Skip to main content

The Beauty in Feeling Blue


When listening to a sad song, the lyrics can evoke within you an abundance of emotions. You may shed tears and your heart may feel heavy. Even though those lyrics are speaking of heartbreak, it is compelling you to listen closely. There is a certain beauty in the melancholy. 

People may associate sadness with gloom and grey skies, but it's an emotion that's so human. When you cry, you may feel inclined to hide any traces of your tears. Because you're scared of anyone seeing you experience anything other than sheer joy. 

It may sound strange, but heartache is necessary. If you were only ever happy, you wouldn't appreciate happiness. If there were no tears, you wouldn't see the loveliness in a smile. It's just like if rain ceased to fall, rainbows would fail to leave you wonderstruck. We wonder why it is that we find peace in songs of sorrow. But it is because sorrow is a human emotion we all feel. Just like joy. 

So sadness shouldn't be covered up or buried away. We have to allow ourselves to cry. So many profound works of art were created when the artist was sad. So many poems were written by poets feeling a sense of despair. There is a poignance in the blues that can fill our lives with colour.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

a life so small – A poem inspired by A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

How much can one achieve  in a little life?  a life so small  How do you go about the day  always getting in your own way?  Clinging to skyscrapers tall  Your friends are there  yet you don't know why they care  Jumping from fire escapes  you're so used to the fall  The bruises, broken bones, bleeding  you think they don't see  when you've held the shining thing  to your torn-up skin  a certain kind of dependency  You let yourself shiver  in spite of the arms that long  to cradle you Cry yourself a river  until your hollow spaces  leave no traces  Forlorn jungle eyes gaze at portraits  that, despite their beauty,  bring you shame  soothes and destroys just like your name  because you were baptised  in the kind of water  that doesn't cleanse  but drowns  What colours do you use to paint  a lost cause  who's also a patron saint?...

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates — The Aftertaste of Short Stories

There are some stories you finish… and then there are stories that stay. This one didn’t just stay—it lingered, like a shadow in the corner of the room that you keep checking, just in case it moved. Arnold Friend. I still can’t get him out of my head. At first, he almost feels ridiculous. The way he talks, the way he looks—it’s slightly off, slightly strange. But then something shifts. The more he speaks, the more the air changes. It’s like watching something reveal itself slowly, and realizing too late that it was never harmless to begin with. There’s this quiet dread that builds. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… inevitable. Connie feels so real. That in-between space—wanting to be seen, wanting attention, playing at being older than she is. And then suddenly she’s faced with something she doesn’t understand, can’t control, and can’t escape from. That’s what made it so terrifying for me. Not anything supernatural. Not anything graphic. Just a girl, a house, a man outside—and ...

The Doll–Master by Joyce Carol Oates — The Aftertaste of Short Stories

I'm scarred for life... but fascinated. I have a fear of dolls(pediophobia), which made the plot of this tale even more unsettling.  It’s the way he thinks he’s saving them. That’s what’s rotting in my mind. He looks at a vibrant, messy, living girl and sees something 'broken' that only he can 'fix' by making her sit still forever. My skin feels tight just thinking about it.  Because I have this fear, every mention of a glass eye or a stiff limb feels like a needle prick. He isn't just a collector; he’s a taxidermist of the spirit. He wants the world to be a shelf where nothing ever moves, nothing ever changes, and nothing ever leaves him. The stillness isn't peace. It's a scream that’s been painted over with a smile.