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the desire to be sad: "tragically beautiful" art & romanticizing mental illness — Transcript

by oliSUNvia · 5,114 words · 547 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00"The fact that there was no answer to the question he screamed, "Why do I suffer?"
0:05Man, the bravest animal and most prone to suffer, does not deny suffering as such:
0:11he wills it, he even seeks it out,
0:14provided he is shown a meaning for it,
0:17a purpose of suffering.
0:19The meaninglessness of suffering, not the suffering,
0:22was the curse that lay over mankind so far."
0:34Between the ages of 11 and 14,
0:36I was, like many preteens, riding an emotional dip in my life.
0:43I was extremely insecure about my acne and weight,
0:46about being judged by the popular kids.
0:49I wasn't allowed to sleepover at friends places,
0:52or have a phone,
0:54or go to the mall without an adult.
0:56And my relationship with my parents was… rocky.
1:00It felt as though they never trusted me,
1:03and that I would never be a good enough daughter.
1:05One of the ways I tried to disperse of my emotions and thoughts
1:10was to write a diary entry every day.
1:12I did this for three years.
1:17January 11th, 2015
1:20"I don't know why but during French today,
1:23this heavy weight feeling in my chest and stomach
1:26(I have it all the time) just got really bad.
1:29When I breathed faster, it got heavier
1:32and I felt like I was going to break down so I went to the washroom…
1:36I cried, I picked at my skin…
1:39I wish I could forget every mistake in my life. aka all of it."
1:45March 10th, 2016
1:48"Is there a purpose to all of this?
1:50I'm so helpless, so hopeless, so everything less.
1:55My heart constantly aches for love, for joy, for meaning in life.
2:00In the book I'm reading, Clockwork Prince,
2:03someone called Magnus Bane says that he once met an immortal who had lived for so long
2:08that they felt no emotions anymore… except fear.
2:13And when Magnus asked him why he did not simply kill himself as life had no purpose for him anymore,
2:20he said that death was still feared and unexplored;
2:23the only thing in his thousand years of life that he had no experience of.
2:28I feel like that's me.
2:30I do not wish to take my life but logically speaking, why shouldn't I?"
2:36I sound pitiful in these diary entires.
2:39I sound deeply in need of help,
2:42but here's the kicker:
2:43I was a fraud.
2:45Yes, I was sad a lot. Yes, I had low self esteem.
2:49But I wasn't suicidal. I never had a real panic attack in French class.
2:53It’s so embarrassing and disappointing to acknowledge that that’s how I once acted.
2:59But being chronically on Tumblr in the early 2010s did something awful to me:
3:05it made me desire intense depression.
3:08Mina Le has a video where she discusses how Tumblr,
3:12which is kind of like the blog version of Twitter,
3:14made being sad an essential part of what made you interesting
3:18and so it led to romanticizing mental illness.
3:21Mina and others have talked about this quite a bit,
3:24so you can check out their content for a deep dive on Tumblr.
3:28But I really want to zoom in on this desire to be sad and to have trauma.
3:34Tumblr allowed us to masochistically indulge in self-pain
3:39because we received attention, support, and #you’resorelatable comments
3:45because of our pain.
3:47But what about the situations where we desire sadness for the sake of being sad?
3:52W hen there is no outer audience to give us attention for our sadness?
3:57When I was 9 years old,
3:59I used to lie in bed with my iPod nano and blast “Demons” by Imagine Dragons
4:04as I daydreamed myself being pulled away from my loved ones,
4:08watching them thrash in agony.
4:10Creating tragic daydreams in my head—starring myself—
4:15was one of my favourite past times.
4:18No one knew I was conjuring up these imaginary scenarios
4:22and so no one was giving me attention for them.
4:24So then why did I enjoy doing it?
4:27I also want to explore our love for sad art.
4:30If “tragically beautiful” art aestheticizes suffering and mental illness,
4:35then is it moral to create it?
4:38And why do we have tropes such as "the troubled artist"?
4:42Are the sad and suffering really more creative and “deep”
4:46than those without existential dread?
4:48Before I get into the content, enjoy 90 seconds of me cooking and eating.
