I sometimes wonder if we do not insufficiently appreciate our periods of gloom, when nothing we have done seems of much value, when our energy ebbs and our thoughts and feelings, memories and dreams lie exposed as wreckage, detritus scattered upon wet sand, and there is nothing we could do that we could just as well not do.
See Rilke's 10th Duino Elegy on this.
ReplyDeleteWhen I hit such speed bumps in the roadways of life (terrible metaphor!), I find something worthwhile in reading Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Blake, and Flannery O'Connor--a curious trio of writers whose works somehow smooth out (or make irrelevant) the speed bumps.
ReplyDeleteFantastic question. Appreciation, for anyone, comes down to how he/she perceives the framework of his/her own psychological economy.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I can never really "appreciate" these phases while they're happening; I just want them to end. But when I swing the other way -- when I'm energetic and productive and all that -- I can argue that those emotional ebb periods are necessary, that they provide the requisite weight in the other pan of the beam scale that keeps everything level.
But if I take the time to really quantify it...I have more ebb days than flow days. Like, I'm probably running at a 2-1 ratio. That affects my appreciation of such dark times. I feel like I'm paying too much for what I get back. Can you file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau over an existential rip-off?
-G
Yes, Hopkins is good, R.T., especially "Carrion Comfort" and No Worst, There Is None." And yes, Christopher, the 10th elegy does go deep, deep into that feeling.
ReplyDeleteUnlike you, Greg, I rarely have such moods - I'm too shallow - but I sympathize with you.
i see these times as god shaking us violently to unsettle our false notions before they become too established. It's also akin to the idea of putrefaction in alchemy, that a rotting quiescence precedes rebirth.
ReplyDelete