phenomenon, which each iteration having a specific positive influence on society in its particular time and place. I would have loved to have learnt this when I was a wee lad, although it’s quite possible I would have seen it as brainwashing and not had a bar of it.
I can still relate to this reaction because there are some small things about the classes that bug me, and that which could reasonable set off alarm bells for others. These aspects are, in fairness, not fundamental components of the classes but usually to do with particular suggestions for teaching different concepts provided in the books that assist with the classes. I would like to do a small rant about one in particular.
Early on in the first grade of lessons, amidst fairly safe virtues such as love, truthfulness and generosity, comes a lesson on joy. I’m not saying joy isn’t a virtue: being joyful is a good thing and helpful to our ability to live our best lives and in turn be of service to others. As the accompanying song says: JOY GIVES US WINGS TO FLY. But the dark side of the song (literally, listen to the tempo change) is the accompanying shadow of sadness, which weakens us physically and intellectually. The meaning of this is implicit: sadness should be avoided. Again, fair enough. Although there is this in the accompanying guidance: “We must be happy and joyful under all conditions”.
So I like to stay on the fence with most things, but: sorry, you can’t always be happy and joyful. Maybe I have been spending too much time thinking about the virtue of sacrifice and suffering, and I am making too much of a single line out of lesson that in general frames our understanding of joy in a way I completely agree with: as something that we should try our best to bring to other people. But this line emerges from an underlying worldview that is incompatible with mine: that joy, and in turn sadness, is essentially a choice. My experience of joy is something that often feels completely out of my control — and that the only way it can be controlled is when it is obtained through artificial or selfish means. True joy is a blessing, an act of mercy, and to teach it as something that we can choose seems highly problematic. In fact, it sounds like something straight outta The Secret, which should be proof enough: it’s your fault that you are miserable, if you only changed those thoughts from negative to positive, all this sadness would suddenly disappear. FOLLOW YOUR BLISS. Eat that salami sandwich.
This worldview also seems completely incompatible with the general gist of what it means to live a spiritual life: the notion that we should sacrifice ourselves for the greater good of humanity, even if it does bring ourselves suffering. If sacrifice is an essential practice for spiritual and social progression, and suffering is an essential component of effectively practicing sacrifice, then we have to feel sad. There is simply no escaping it… otherwise how have we truly suffered? Yes, our attitude and thoughts matter during these times: we can seek understanding, practice acceptance, maybe even find contentment… But can you really suffer and be joyful at the same time? And when there is so much needless suffering and sadness in the world, is it moral that we should find a state of being where we can be always joyful? Could you not also argue that if we are, it might be a sign that perhaps we aren’t getting our hands dirty enough?
Maybe that’s going a bit too far, so I’ll leave it at this. What if we taught joy to children as something to embrace, to be thankful for, and also something to make the best use of — to fully utilise our ‘wings’ — when these moments come upon us. But, at the same time, to teach moments of sadness, sorrow and even suffering as normal and unavoidable experiences: and from that base, how to then best deal with and survive these moments, and perhaps even to embrace them. Maybe this is why I haven’t had kids yet…
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So, while I’m of the belief that sadness is overly demonised in some circles, I’m also open to the fact that sadness is overly glamorised in others.
One thing I have been doing a lot of recently is going deep into the themes that run underneath modern popular music. If you dig a bit too deep, particularly in music videos and live performances, you find some random stuff pop up over and over: conspiracy theory-inducing symbology like the all seeing eye and triangle, to slightly more weird pagan/satanic rituals, to, of course, sexy time with aliens.
Then there are the more obviously problematic examples of negative behaviours being glorified: sexualisation of artists with mainly young fans; or narcissism; or materialism; or substance abuse. Perhaps in a more complex way, but sadness is also one of them: it seems almost undeniable that a large component of popular music is derived from a feeling of melancholy that also manifests in related extremes such as recklessness, nihilism and outright wishing for death (apparently, fans/stans wishing for their favourite artists to kill them is now a thing).
While there are some songs and artists that are just flat out sad, often it is more subtle. Sometimes, the underlying lyrical message of melancholy is packaged in a more shiny and hooky melody, presumably to make it more enticing to those not (yet) so sadness inclined. In other times, the melancholy is not overt and central to the lyrics or music, but is hidden — subtly and sneakily secreted into the fabric of a song through its production. You (I) might call this the Sadness Conspiracy.
On one hand you can convincingly argue that describing or manifesting sadness is a legitimate form of artistic expression. I’ve got no idea to what extent the sad-channeling of artists like Drake, or The Weeknd, or Lana Del Ray, or more recently Billie Eilish (or, in Billie Eilish’s case, sadness with a dash of devil worship) is natural or manufactured, and they certainly wouldn’t be as popular as they are if they weren’t channeling genuine human emotions.
But on the other hand, any human condition can be manipulated if that condition isn’t fully understood and controlled, and this seems to be what is happening with sadness. If manipulated properly, sadness can be a powerful propaganda tool by people in power, because a sad population is a largely passive and docile population. And, of course, sadness is a market — the emerging genre of sadcore, and before that emo, is a testament to that.