4:53It’s a HelloFresh sponsorship.
4:55I was actually really excited for this HelloFresh sponsorship
4:58because I see them sponsor a bunch of other creators
5:01and I also want yummy food for free.
5:04These recipes all sound great,
5:06but I’m gonna try this shrimp one because… shrimp.
5:11Being a university student who’s trying to do YouTube and also study for the law school exam,
5:16planning meals really takes up valuable space in my mind.
5:20I don't have time to browse the internet for exciting recipes anymore,
5:24so having HelloFresh send me a bunch of yummy and healthy recipes
5:28with all the ingredients packaged is so nice.
5:32They have a variety of meal kits such as Veggie, Pescetarian, Fit & Wholesome,
5:37so it really works with whatever your goals or diets are.
5:40Okay, first try.
5:46mmm!
5:48This is really good!
5:51I usually stick to one flavour combo in my cooking
5:54so it's really nice to eat something that isn't just soy sauce and hoisin sauce.
5:59If you’re interested, go to HelloFresh.com
6:01and use code OLIVIA16 for up to 16 free meals AND 3 surprise gifts!
6:07Again, that's HelloFresh.com,
6:10code OLIVIA16, for up to 16 free meals AND 3 surprise gifts!
6:18August 9th, 2016
6:21It's been bothering me all day
6:23but there's a pair of scissors beside me on my night table that I left there somehow
6:28and every time I see it, I stop.
6:31I'm really trying not to cut myself.
6:33It's tempting and I deserve it but I'm resisting.
6:37I've been wearing lots of bracelets lately though.
6:39I think I just want to give myself an illusion that I'm cutting
6:43and getting what I deserve without actually doing it.
6:46I just want to be sad. I don't deserve otherwise.
6:54In Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality,
6:57he argues that humans experience pleasure in having the right to be wicked to others
7:02for the pure sake of being wicked.
7:06"The carnal delight de faire le mal pour le plaisir de le faire.”
7:10We weren't born with a set of morals in Nietzsche's eyes.
7:13We didn’t start punishing and torturing people
7:17because our inherent moral compass told us that this is a bad person.
7:22Labeling someone as deserving of punishment because they have done something wrong
7:27is actually a really advanced concept that most people think is natural.
7:32It requires us to recognize that certain events happened in a specific causal chain
7:37and that these events weren't just accidental, but intentional,
7:41and that these intentions were the wrong kind of intentions.
7:45Nietzsche didn't think our cavemen ancestors were big brained enough to be able to think like this,
7:50which, fair enough.
7:52Instead, he says that the origin of punishment is actually rooted
7:56in the “oldest, most primitive” relationship between people:
7:59the contractual relationship.
8:01Punishment was premised on the idea that “every injury has its equivalent”
8:06and thus, if you hurt me,
8:08your “debt” could be paid off by me hurting you an equal amount.
8:13In place of material goods or money,
8:16people were compensated through the satisfaction of
8:19imposing suffering onto someone else.
8:22Nietzsche describes many incredibly cruel torture methods that litter human history,
8:28such as stoning,
8:29boiling criminals alive in oil or wine,
8:32tying people to horses and having their limbs ripped apart,
8:37I don't even want to continue listing the examples. It makes me shudder.
8:41And these tortures and executions
8:43were displayed at royal marriages and festivals for entertainment.
8:49It was like comedy show for them.
8:51Yeah, people are scary.
8:54However, when humanity started to enter civilized society,
8:58it was necessary for people to regulate their cruel pleasures
9:01in order to be able to establish a peaceful common existence.
9:05Like can you imagine if today, someone came up to you and said,
9:09“Hey, you're really cute.
9:12I was thinking...
9:13there's this new live show where they boil people alive in oil.
9:18I heard it's hilarious!
9:20We should check it out! It sounds like a fun time!
9:23Nietzsche claims that this is where the moral concept of guilt comes from.
9:27Humanity became ashamed of our own cruel instincts
9:31because they were now deemed immoral;
9:34thus, people could no longer openly acknowledge and express those instincts.
9:39As a result, our pleasure in cruelty became spiritualized in popular culture.
