• Among writings once attributed to Aristotle, the question was first posed: ‘Why is it that all men who have become outstanding in philosophy, statesmanship, poetry or the arts are melancholic?’ For the Elizabethan gentleman of leisure, to be painted in the pose of the melancholy man – black clothing, a distracted gaze, perhaps reclining alone by a brook, or leaning against a tree – was the height of fashion. It was also a state he could afford to indulge, since melancholy was brought on by idleness and solitude.

    My mistress Melancholy

  • “[Melancholy is] a most delightsome humour, to be alone, dwell alone, walk alone, meditate, lie in bed whole days, dreaming awake as it were.”

    —Robert Burton

  • Burton – as Democritus Junior, though with repeated references to his own biography – embeds his own experience within his text, claiming that: ‘I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy.’ Since idleness is the great cause of the condition, there is no better preventative measure than busyness.

    My mistress Melancholy

  • “Melancholy gave life and death”
    written on the tomb of Robert Burton

    My mistress Melancholy

  • What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don’t know where that elsewhere is.

    —Emil Cioran

  • Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.

    —Emil Cioran

  • When we cannot be delivered from ourselves, we delight in devouring ourselves.

    —Emil Cioran

  • In order to deceive melancholy, you must keep moving. Once you stop, it wakens, if in fact it has ever dozed off.

    —Emil Cioran

  • You taught me to exist without gratitude.
    You ruined my manners toward God:
    “We’re here simply to wait for death;
    the pleasures of earth are overrated.”

    …

    Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet
    on the coffee table, lean back,
    and turn me into someone who can’t
    take the trouble to speak; someone
    who can’t sleep, or who does nothing
    but sleep; can’t read, or call
    for an appointment for help.

    There is nothing I can do
    against your coming.
    When I awake, I am still with thee.

    HAVING IT OUT WITH MELANCHOLY
    by Jane Kenyon

  • …noonday devil and described with great precision this state in which the monk, after having known the spiritual consolations of starting out, begins to doubt his spiritual journey. It is the great doubt: Had he not after all been abused? What good has it served spending all this time in the desert? He no longer finds any pleasure in the liturgy or religious observances. God seems nothing more than a projection, a fantasy or a childish notion. Would it not be better, therefore, simply to abandon solitude altogether, to be of some use in the world, to do something? At times this noonday devil will incite this chaste and sober person to catch up on lost time especially in regard to sensuality and strong drink.

    In his theory of individuation, C.G. Jung describes very accurately this moment of crisis, when a person in mid-life finds his or her whole life put into question. It is a time when repressed material can suddenly manifest itself with violence. But it can also mark a crucial moment of passage towards a deeper integration. The values of having are substituted for those of Being. From now on the person’s life is no longer oriented towards the affirmation of the ego, but towards this ego taking second place and being integrated into that archetype of wholeness, which Jung called the Self.

    It is a particularly difficult time. All the former supports and certainties fall by the wayside, and nothing seems to be taking the place of this collapsing edifice. If the person seeks help or consolation, it only heightens the despair, the feeling of complete unknowing to which one seems condemned.

    For this affliction, the desert fathers counsel much prayer. One is capable of little else. Their suggestion of manual labour won’t be of great relief. Nevertheless, it is necessary to occupy the mind with simple tasks and to live in the present moment without looking either to the past or to the future. The pain of each day suffices. It becomes a question of holding firm at the heart of the anguish. It is a time for fidelity.

    Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical Tradition
    Jean-Yves Leloup