June 24
I write of melancholy in order to escape melancholy; whoever dissects and names the stirrings of the mind has already half disarmed them.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (freely rendered)
Listening mode
I write of melancholy in order to escape melancholy; whoever dissects and names the stirrings of the mind has already half disarmed them.
A low mood that you have once described well comes back differently. You recognise it sooner: the tiredness in the late afternoon, the aversion to phone calls, the tendency to think everything still to come is already futile. You know how it usually runs, and that so far it has always subsided. That takes away some of its power.
At the same time, the description takes on a life of its own. The more often you use it, in conversation or just for yourself, the smoother it becomes. It acquires turns of phrase that have proved their worth, perhaps even a little punchline. At some point you are telling less about what is going on in you right now than about what you already know about it.
Naming then works in two directions. It keeps the feeling at a distance, and at the same time it furnishes a home for it. Whether a new heaviness really is the old one is hard to test with the familiar words. They almost always fit.
Sometimes you notice the difference in a small detail that doesn't appear in your story: this time it isn't the calls that bother you, but the silence afterwards.
