melancholy

I know just posted early this morning, but I'm just going to go ahead & consider that yesterday... you know, since it was before I went to sleep & all. I've been sitting down here in the campus center computer lab checking email & such for a little bit, and I felt the urge to write something somewhere. So I came here.

I've been thinking a lot about melancholy things lately... the word itself, the concept, and things that are themselves considered "melancholy." It sounds a whole lot more depressing than it is, actually - it's just that I've been surrounded lately with melancholy things. So it's only natural. If I were at my apartment, I'd find the program from the Philharmonia concert the other night and copy for you the description of a melancholic composer/composition that it had in it. It was beautiful to read, and I think it's what perpetuated my near-obsessive thoughts on the subject. I remember it talking about the characteristics of a melancholy person, which, as I imagined, were so much more than just "an all-around depressing person & a general downer" or something ridiculous like that. It was something like one who spends time deep in thought & (I know it didn't say it like this, but I can't quite remember...) one who feels deeply the things of this world. I guess that I sometimes think of myself as a melancholy person - which may seem an ironic word for someone who can be as silly as me - in the way that the program described, & I suppose that's why I find it so fascinating. I love to feel deeply, to love deeply, to think deeply, to find joy deeply, even to cry deeply, & to see the beauty in the world through eyes that aren't afraid of pain, but can somehow see the beauty in it. If you know me (& if you're reading this, I assume you do), then you know I'm also a rather joyful person... but I delight in forcing two seemingly opposite things to live in tension with one another, because I think that's part of what it is to be human. So many things that we think are opposites are really not opposite at all, but two halves or two faces (or something) of the same. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Hmm, so I know there was something else I was going to say, but I forgot somewhere in the midst of my tangential ramblings up there. I do that often, I promise you. I figure you might as well get used to it now. :)

OH! I remember - it's nothing fancy. I was only going to mention another, I don't know, quirk (?) of mine. As is evidenced by this random little post of mine, I often get words and/or concepts in my head, and try as I might, I can't easily get rid of them. Sometimes it really is as simple as just getting a word stuck in my head - the same as when you get a song stuck in your head. It's actually kind of funny (in an exasperating sort of way), because it gets to the point where I'll just start saying the word. So if I ever walk up to you & say something out-of-the-blue, like "fragmentation" or "rapidity," it's just because my silly brain has, for the day or so, latched on to that word for one reason or another. As for the concepts, I'll just be kind of distracted by something for a day or two until I finally realize that my mind keeps coming back to the same idea or bunch of ideas. Once I realize there's a pot boiling over on a front burner, I can move it to the back burner & let it simmer until I have chance to work with it... if that makes sense, haha. This is why I love writing so much... paper & ink make for a pretty permanent back burner, but as soon as you have time, the words are right there waiting to be read & mulled over.

So. C'est moi. I like my quirks. And you might as well know them if you're actually going to read my ramblings. :D

i. love. words.