Sad? Good!

There is a great article talking about the value of melancholia here.

It talks about modern society's obsession with wanting to be happy while ignoring sadness, and the problem with this will be the end of beautiful art that taps into that sadness in order to create:

I for one am afraid that American culture's overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I further am concerned that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations. I am finally fearful of our society's efforts to expunge melancholia. Without the agitations of the soul, would all of our magnificently yearning towers topple? Would our heart-torn symphonies cease?

Jung said

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

So I think the article has a point. We cannot have one without the other, and even worse, we would have no art without both!