This is the essence of one of my favourite ‘emo’ songs, called the Black Market from a band called Rise Against (who aren’t really emo, but close enough for these purposes). The market they sing about trades on “a currency of heartache and sorrow”, and they readily admit that this is a market they have trafficked in, profited from and are now deeply imbedded within. The song is a call to escape the trappings of this life, to find a way to escape and live in ‘a world above the ground’. It was crucial in making me realise that at some point I had to consciously stop listening to this type of music, even though I still enjoy (or, perhaps, was conditioned to feel like I enjoy) listening to it. It is also a comment on the paradox of sadness: despite its validity, its necessity, its creative potential, at some stage escaping from sadness does become a choice.
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But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still listen to sad music. In fact, I couldn’t imagine life without it.
When you reach a place of melancholy — however it is that we arrived there — we need something to turn to, a strategy to help us through. There is one type of response, which is to push through the sadness. This is necessary to keep moving, to keep progressing. On good day, we can even turn the sadness into something productive and meaningful — a song, a poem, or a blog post for example. But there are also responses that accept when enough is enough, not in an existential sense, but in an acceptance of the fundamental hindrance that this state has on our physical capacities: as the song says, when sadness visits us, it negatively effects all parts of our being.
At this point, what is required is something that acknowledges and validates — is essentially a companion for — this experience. Like many people, I find that only music is able to provide this role.
Only a certain sound comforts on a night like this.
The only medium where emotion is receptive.
What about words? That add to, complete this sound: perhaps.
But words alone, as static, measured, rational: no.
Not tonight.
Tonight is not about learning, consolidating, advancing.
Tonight is patience, waiting, surviving.
And only true Melancholy comforts on a night like this.
Because I don’t know much about the science or art of music, it is hard for me to coherently put into words how this music is more authentically sad than the music I used to listen to. Obviously there is the lack of words, which makes sense: can we really capture these emotions with lyrics that at some stage become limited and an impediment?
There is the replacement of guitars and percussion with piano, strings and hazy ambient electronics. But this latter type of music can still be emotionally manipulative. For whatever reason, there is music that is able to honour and respect rather than manipulate and profit from the feeling of sadness. Rather than dragging us into sadness, or glorifying sadness, or converting sadness into other emotions, it is music that captures sadness.
Crucially, this music doesn’t try to lure you in to its emotions: you know what you are getting yourself in to. This is plainly evident when I look at the names of some of my favourite sad songs.
First, a song about farewells — A Farewell Sonata by Slow Meadow — one of the most indisputable sources of sadness we all must face.
A song called Family by an Australian artist called Luke Howard. Where to start with the emotions the are associated with our family? No need to even try and elaborate.
A song called The First to Forgive by From the Mouth of the Sun. If forgiveness was easy, then wouldn’t everyone do it? How much more difficult to be the first one to do it.
A song called I Remember by John Hopkins: a name that could be replaced with the aforementioned word ‘Keta’ from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows in how it relays a simple and instantly recognisable piano melody through a hint of distortion that might just signify the effect of the passing of time.
Finally, a song by Ólafur Arnalds — Undan Hulu, or the Cello Song — which could have been interchanged with pretty much any other song from his album “… and they have escaped the weight of darkness”. The whole album walks this tightrope between sadness and optimism, generally landing on the side of the latter but never far from the former: even when escaping darkness, how should we feel when you know others are still left there?
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What a gift, then, these artists have provided: to channel their suffering, sadness, melancholy — to linger there longer then they have to, to surround themselves in it, create within it, to provide the world with an artefact that accurately reflects this experience. But this music is still beautiful, and never despairing. Sadness I think can become beautiful if you have knowledge that things will get better, that there is a promised land, and that it will one day be reached. And so, if I could isolate the underlying sentiment of this music, it would be longing. A longing that accompanies this type of sadness, knowing its temporary nature, knowing what lies beyond it, but also still knowing that it is not yet within reach.
I hear this clearly in a song by Hammock called Numinous, meaning something that evokes the spirit, emotion or mystery of the divine. Not the most humble aim for a piece of music to aspire to, but the song does its best to create that beauty; as the music fades away to a lone choir voice, there lingers a longing that arises from receiving a glimpse of a destination that we know we are not yet ready to arrive at.
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Interestingly, two of the most emotional songs I have in my iTunes library are also two of the simplest. The first is Horizon Variations by Max Richter, whose name and music I can best associate with staring out of a moving vehicle into the distance, watching the world pass by and change before your eyes.
The second song is by Eluvium and called Entendre, a french word we often use in English in a particular way but which turns out to have a considerable depth of profundity. I could get super deep here and say that simply the act of turning your attention and intention to something, to listen to and understand it in its entirety (the simplest translation I could find of the word) is an act of inherent sadness. But ultimately this song is here for its musical simplicity.
Again, I don’t know enough about the notes or chords or progressions that are used to play this song to pretend that I do, but I’m fairly sure I could come somewhat close to playing it with the tabs in front of me and a few dedicated hours at a piano. And it is this simplicity, the distinct impression that the artist is a competent but not overly adept piano player but has instead sat in front of a piano and offered up his soul, not to mention the fact that the song comes to a logical end but decides to continue for 30 more seconds, that give it its emotion.
That two straightforward piano pieces, stripped of all production, free from technical virtuosity, can contain such a level of emotion proves, to me, the divinity of music… and of melancholy.
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In the end, to try and describe only with words the emotions of songs that transcend words would be redundant and an injustice. So, I have put them into a playlist on the side of this page. If you have made it this far, I hope they are of use.
Midsplaining 