9:44We see this in horror movies or violent sports,
9:47where people can enjoy cruelty from a distance.
9:51Still, our instincts could not be fully discharged this way,
9:54and so they became directed inward, creating bad conscience.
9:59It's that voice in your head that yells at you
10:01whenever you feel guilty or immoral about doing something.
10:05Humanity experienced what Nietzsche calls “the internalizing of man”.
10:10The pleasure that people derive from cruelty
10:12is now satisfied through causing ourselves to suffer
10:16through things like self-denial and self-sacrifice.
10:19Our consciousness turned against our own uncivil urges.
10:23Enjoyment from punishing others
10:26was redirected to enjoyment from punishing ourselves.
10:30A further reason why Nietzsche believes we desire pain
10:33is because the concept "good"
10:35was originally synonymous with the traits the aristocratic nobles possessed.
10:39These were the high social ranking men
10:42who honored bravery, wealth, strength, and physical health
10:46because that's what they believed they had.
10:48Calling themselves 'good'
10:50was a way to use language to assert that they are superior by nature,
10:55and Nietzsche cites etymological proof
10:58such as “gut” being German for both 'good' and “man of godly race”.
11:03From this aristocratic framework of goodness,
11:06the concept ‘bad’ emerged as the absence of these good traits,
11:10which the aristocrats associated as the traits the common people had.
11:14This bred a mixture of resentment and desire for revenge among the masses.
11:19Now, I'm glossing over a lot of details, but to keep it short,
11:23eventually, the common people end up establishing a moral system of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’.
11:29Now this is different from 'good' versus 'bad'.
11:32Remember that the aristocratic form of morality defined ‘good’ first
11:37and contrasted the concept of ‘bad' afterward.
11:40However, for the common folk, ‘evil’ was defined first.
11:44Evil was associated with all the previous ‘good’ traits that aristocratic morality praised,
11:51so that wealth, power, ambition, pleasure became evil.
11:55‘Good’ was defined as merely the opposite of ‘evil’;
11:59‘good’ is not powerful, not strong, not wealthy.
12:04We see this is basically every religion
12:06where it is a virtue to not seek power over others,
12:09to sacrifice our things and time for others, to resist worldly pleasures.
12:15We see it in popular culture too
12:17where people prefer to be the victim because that's who the masses will side with,
12:22not the powerful.
12:23So in Nietzsche’s eyes, we purposely subject ourselves to pain,
12:27and then call it "being as a good person."
12:30Are we stupid?
12:31Well, if suffering and sadness is an inevitable part of life,
12:35then to make ourselves suffer gives us a sense of control over our pain.
12:41We have self-mastery over our existence this way.
12:44And we attach moral value to feeling shameful, feeling guilty,
12:48and depriving ourself of pleasure,
12:51because then at least suffering and feeling bad about ourselves
12:55makes us a good person,
12:56and we aren't hurting for nothing.
12:59There is meaning to our pain.
13:01"He who has a why can bear any how."
13:04Viktor Frankl says that the ultimate drive of humanity is a will to meaning.
13:10As a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp,
13:12he said that merely surviving the camp wasn't his main concern.
13:16What he really wanted to know
13:18was whether all the dying around him had meaning,
13:21for if there was no meaning,
13:23no purpose for the death and cruel torture of innocent lives around him,
13:28then what was the point of survival?
13:31What was besetting the question
13:35the problem which was besetting myself
13:38was not as much whether or not I shall survive the camp
13:44but whether or not all this pain
13:47those pains people had to undergo
13:51innocent people had to undergo there,
13:54whether all this dying around us has a meaning
13:57an ultimate, a higher meaning or not.
13:59For if it had no meaning, I didn't see any meaning even to survive.
14:06In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he writes,
14:09“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning,
14:15such as the meaning of sacrifice…
14:17That is why man is even ready to suffer,
14:20on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning.”
14:25This heavily reminds me of the episode “Good Damage” in the TV show “Bojack Horseman”
14:30where a character named Diane explains that she needs to write a profound memoir about her life
14:36because if she doesn't,
14:38then all the trauma and hardships she's faced will have happened for nothing.
