Grief, Sadness, Pensiveness

Over the years, I've found music truly sways human behaviour, in every direction, whether its excitement and happiness or sadness. The latter, however, called out to me. Even at this moment as I walk along the street on my way to the gym, a place to pump yourself up and get that dopamine surge, all I can listen to is music that innately makes me nostalgic. Not because its a song I first heard years ago - in fact I heard it a few days ago - but because a spell of sadness, of lack, motivates me. 

Grief is crippling, yet grief is not merely simple sadness. It is also the contrast to our ecstacy and joy. There was a popular "moral story" we read in school, which highlighted how joy would not be what it means without the understanding of sadness and grief, thus the increase in motivation. It would sound extremely odd without context, but if you're sad or moody all the time, wouldn't the rare joyous moments be extra joyous? Is it not a common myth that the funniest person is often the saddest? The jokes aren't just a coping mechanism for tough times but also shows one of our true sides. Yes, we are sad, but we are also happy, and spread that joy with others around them.

Sometimes we get too engrossed in the sadness, too alone to make jokes, and that is when the situation gets a bit spoilt. It is not pitiful, and we don't need advice when we go through tough times. We just need someone to show us that the sadness does in fact have an opposite, and it is not just a dream. I do not need rap music to make me angsty and excited about pulling a heavy weight off the floor, I need music that makes me pensive and gloomy about the present but also reminds me of previous good times, something I can look forward to in another few months once college ends. 

A beauty about this sad music is that music can never be sad (or happy for that matter) without the element of nostalgia. Just like you need grief to understand joy, only after you feel joy will you understand grief. And sad music always takes you back to the time that matters, to the time that makes you wonder "what changed?", where did we really walk off the bright, green grass and step on the wintry desert. As my heart beat faster and faster, my feet pounding on that rotating belt called a treadmill, my reason for increasing the pace by an entire point was not mental endurance, it was the fact that I wanted to be the same person as before when I met those who got me out of grief, those who helped me survive my toughest times.