gray skies
January 13th, 2007 by Lawrence David
i suppose i’m glad that i’m getting the most out of this dour new england weather. (seems god got lazy today; she stained everything with that gray muck you get when you mix all your paints into an sludgy gumbo.)
see, thanks to a confluence of long-gestating feelings and some more immediate turns of events, i’ve been wading through a thick molasses-funk lately. i suspect it’s my bi-annual quarter-life crisis.
i won’t subject this blog to a laundry list of my problems (how tacky). instead, i thought i’d make a note here about how strangely positive this whole experience has been.
for instance, i’ve noticed that when i’m down … well, i start to notice things more. rod stewart’s dirge for unrequited love heard while food-shopping at market-basket – i actually catch myself feeling bad for the guy. the protagonist’s anguished thoughts in the ray bradbury novel i’m reading – i dont’ sympathize with them: i empathize. and even those gray skies outside – i’m not ignoring them anymore: i’m absorbing them, letting them sink in.
in short, i’ve just now arrived at the conclusion that i’m sure all those brooding philosophers reached centuries ago: you get more out of life when you feel like crap. isn’t happiness intoxicating, inspiring obliviousness to what goes on around myself? whereas sadness heightens my senses, making me acutely aware of anything grief-compounding. perhaps even my usage of language bears out this personal conclusion – i’d opine that it’s more natural to say: “i feel sad / i am happy” than “i am sad / i feel happy.”  i don’t so much feel happiness, as i acquire and become it.  sadness, on the other hand, i can’t help but perceive.
[hurm, jotting all those thoughts down makes me feel better. which i guess, i can conclude is a bad thing.]