14:43But I'm not writing a book to have fun.
14:45If I don't write my book of essays now, I never will.
14:48So? Don't write your book of essays!
14:49I have to!
14:50Why?
14:51Because if I don't...
14:53that means that all the damage I got
14:55isn't good damage,
14:57it's just damage.
14:58I have gotten nothing out of it, and all those years I was miserable was for nothing.
15:03I could've been happy this whole time
15:05and written books about girl detectives, and been cheerful and popular, and had good parents.
15:10Is that what you're saying?
15:11What was it all for?
15:12I... I don't know, Diane.
15:16This idea of “good damage” is exactly what Frankl and Nietzsche writes about.
15:21Damage with meaning is acceptable.
15:24It can even make us feel special,
15:26like we are stronger than those who haven't endured hardships.
15:29But damage as plain damage? Now that's what really hurts.
15:35When I was a little girl,
15:36I thought that everything, all the abuse and neglect,
15:39it somehow made me... special.
15:42And I decided that one day, I would write something that would make little girls like me feel less alone.
15:48And... if I can't write that book...
15:53December 10th, 2016
15:56“I plant all my frustrations and words I'm dying to tell someone—anyone—away deep down inside of me.
16:04One day, that seed of misery I planted will blossom.
16:08Or maybe it already has.
16:11Now it's only a matter of time to see if that sprout dies or flourishes until it's all that's left of me.”
16:19Wow. I thought I was quite the little poet, didn't I.
16:23You know, I thought that in order to give my sad emotions meaning,
16:27I had to make my sadness sound “right.”
16:31I couldn't just scribble down diary entries however I wanted
16:35with simple language and basic sentence structure.
16:38Who am I, Rupi Kaur?
16:40God no, I had to write beautifully.
16:43Preteen Olivia made sure that her sadness
16:46was translated into words that sounded straight out of black and white deep Tumblr GIFs.
16:52I needed my thoughts and feelings to be beautiful
16:55because that's the only time I saw society value mental illness:
16:59when it was delivered to us in the form of aesthetic art.
17:03In fact, I felt that to be deep and introspective, I needed to be sad.
17:09I had to be lonely and pessimistic in order to be truly enlightened about real life.
17:15These beliefs I held were heavily influenced by the sad art I consumed.
17:20When it comes to TV shows and film,
17:23it’s a special and powerful type of communication
17:26because it's not limited to one sensory input.
17:29As McCloskey puts it, film engages both our sight and hearing,
17:34which puts us in a "'trance' or dissociative state similar to a dream,
17:40causing the viewer to become so deeply absorbed into the film
17:43that all of the technical aspects that go into its creation
17:47are largely forgotten and unbothered by the viewer.”
17:51The ability of film to mimic real life experiences
17:55makes it easy for us to forget for an hour or so
17:58that this story has gone through countless layers of editing, cutting, colouring, effects, music choice, etc.
18:06For those who don't know anyone struggling with a mental illness,
18:10watching a film about mental illness will play a huge role
18:13in how they perceive real people with mental illness.
18:16But to make an enjoyable movie, especially for a younger audience,
18:21filmmakers want attractive characters with interesting plot and memorable lines.
18:26This means that many serious films about mental illness
18:29must incorporate unrealistic aesthetics into the project.
18:34In the film Girl Interrupted,
18:36Susanna Kaysen is a character who is in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt.
18:42She’s played by Winona Ryder, who is gorgeous,
18:45and the cast is full of other A list attractive celebs such as
18:49Jared Leto, Elisabeth Moss, Angelina Jolie, just to name a few.
18:55The script is filled with poetic lines.
18:57In one popular scene that was reblogged a lot on Tumblr, Susanna says,
19:26It makes this suicidal woman sound like a depressed poet.
19:31She's attractive, she speaks like an insightful poet,
19:34and one of the male nurses in her ward ends up falling in love with her.
19:38I find that one of the common ways films and shows romanticize mental illness
19:43is by adding in a love interest.
19:45For example, another highly popular TV show with mentally ill characters
19:50was American Horror Story.
