This is a book that celebrates the most neglected but valuable emotion we can feel: melancholy. An insightful and consoling guide to the melancholic state of mind.

Melancholy isn’t depression or anger or bitterness, it’s a serene, accepting, gentle, wise and kindly response to the difficulties and occasional misery of being alive. It steers an ideal mid-way course between despair on the one hand and naive optimism on the other. But melancholy is a well-kept secret. Those who feel the pull of melancholy moods tend to stay quiet about their tastes. We don’t often hear melancholy being celebrated or accorded the respect that it deserves.

Melancholy languishes unexplored in a hyper-competitive, noisy, frantic age. And yet the emotion heartily deserves exploration, it is one that leads to reflection and thoughtfulness. This book carefully collects and interprets a selection of the most universally recognisable melancholy states of mind, and thereby renders us less confused by our precious yet elusive feelings. We hear, among other things, about the melancholy of Sunday evenings and the melancholy of adolescence, the melancholy of high summer and the melancholy of crushes.

This book offers a varied portrait of melancholy and it’s range of emotions, leading the reader to both insight and self compassion.

The School Of Life: is a global organisation helping people lead more fulfilled lives. We believe that the journey to finding fulfilment begins with self-knowledge. It is only when we have a sense of who we really are that we can make reliable decisions, particularly around love and work.

Sadly, tools and techniques for developing self-knowledge and finding fulfilment are hard to find – they’re not taught in schools, in universities, or in workplaces. That’s why we created The School of Life; a resource for helping us understand ourselves, for improving our relationships, our careers and our social lives - as well as for helping us find calm and get more out of our leisure hours.

Varieties Of Melancholy

Similar Varieties Of Melancholy