Sad Things Blog

[da5zeay]

I just saw this on BoingBoing:

http://turbulence.org/Works/saddest/index.php

It's a collection of "sad things", and people writing why they are sad.
Why post this in Happiness Group? I don't know exactly why...I think
maybe by reading about sadness, we see happiness in a different light.

[Think_n_See]

It's good to know the contrasting sides of life. Absolutely.

You know, there are some studies on the benefits of negative emotions.
There is an argument that some negative emotions are not worth
savoring (such as anger and fear), and those emotions send you a signal
for you to react to, but elongating the experience of being in those
emotions often does not add usefulness or value compared to simply
having the emotion in an instant.

On the other hand, some emotions (such as sadness) are actually an
observation of life, and are worth living through because they allow a
person to get through a time or situation in their lives. This is
ongoing research that I heard about, and the specific question that I
learned that you can ask yourself to know whether the emotion is useful
or not useful for you to elongate the experience of it is "Would I
choose to have this emotion?"

[da5zeay]

I love that. "would I choose to have this emotion". The feeling reminds
me of the tamed fox in "the little prince"...I was just reading that on
another forum!

Sadness is an echo of past happinesses, I think.

[Think_n_See]

... or sadness is an echo of wished-for happiness.

"What if" I had that or that?
Gilbert in his "Stumbling on Happiness" book says that you don't know
what you really want. You think you know, but you don't really. So
maybe if sadness is for past (i.e. read as "misremembered") happiness
or for regretted (i.e. read as "once wished for") happiness, then maybe
sadness too is misleading... ?

It's crazy how much or our sorrows and happiness are just thoughts
inside our heads, and the directions in which we point those thoughts.
I'll point my thoughts tonight towards a beach shore horizon just
before sunset, with sailboats on the docks and a few triangles of white
sails out in the distance, the sky getting darker, and the taste of
strawberry ice cream still in the air.

[da5zeay]

That's a very interesting point! Wow! It just dissolved a lot of
something in my head!