19:52Tate tells his therapist that he is interested in a girl, Violet,
19:57based off of their first interaction where he catches her harming herself
20:01and then tells her how to harm herself permanently.
20:05Violet, the girl Tate loves,
20:08even commits suicide because he asked her to.
20:11American Horror Story fans called it romantic
20:15and shipped them like no tomorrow.
20:17Preteen Olivia was constantly surrounded by this kind of media
20:22and it made me want to be the mentally complex girl
20:26who attracted love because of my deep insight on life.
20:29I was scared of not being able to relate to sad songs and quotes anymore.
20:34I didn't want to enjoy life and be satisfied with myself
20:38because I believed that would make me stupid, and boring, and blind to harsh reality.
20:44So many great artists I learned about had dark histories of alcoholism, or depression, or abuse,
20:51and all the songs that were considered artistic were created from a negative place.
20:57Bubblegum pop music with lyrics about having fun?
21:00That was considered trashy and shallow.
21:03Only art that touched on the dark sides of life felt truly authentic and intellectual to me.
21:09This is not to discredit the artistry and bravery that goes into creating vulnerable art—
21:14I have so much respect for those people.
21:16But does being sad and mentally ill really make you more creative and deep?
21:22There appears to be many past studies that think so.
21:26For example, in 1995,
21:28a study by Ludwig examined the biographies of 1005 accomplished people in a variety of fields,
21:36including academic, business, artistic, social, activist, military, and athletic fields.
21:42He claimed to find that writers, actors, artists, and musicians
21:46had the most “psychiatric difficulty” but also the highest levels of creativity,
21:52Moreover, in 1994,
21:54a study by Post assessed 291 biographies of accomplished males in a variety of fields as well.
22:02He also found high rates of psychiatric disorders in writers and artists
22:06as well as high rates of depression and alcoholism.
22:10But one big problem connects all these studies:
22:13there is no universal agreed upon understanding of "creativity" nor "mental illness."
22:19In trying to define creativity,
22:21here's just a quick glimpse at how many studies differed in their definitions:
22:27“Becker equated creativity with genius or intellectual giftedness.
22:31Richards suggested that intelligence was necessary but not sufficient for creativity.
22:36Storr defined creativity as a dynamic of normal drives to play.
22:41Independence was mentioned by Andreasen and Glick,
22:44and fluency and flexibility were cited by Jamison as essential to creativity.
22:49Rothenberg defined creativity as the ability to simultaneously conceive opposites or antitheses...
22:56Weisberg stressed that creativity required hard work and collaboration.”
23:00Defining “mental illness” runs into the same problem.
23:04Foucault, a French philosopher and sociologist,
23:07suggested that labeling people as mentally ill
23:10was just a socially constructed category to control people that were deviant from the norm.
23:16Other studies might just use the standard DSM definitions.
23:19Because of a lack of agreed-upon understanding for these extremely fundamental terms,
23:25it's hard to trust whether these supposed associations
23:28that these studies found between mental illness and creativity actually exist.
23:33In fact, more recent studies proposed that the mentally ill seem more drawn to the arts
23:39because they offer methods of expression and catharsis.
23:43It's not that mental illness biologically wires your brain to be more creative.
23:48Art is just an appealing avenue for those who hold such passionate emotions.
23:53Once artists heal from their illness,
23:55studies find that they tend to create and enjoy their art even more.
24:00Any artistic product though, begs an audience.
24:03And sad art from sad people definitely draws a crowd.
24:08Again, something that is sad is often immediately equated with depth.
24:13Young alt girls love to let you know that they listen to Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers.
24:19No hate to these two wonderful musicians,
24:21just sometimes, their fanbase can feel reminiscent of 2014 Tumblr girls.
24:26There are two main psychological theories as to why people enjoy sad music.
24:31The first claims that the motive behind music choice is hedonic,
24:35i.e., shot term decisions about what will maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
24:40Supporters of this hedonic motive theory argue that many study participants
24:45describe sad music as making them feel good,
24:48whether it's pleasure from how depressingly beautiful it sounds,
24:52or how it's lower energy levels feel calming and relaxing.
24:56The second theory says that listening to sad music is motivated by self-verification
25:02i.e., sad music verifies your sense of self.
