unreliablewitness, reblogging Mills, wrote:
There is no more truth to be found in joy than there is in unhappiness.
Unreliable witness, whose eloquence I admire here, has brilliantly captured a half-truth. There is truth in unhappiness—or at least there are true things worth being unhappy over. And we get closer to truth when set aside whatever we’re distrating ourselves with and realize how unhappy we are.
But I can’t agree that there is no more truth in joy than there is in unhappiness. Mills started the discussion by talking about depression. Depression is a disease. It is not about unhappy truths—it is about unhappy deceptions and the mind’s incapability to grasp anything other than those deceptions. It is when doubts and fears take on the aspect of inviolable truth. I can’t, I won’t, I’ll never. I’m not worth it. Depression is about the crippling inability to check little fears or doubts that leads to, at best, paralysis and often death.
The truth is that you are worth it. That’s a joyful truth. And we see the poison of depression when it hides that truth from people. Those who are joyful and those who are unhappy can both be wrong. And both can discover true things. But knowing the truth (rather than merely observing or modeling the truth) is a joyful experience.
