Meloncholia isn’t necessarily a negative emotion. It allows us to find beauty in the sad and tragic where others turn blind eyes. No-one is immune to melancholy: a cloudy day, a lonely flag in the breeze, a secluded mountain trail, an empty beach, a rusty bridge – all these ordinary sights are transmuted into something tragically beautiful.

The feeling makes you think of the ephemeral nature of all joy in life, which then makes me wonder what life is, and time, and who we are, and why we exist and why does death exist, and – and – that shit keeps me up at night.

But it also brings great empathy through rumination and the ability to feel deeper in connection to the earth and man. One develops a higher form of altruism and seeing past the superfluous with burning desire to make the world a better place. Which is why, despite detours, I come back to trying to heal the infirmed and be there for my fellow human when called upon.

It is also why some are gifted (though I presume cursed is another word comes to mind) with seeing the world on another plane and wonder why others can’t and why humans are capable of inflicting so much pain upon each other.