25:05Self-verification theory says that people prefer having information
25:10that is consistent with the beliefs they have about themselves
25:13because having a solid concept of ourself allows us understand the role we play in the world.
25:21February 9th, 2015
25:23“My piano teacher pretended not to know who I was today cause I tied up my hair
25:28and he said, “are you the best piano student or the worst?”
25:32I wanted to say worst so badly
25:35cause I actually suck really bad.
25:37At the end of the class he was like
25:39“Now remember who you are in case I don't know who you are again!”
25:43But how am I supposed to tell him who I am when I don't know myself?”
25:48We feel stable when we know who we are
25:51and so people are really motivated to maintain self-concepts.
25:56As such, individuals may be motivated to experience emotions
26:00that affirm existing self-concepts they believe in,
26:03regardless of whether those emotions are positive and pleasurable or negative.
26:09For those who struggle with mental health,
26:11they may actively seek negative emotions to maintain their negative self-concept.
26:16For instance, individuals with depression were shown to use sad music
26:20to intensify negative emotions and to focus on negative thoughts and memories.
26:26Even for mentally healthy people,
26:28when they feel down, listening to sad music is
26:32"...an important way to reveal one's true self...
26:35to express emotions consistent with one's current psychological and emotional state."
26:41Even if I don't usually feel sad all the time,
26:44if I feel sad right now,
26:46then listening to sad music makes me feel like I am affirming
26:50the concept I attached to myself in the moment.
26:53And that feels good.
26:55It verifies my identity.
26:57What this paper proposes is that the theories of hedonic motive and self-verifying motive
27:03cannot be generalized.
27:05the motives differ between those with mental illness,
27:08especially those with mood disorders,
27:10and those without.
27:12“...depressed subjects seem to be driven by the need of preserving a stable self-concept,
27:18regardless of any hedonic gain.
27:20Those quality differences in motives
27:23might make the desire for sadness more harmful in depressed than in healthy individuals,
27:28as they may be more persistent…
27:30the hedonic driven consumption of sad media
27:33might occur on an occasional basis [for healthy individuals]...
27:37and does not impact the affective well-being in the long run,
27:41[but] consumption driven by self-verification motives may occur systematically
27:47as sad stimuli might be constantly sought out to stabilize the negative self-schema.”
27:53I feel stuck in a tricky spot
27:56because I don't know what to say about the morals of sad art.
28:00On the one hand, many philosophers and psychologists
28:03talk about how aesthetics and sad art are extremely important.
28:08It may provide catharsis, help you feel less alone,
28:11find beauty in hard times, or express feelings that you never could.
28:16It can provide unique positive emotions that happy or neutral music struggles to,
28:21such as nostalgia or calm.
28:23But is this the case for everyone, or only the mentally healthy?
28:28I remember when I was constantly sad,
28:31I pretty much only listened to sad and angry music
28:35because paradoxically, I wanted to reaffirm the sadness in me.
28:40I was scared of what would happen if I became happier.
28:43There's this one part from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil where he says,
28:48“It almost determines the order of rank how profoundly human beings can suffer…
28:53Profound suffering makes noble; it separates.”
28:57And I truly believed that.
28:59The more I suffered, the more profound I must be.
29:02I don't want to blame artists who release sad content
29:05because there is undeniable value in it
29:08and they don't control how people interpret their art.
29:11But when someone like Preteen Olivia reads lyrics like this,
29:15"You must've made some kind of mistake
29:17I asked for death, but instead, I'm awake
29:20The Devil told me, "No room for cheats"
29:23I thought I'd sold my soul, but he kept the receipt”
29:25It makes suicide and depression sound so poetic.
29:29How could I not feel a sense of beauty attached to it?
29:32Let me know what you think.
29:34Is tragically beautiful art immoral?
29:36Or is it unfair to label art as moral or immoral
29:40if the artist is not responsible for every single person that consumes their art?
29:45Is it only healthy for some people to consume sad art?
29:49I... don't know.
29:58Pain of not having enough pain.
30:01Still pain, young man.
30:03On December 10th, 2017, I wrote my very last diary entry.
