And then to put it away

There are times I wish I were cold-blooded. If only I were empty of all emotions, I could be invulnerable. But I am only human.

Sometimes an overflowing river of sorrow engulfs me. Sometimes I feel utterly hurt and disappointed - either in myself or in people who have let me down. Sometimes I really wish I could be deliriously happy. Sometimes I hope simply for peaceful contentment. Sometimes I am afflicted with devastating pessimism. Sometimes I truly think that people are secretly wondering why I haven't committed suicide yet. Sometimes I yearn for these people to voice out their question instead of keeping it to themselves - so that, in response, I can suggest to them that they should read Albert Camus. Life is absurd in itself. It does not require suicide; it requires revolt. And sometimes of these times, I wish I wouldn't be so sad.

How do I deal with sadness? I look at that which has evoked ferocious melancholy within me. I stare at that which has involved me in overwhelming pensiveness. I think about that which has aroused maddening grief in my heart. I obsess endlessly over it. I focus my mind solely and fiercely on it. The longer I look unflichingly at it in its face, the longer I stare persistently at it, the longer I dwell stubbornly upon it, the more the pain diminishes. I attempt to psycho-analyse myself. I try to destroy this profound agony, to take it apart, thread by thread, until it becomes nothing but a wisp, a shadow, a fragment of ash. After some time, the anguish fades away. By then I will have numbed myself sufficiently; I will have lost all ability to react to that which has drowned me in depression; I will have calmed and soothed myself, and I will no longer be able to feel any misery.

I've been thinking about the letter Virginia Woolf wrote to her husband, Leonard. "Dear Leonard, always the years between us, always the years, always the love, always the hours. Dear Leonard, to look life in the face. Always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then to put it away."

All I have to do is to tell myself, Please, to look sadness in the face. Always to look sadness in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is.

And then to put it away.