Day 41.2: Melancholy is the Password

[sunshowerdandelion]

I think - and this is a bit of a bittersweet revelation - that my beauty is thumped most easily through melancholy. I don't think melancholy is sadness, not really: when I'm actually sad, I feel paralyzed. Rather I think my sort of melancholy is closer to saudade, or something with hints of nostalgia, hints of tenderness, a lot of pity. Something unreachable but tried-for. Nabokov once said: Pity is the password. I think this is similar.

So I think now before I write anything, I should make myself feel a little melancholy. It'll also give me time to come up with actual ideas. I can use my beauty-thumping ways to trigger this melancholic view of everything. When I can appreciate the little quirks of prose and the way light falls in a picture, I'll know I've succeeded.