30:10“Long time… been a while.
30:12I've had quite a few urges to write over these past months but I never did.
30:17Was it out of fear?
30:19Fear of falling down a deep tunnel where only writing could calm me down?
30:23Or was it denial of how bad I still am?
30:26I think it's a bit of both…
30:28It all started in sixth grade when I moved
30:31and I watched as my friends’ promises of forever friendships crumbled.
30:35H stopped calling me after 2 weeks.
30:38R ended up hella pissed and they dedicated a full page paragraph to me on how shitty I was.
30:44Then there was M, T, A, R, and B.
30:48Thank you so much for ditching me as soon as you got the chance to…
30:53Yeah, I know.
30:55I'm a fucking awful person but we already had that established 3 years ago so…
31:01I've been writing for a long time now.
31:04I was supposed to dance but now I wasted around an hour writing. Great.
31:09Those numbers on the scale will never go down
31:13no matter how much exercise I do.
31:15I'm still trying to accept the fact that I'll always be fat no matter what.
31:20It's never going to change.
31:23I should go now. I think I've spilled enough depressing shit for today.”
31:28Sometimes, I can't help but wonder:
31:30what would my preteen years have been like
31:33if I didn't go out of my way to induce sadness?
31:36If had stayed away from Tumblr communities
31:39that romanticized mental illness
31:41and convinced me that without sadness,
31:44I wasn't interesting.
31:46I may not have been suicidal
31:48and I may not have been clinically depressed, but...
31:51I was sad.
31:52And Tumblr only made me want to stay sad.
31:56Maybe it was unavoidable.
31:58Maybe Tumblr and tragically beautiful art was only fueling what already existed inside me.
32:04In Sapiens, Yuval Harrari said that humans are biologically born with different sets of happiness
32:12and so by nature, some people are more capable of happiness than others.
32:17Person A may be able to feel happiness on a scale of 1 to 10,
32:22while Person B may only be able to feel happiness up to the highest level of 8.
32:28Now, I am the last person to ask about biology or neuroscience or chemistry,
32:34so I have no clue how credible this claim is.
32:38But if it is,
32:39I think it has huge implications for how we approach the desire to be sad.
32:44Being sad is fine, there is value in negative emotion.
32:48I just hope it isn't a state people obsessively pursue and glorify,
32:53the way I once did.
32:55This phenomenon of desiring illness isn't new by any means.
33:00In the 1800s, tuberculosis was widely romanticized.
33:04Tuberculosis had awful symptoms of
33:07coughing up blood, significant weight loss, intense fatigue and eventually death.
33:13But the illness was addressed with an air of “tragic loveliness.”
33:1819th century popular literature depicted tuberculosis as the illness of a beautiful young artist,
33:25who despite their suffering,
33:27continued to engage in painting, music, and other artistic and intellectual activities.
33:33This became known as the aesthetic of the "faded flower"
33:37that so many young girls tried to actually strive for.
33:41Young women began to purposely try to appear frail, thin, and pale.
33:46However, as medical knowledge advanced,
33:49better hygiene, nutrition practices, and medical tools
33:53allowed society to understand what was actually going on
33:57when someone contracted tuberculosis.
33:59Physical illness became understood and so it was demystefied,
34:04There was no mystery surrounding tuberculosis anymore,
34:08and with that curious mystery gone,
34:10its charm was also lost.
34:12Slowly, people stopped romanticizing it.
34:15Today, rarely do people romanticize physical illness the way they do with mental illness
34:21because our knowledge of physical illness is quite comprehensive,
34:25but mental illness has now taken the position of mystery.
34:29There's still a lot we don't understand about the mind
34:32and so it leaves room for people to create their own perceptions and imaginations.
34:37Maybe, as medical knowledge about mental illness evolves,
34:41it too will lose its charm.
34:44I just cut my bangs recently so they look awful in this video.
34:48Um, but...
34:49If you found this video to be okay,
34:51you can like and subscribe if you want.
34:53Leave a comment if you want!
34:55Thank you so much for watching.
34:57Let's keep talking, and I hope to hear from you soon.
35:01Bye!

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