I actually think about each day as the last day of my life, which either makes me terribly noir Gothic (‘Where’s my Adams Family dress?’), or validating a medical prognosis of chronic depression. Say what you will about people obsessed with death, and who, perhaps pointed in the right writing direction could pass for a Sartre, my own experience with this very fascinating force – which, yes, is absolutely proven to effect or indicate lack of, certain chemicals in the brain (serotonin and others) – has proved to be immensely valuable (as well as an annoyance).
The flip side of anger is sadness, and given the statistics on the planet that far more women are diagnosed with ‘depression’ – uh, sadness – it begs an interesting possibility, naturally: That a lot of women aren’t happy because they haven’t broken through it by addressing their sadness. Smacks of ‘feminism’, but do try to withhold dropping into conclusions with all the set-up words here.
If you think about it, we women do cry more than men. Men are comfortable empowering their voices to make a point, and to be angry. Women – not so much. Personally, as a female, I don’t like getting into any angry/sad frenzy of emotion. I don’t really want to emote like a man might, with a strong loud imperial expression, nor do I really want to weep like a banchi. I don’t find either attractive in myself, or in others.
What I do find attractive is control – within reason, and it’s dependent to some degree on the situation. Having grown up in a house where everything – from which way the forks should be in the dishwasher, to what university should be attended – was dealt with as if all was equally deserving of high drama, I happily picked only those things emotionally that I really wanted to continue to experience – with perhaps one exception. Anger. I’d much rather experience sadness than be mad.
Anger is felt as an invasion of some kind. If you think of it, you will find that to be so. The natural response is to ‘back off’. It’s the robot in ‘Lost In Space’ who senses danger without emotion and just waves his arms to warn you, repeating, “Danger, danger, alien approaching’. ‘Alien’ is the key word here and it is obvious that anything ‘alien’ to your body, or your spirit, or your mind, but specifically, actually entering your designated comfort zone, your territory – will trigger anger.
Now this part is important: When we do not express our anger in a genuinely constructive way, we will hurt others and ourselves, and, sadness will follow. But that’s not all: When we allow anger to invade us, or our comfort zone, and do nothing about it (i.e., ignore it, accept passively and obediently thereby allowing another’s tyranny of us, numb it with drug additions, etc.), sadness will absolutely follow as well. There is one theory that acute on-going sadness ultimately triggers a chemical imbalance in the brain, making it necessary to introduce a supplement, as it were, so the individual can ‘fight’ again, i.e., fight to live. I suspect that may well be true.
And now I finally get to the point of this writing: When we aren’t fighting for what we truly want, when we are supporting others’ dreams only and not our own, when we don’t call out the tyrant, when we don’t find a constructive and loving way to take the tyrant down – and all the other kinds of scenarios one can play with when we simply aren’t paying attention to what is going on inside of us – well, then, yep, if you’re not ready to die that day, you are in serious trouble.
Because you might.
You will be in a high-risk self-imposed environment that will suck out any possible joy that day. Which will make you more angry. And more sad. And if you do this every day for a long time, well, you just might never get around to actually living your life.
So, I have to say sadness has been a great teacher. Keeps me conscious of death, that’s for dang sure. And it’s really amazing how you live your day when you actually get it that today may be the last day to live.
