Over the weekend, my family and I watched the Pixar movie, Inside Out, a story following an eleven-year-old girl named Riley who moves with her parents from Minnesota to San Francisco. This movie emphasized Riley’s full range of emotions which included fear, anger, joy, disgust and sadness. The story made a point of portraying sadness as a positive part of our personality and one necessary for all of us to not only acknowledge, but embrace.
It took me several years to accept sadness as a companion. Our culture insists we look for happiness and stamp out sadness like it is a villain we must destroy. I’ve learned to welcome this glint or tinge of melancholy when I witness my daughter reading a book out loud on the couch, laugh at a silly comment my mother makes over the phone or admire nature’s glory running outdoors. The happiness of participating in these ordinary experiences offers an inexplicable joy, but also the awareness these particular moments will give away to others and will never materialize in the same exact way. The texture of my life appears as a kaleidoscope, the edges of sadness blending into joy. Learning to respect the pull of the pendulum swinging in these diametric opposite directions requires a keen sense of navigation and is a subject repeating itself in many of my words over the last six years.
To live is part joy and sadness, but also colored by an immense amount of gratitude. I am equally grateful for all of my happy moments, as well as my sorrowful ones. To be honest, I am unable to think about one without the other. Separating the two seems unnatural and wrong. This powerful tension keeps me connected to the outside world and directs my focus outward. It always takes my breath away when I am in the throngs of celebrating my own joys, whether it is my daughter’ s birthday party, a dinner at home or watching a movie with my family, while someone else, a friend or stranger, is in the middle of some crisis related to an aging parent, supporting a spouse who is ill or mourning the loss of a job, relationship or a close loved one. This is how the spindle of the world teeters, but it fills me with some discomfort when I fail to acknowledge the sadness, while experiencing my own joy.
The belief of sadness and joy as a pair is one which resonates with me deeply. As I’ve aged, I’ve found attaining a quiet contentment is a more realistic goal for my personality and connecting sorrow and happiness as the same part of the pie is one which rings truest to me. This view fuels my need to sink into ultimate gratitude – welcoming all moments, knowing in an instant, the tilt of these emotions may swing in the exact opposite direction.
I found the New York Times review of Inside Out particularly compelling and A.O. Scott’s closing lines poignant: “Sadness, it turns out, is not Joy’s rival but her partner. Our ability to feel sad is what stirs compassion in others and empathy in ourselves. There is no growth without loss, and no art without longing.”
Yes. One cannot have one without the other and as I bawled through parts of the movie, clenching my daughter’s hand, I found myself nodding my head, sinking into both emotions with equal respect.
Image: Summer’s Requiem by Richard Smith via Flickr
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
well said, Ru. In fact I can find myself swinging on the pendulum between joy and sorrow (ever mild as each fleeting thought may be) many times even on a 20 minute car ride I often make. My daughter Cadence got to see this movie this past weekend and she said “it was good… and sad…in a good way kind of sad”/ Given that it is about moving out to SF also has me interested, naturally.
I am very much looking forward to that movie. There was an excellent interview on Fresh Air with Pete Docter (the director) here – http://www.npr.org/2015/06/10/413273007/its-all-in-your-head-director-pete-docter-gets-emotional-in-inside-out.
Since my sister-in-law died a little over a year ago, I’ve experienced the sadness amid joy with a fair amount of intensity, at weddings, at any happy occasion, really. Sometimes I just look at my kids doing something cute and feel a pang, and a whisper a prayer that I will get to see them grow up.
Greater society does seem to treat emotions somewhat two-dimensionally, but I agree that it’s healthier to acknowledge that they all live together. I’m so glad to see Disney give the gift of this acknowledgment to children. And to us, of course, as well.
What a wonderful review. I took my oldest to see it today, and I know that Bryan will really love the message so I will send the girls to see it with him. Thanks for pointing out the NYT review as well which I had not read. That quote was perfect and now I’m clicking over there.
I believe we should be allowed to feel the full depth of our emotions. Just as the light cannot exist without the dark, joy does not exist without its times of sorrow. I try to stay on the positive side of life, however, I don’t deny myself emotions as it is who I am and of which I am made. I ride through my sorrow rather than wallowing in it, and that alone makes all the difference for me.
I absolutely loved this movie, Rudri, and was moved to tears at the end, which surprised me but also made complete sense. The concept of bittersweet, the word itself, seems to lean toward sadness, and to some people is probably not an emotion they’d choose over, say, simple joy, but like you I find myself gravitating to that more and more. I almost can’t separate the two, as you so eloquently state. The kaleidoscope blends and bleeds together.
Lovely post and sentiments, Rudri.
We got so much “take away” from the movie, too. Embracing sadness is sometimes not possible, but at least being able to sit with it from time to time can do worlds of good.
I really, really can’t wait to see it. My family saw it over the weekend but I had to work. I know it will sit with me.
I love the way you describe joy and her partner, sadness. It’s not a villain, no. I also get happy and sad during moments – happy of their existence, and sadness that they will never be the same.
Ah, my old friend, perspective. How can you be happy if you have not know sorrow?
Thanks for this, Rudri. I absolutely agree that we become more compassionate, and feel more connected to others when we allow ourselves to feel pain and sorrow. There is no such thing as a completely happy or blissful life. That would be a very incomplete and sad life. Now off to the theaters! Gotta watch this film that so many are raving about! ;-))
A wonderful review Rudri. Daniel and I loved the movie. Yes, sadness is joy’s partner.
What a beautiful and insightful post. I can’t wait to see this movie, but I’m afraid of the “feels.” I struggle with depression, so sorrow is often my companion. I often try to avoid situations that trigger me. However, I completely agree that experiencing sorrow leads to compassion. Remembering how I felt in a situation, and how that experience affected my life and myself as a person helps me to be more empathetic. That NYT quote was wonderful. Thank you for sharing it.
Hi Rudri! I’m sorry to have been out of touch for so long. I’ve been meaning to comment on this post for some time now because it resonated so much with me, as did the movie (which I saw the same weekend you did ;-)).
That sadness is joy’s partner (I love the quote from the NYT that you included here) was my big aha moment and take-away from the movie. I’ve been very conscious of my embrace of sadness throughout life, but it’s something I’ve been ashamed of…even while watching this movie I was both embarrassed and amused to see myself in the blue Sadness character, and I kept telling myself I needed to be more like Joy. But it blew my mind, to have it affirmed that sadness is necessary, and a prerequisite to compassion and empathy and thus connection to others.
It was a lovely movie. Thanks for writing this post!