TRUE STORIES:The Halo of Melancholy
J.T. Knoll
The halo of melancholy by J.T. Knoll
There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. — Herman Melville
I’ve been feeling mournful lately.
In addition to life’s daily struggles, my heart grows heavy with the plight of the working poor, the mentally ill, the homeless, the hungry children — the dispossessed — right here in Kansas from whom services continue to be withdrawn even as tax breaks for the well-to-do are being proposed. As Senator Anthony Hensley of Topeka described it, “Robin Hood in reverse.”
There’s plenty more going on in America and the rest of the world to feel woeful about. Could be it’s not the world at all. Maybe I’m just down in the dumps.
One thing’s for sure, I can’t just wish it away. Tried that. Just keeps coming back. Still, misery’s not an easy emotion to embrace. But embrace it I must.
Consider medical researcher Antonio Damascio’s findings on people who couldn’t process bad feelings because of lesions in their brains. Not being able to feel bad, they were unable to take corrective actions about their lives — their finances, business practices, relationships, etc.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting older — now halfway through my 62nd year — and more aware of the tick, tick, tick of time.
Thomas Moore puts it this way in his book, “Care of the Soul”: You get a sense of having lived through something, of being older and wiser. You know that life is suffering, and that knowledge makes a difference. You can’t enjoy the bouncy, carefree innocence of youth any longer, a realization that entails both sadness because of the loss, and pleasure in a new sense of self-acceptance and self-knowledge. This awareness of age has a halo of melancholy around it, but it also enjoys a measure of nobility.
Measure of nobility indeed. Enter Abraham Lincoln.
Author Joshua Wolf Shenk sketches an intriguing outline of Lincoln’s experience of woe in his book, “Lincoln’s Melancholy”. In Lincoln’s day, melancholy could be a valuable aspect of someone’s life. His melancholy was seen as a source of valuable insight and reflectiveness.
But Lincoln’s gloom was both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand it opened him up to dangerous depression, but on the other it fuelled his insight, wisdom, compassion and remarkable leadership through the Civil War.
Shenk argues that something is lost when, “The modern understanding of depression … segregates its manifestation as a disease and its manifestation as a thoughtful, reflective sadness; because sadness can have great value, fostering insight, creativity, and moral courage.”
Problem is, most times there’s no clear dividing line between reflective sadness that fosters insight and growth and clinical depression that causes withdrawal, hopelessness and, sometimes, suicidal ideation. In such cases, talking to a counselor, clergyman, or psychotherapist can provide insight and help in the struggle for meaningful, balanced answers. There’s something healing about talking to another person about things you don’t feel safe talking about to anyone else.
It should be pointed out that Lincoln was also known for his droll sense of humor, which ran the gamut from stories, to cheap puns, to clever aphorisms. While much of his humor had a purpose, other times it was for sheer fun. He often stopped work to enjoy a laugh, then, relaxed and refreshed, went back to work again.
In closing here’s a few of Lincoln’s one-liners followed by a story about his days in the White House during the Civil War.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
A friend visited President Lincoln and found him to be in a melancholy mood. “I’m afraid I have made Senator Wade of Ohio my enemy for life,” Lincoln said. “Wade was here just now trying to convince me that I should dismiss Grant, and, in response to something he said, I remarked that that reminded me of a story.”
“What did Wade say?” the friend asked.
“He wasn’t happy,” Lincoln answered. ‘Everything with you is story, story, story!’ Senator Wade said. He said I was the father of every military blunder that we’ve made … and that I am on the road to hell … and I am not a mile off at this minute.”
“What did you say to that?” the friend asked.
“I just said to him,” the President chuckled, “Senator, that is just about the distance from here to the Capitol, is it not?”
J.T. Knoll is a writer, speaker and prevention and wellness coordinator at Pittsburg State University. He also operates Knoll Training & Consulting in Pittsburg. He can be reached at 231-0499 or jtknoll@swbell.net.
